BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — From drag racing to donuts, and now a deadly shooting, Birmingham Police said exhibition driving is what led to an incident that left one woman dead and four others hurt.
Prosecutors have charged Ronald White, 23, with the weekend murder of 19-year-old Ja’Kia Winston.
Winston was killed early Sunday morning in a parking lot on 2nd Avenue North. After an investigation, police said several people were in that lot performing “exhibition driving.” They say two cars collided, then shots rang out. Two other women and two men were also hurt.
Now, the city is calling on state lawmakers to create tougher laws to end exhibition driving. Right now, the maximum penalty is a ticket for reckless driving.
“This is definitely not the conversation I want to be having,” Birmingham City Councilor Darrell O’Quinn said.
O’Quinn oversees District 5. He calls this weekend’s violence both tragic and unfortunate.
“If we could use that video evidence for that purpose that would be fantastic,” O’Quinn said.
He said right now Birmingham Police cannot use video on social media to make an arrest.
“Allowing the video to be utilized as an enforcement tool I think would be particularly effective because in many instances the people who are doing it are doing it because they want to be seen,” O’Quinn said.
Mayor Randall Woodfin released a statement Sunday saying exhibition driving is out of control and will not be tolerated.
Lili Trujillo Puckett lost her daughter in 2014 to the crime and is now a national advocate for safe and responsible mentoring diversion. She launched a nonprofit called “Street Racing Kills.”
“It could be maybe a fun night, or it could be maybe a night that you just don’t get out of alive,” Trujillo Puckett said. “When you find out as a parent or just as a family member how it happened, why it happened, you are blown away because it is something that is 100 percent preventable, and it shouldn’t have happened.”
City leaders are calling state legislature to help give them the tools to create tougher fines to impound vehicles, have a license suspended if you are caught exhibition driving, and rewards to people who provide video evidence to police.
Trujillo Puckett said she has seen this work across the country.
O’Quinn said he understands that the city asked for tougher legislation during the 2022 legislative session, but the chair of the Jefferson County Delegation would not allow it for discussion.
O’Quinn suggests temporary traffic calming measures to make streets “less attractive” to that type of activity like temporary speed cushions on Friday afternoon and picking them up Sunday night. It’s something he said city center residents would see positively as a step in the right direction. He said it is also important to have more police present, which will come with being a more competitive employer.