Mendocino County Sherriff’s office has confirmed that five members of a Washington family are dead and three are missing after their SUV flew off the Pacific coastline highway in California. One of the three that’s missing was in a iconic photo during the Ferguson protests.
The Washington Post reports that five victims are confirmed dead, two adults and three children. Rescue teams are still searching for three more children as police believe there were a total of six children in the SUV. One of the three that’s missing is Devonte Hart who became famous after his iconic photo in 2014. He was photographed crying in the arms of a white police officer in Portland Oregon during the Michael Brown shooting protests. The Hart family wanted to spread love and kindness after the protests turned to riots once Officer Darren Wilson was not charged for Brown’s death. Johnny Nguyen, the photographer who captured the moment, told the Huffington Post that his photo got more than 400,000 likes on Facebook and was reposted more than 68,00 times on Tumblr.
The terrible accident ahs been considered suspicious. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said during a news conference yesterday that there are a lot of “unknowns”:
“There were no skid marks. There were no brake marks. There was no indication of why this vehicle traversed approximately over 75 feet off a dirt pullout and went into the Pacific Ocean.”
The 2003 GMC fell 100 feet and landed on top of jagged rocks off the coast. Unlike the adults, the three children that were found dead were outside the car indicating they were not wearing seatbelts.