Students in Savannah grieve teacher killed in crash with driver pursued by ICE

Students mourn teacher killed after crash tied to ICE pursuit

Students in Linda Davis’ kindergarten and first-grade classes in Savannah, Georgia, were still grieving Thursday after the teacher was killed Monday during her morning commute, less than a half mile from the school where she worked with special-needs students, according to local and federal authorities.

Davis, 52, had been killed when a pickup truck crashed into her car as the driver was fleeing a traffic stop by immigration officers, authorities said. Video from outside the school showed a red pickup speeding past the campus, followed several seconds later by two law enforcement vehicles with flashing lights.

McMullen, the principal of Herman W. Hesse K-8 School in Savannah’s southside suburbs, described the impact on children learning at her campus. “It was extremely difficult to tell 5 and 6 year olds that the teacher they loved and cherished will not be returning to see them,” she said. “To see the looks on their faces, it broke my heart.”

Teachers at Hesse worked Thursday to create a normal routine, while grief remained fresh in the building, McMullen said. On the drives to and from school, many people passing the crash site left flowers and a cross made from red roses in the median, along with a paper sign that read: “Rest In Peace & Power, Dr. Davis.”

In Davis’ two special education classes, students drew pictures of her as a way to process the news, and faculty created banners for a home basketball game planned for Thursday, according to the report. The school community has also been marking Davis’ absence since she began teaching there in September after the school year had started.

Authorities identified the driver as Oscar Vasquez Lopez, 38. Police said he suffered minor injuries and that he was jailed on charges including vehicular homicide and driving without a valid license. Federal immigration officials said Lopez was pulled over to enforce an immigration judge’s 2024 deportation order, and that Lopez drove away as officers approached his vehicle.

A U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement spokesperson, Lindsay Williams, said the fleeing driver had no criminal history but was in the U.S. illegally. ICE said in a news release that Lopez crashed into Davis’ car after making a U-turn and running a stop light.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and Chester Ellis, chairman of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners, questioned whether the pursuit that ended in Davis’ death was necessary. The scrutiny comes amid heightened attention on immigration-enforcement tactics during the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration, the report said, including after immigration officers shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Don Plummer, a spokesman for the Georgia Public Defender Council, said Lopez is presumed innocent and that the court process will determine the outcome. “He is presumed innocent, and the court process will determine the outcome,” Plummer said.

Outside of work, Davis was raising four children and was guardian to a fifth, according to her sister, Felicia Jackson. Jackson wrote in a social media post that the “preventable, sudden, and violent loss” had created “a vacuum of compounded grief so vast it feels as though it fills the Mariana Trench,” describing Davis as “fully alive, engaged, and loving.”