Chatham County teacher killed in crash by suspect fleeing ICE

A Chatham County elementary school teacher en route to work early Monday was killed after a man trying to flee federal immigration agents rammed her vehicle on Whitefield Avenue near the Truman Parkway, according to county police. Linda Davis, a longtime teacher at Herman W. Hesse K-8 School was pulled from her crushed Lexus sedan […]

A Chatham County elementary school teacher en route to work early Monday was killed after a man trying to flee federal immigration agents rammed her vehicle on Whitefield Avenue near the Truman Parkway, according to county police.

Linda Davis, a longtime teacher at Herman W. Hesse K-8 School was pulled from her crushed Lexus sedan by emergency personnel but later pronounced dead at the hospital. The driver who allegedly hit her, 38-year-old Oscar Vasquez-Lopez, was arrested by Chatham County Police and charged with homicide and reckless driving, police said.

The fatal collision occurred around 7:20 a.m. less than a half mile from Hesse after agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tried to pull over the vehicle driven by Vasquez-Lopez, according to police and eyewitnesses.

Although Monday was a school holiday, Davis was due to attend teacher training that morning at the elementary school that serves a large number of Spanish-speaking children. Vasquez-Lopez appears to have driven through the red light on Whitefield on the east side of the Truman at such speed that the front and side of Davis’ vehicle was crushed, witnesses told The Current GA.

Around 7:30 a.m., before emergency workers arrived at the scene, two masked immigration agents dressed in tactical gear detained one person and ushered him to one of their two vehicles parked along Whitefield Avenue, according to two eyewitnesses. It is unclear if that person was Vasquez-Lopez or someone else.

It is unclear whether federal agents offered any emergency assistance to the special needs teacher. Three eyewitnesses told The Current that they did not see anyone attending the mangled black Lexus before Chatham emergency services arrived at 7:45 a.m. and pried Davis from her vehicle.

Chatham County police said that they had not been aware of any planned immigration enforcement operations on Monday and were not involved in any when the collision occurred.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, issued a statement late Monday afternoon calling Vasquez-Lopez a “criminal illegal alien” from Guatemala who had been issued a removal order from a federal judge in 2024.

The statement by DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that Vasquez-Lopez fled an attempt by ICE agents to stop his vehicle. His “reckless U-turn” and resulting crash was “an absolute tragedy and deadly consequence of politicians and the media constantly demonizing ICE officers,” McLaughlin said.

It was unclear how many DHS agencies or departments were operating in Chatham County on Monday. A photo obtained by The Current shows one of the federal officers present at the scene wore a bullet-proof vest with the acronym HSI, which stands for Homeland Security Investigations and operates under ICE.

ICE and DHI are part of DHS, and both that agency as well as other divisions of the sprawling department, including the U.S. Border Patrol, have participated in immigration enforcement operations across the nation.

The DHS statement did not say whether immigration agents were in active pursuit of Vasquez-Lopez’s vehicle when he allegedly collided with the sedan driven by Davis. The two unmarked SUVs parked a few yards away from the crash scene used by the federal agents to detain a person Monday morning did not appear to be damaged in the incident, according to the two witnesses.

Chatham police statement confirmed that Vasquez-Lopez had been sent to the hospital after the crash but had sustained no serious injuries. His citizenship and immigration statuses were not included in his booking record at the Chatham County jail. As of Monday evening Vasquez-Lopez had no legal representation.

‘Beloved’

Word of Davis’ death reverberated across Savannah as well as the school system.

Hesse K-8 Principal Alonna McMullen who went to the hospital early Monday called Davis a “beloved” member of the school. She told staff and parents that the school would help with counseling for whomever needed it to deal with the grief and loss.

“We will try to maintain as normal a routine and structure as the situation allows, and we encourage you to do the same,” McMullen wrote in a statement. “If you feel that your child or family needs some assistance, please contact us, and we will do everything we can to help you.”

The statement did not indicate whether counseling would be available in Spanish as well as English. A large number of Hesse’s students are bilingual whose parents only speak Spanish.

Teachers at Hesse say that they have seen a noticeable drop in attendance by such students since the start of the year, and such students have expressed concern and worry about their parents being apprehended and transported to an unknown destination by ICE agents.

Daniela Rodriquez, the executive director of Migrant Equity Southeast, said that her organization has been urging the school district to help calm anxious parents afraid of ICE operating around their children’s schools. “What happened today is a tragedy for many,” she said. “ICE operating minutes from a school? It is the worst fears for some parents and students come true.”

Several Hesse teachers who arrived early at Hesse for the training day watched emergency crews clean the crash site where their colleague had been killed. Hesse plans to hold a regular school day on Tuesday.

This article first appeared on The Current and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.