Teacher killed in crash after man fled in car from ICE, police say

A public schoolteacher was killed Monday when a man fleeing immigration agents in Savannah, Georgia, crashed a car into the teacher’s vehicle, according to local police.

Shortly before 7:45 a.m., agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were trying to pull over the man, Oscar Vasquez Lopez, 38, according to the Chatham County Police Department.

Originally from Guatemala, Lopez was issued a final order of removal by a federal judge in 2024, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Officers were trying to apprehend him in Savannah when he “fled the scene, making a reckless U-turn and running a red light, colliding into a civilian vehicle,” according to a statement by the agency.

The crash occurred outside a public school, Herman W. Hesse K-8 School, which serves about 1,000 students, police said. There were no classes Monday because of the Presidents Day holiday, but it was a planning day for teachers, according to the school’s website.

Police said the teacher, Linda Davis, was the only occupant in her vehicle. Davis was a special-education teacher at the school, according to local education officials. Davis was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

In a statement posted to Facebook, the school principal, Alonna McMullen, said Davis “was a beloved member of our school family and her loss has affected us deeply.” Davis had worked as a teacher in the district since 2022.

Lopez was also transported to the hospital, where he was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to police. There were no passengers in his vehicle.

The Chatham County Police Department said it was not involved with the ICE operation, nor had it been aware of it beforehand. Police arrested Lopez and charged him with first-degree homicide, reckless driving, driving without a valid license and failure to obey a traffic control device, according to Betsy Nolen, a spokesperson for the police department.

Department of Homeland Security officials said that Lopez had entered the United States illegally at an unknown date and location. A department spokesperson pointed fingers at politicians and media whom she said have demonized ICE and encouraged resistance of agents.

“Fleeing from and resisting federal law enforcement is not only a crime but extraordinarily dangerous and puts oneself, our officers and innocent civilians at risk,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. “Now, an innocent bystander has lost their life.”

Anne Allen Westbrook, a Democrat who represents Chatham County in the Georgia House of Representatives, said the crash had occurred in an area that many families drive through daily, including her own.

“The scale and magnitude of ICE’s dragnet is costing us too much,” she wrote in a post on Facebook.

The episode is not the first in which an ICE pursuit has resulted in a crash or death. Last year, a man was killed in Southern California while fleeing an immigration raid at a Home Depot. Another died in Virginia after running onto a highway to try to escape ICE agents.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.