Thank you for your recent article about Annie Ruth Lyles and the accident that almost took her life. There are, however, a few points that I would like to address and also update everyone on how Annie Ruth is doing.

Annie Ruth was in the hospital in Winnsboro at the time of your article, not at home. She had to be rushed back to Richland again earlier last week due to an infection, but she is back at home at this time. This was her second set-back since being released from the hospital. Annie Ruth has an amazing spirit though and she is making progress. We would like to thank everyone for all of the prayers and well wishes on her behalf. Certainly without the prayers and the grace of God, she would not be doing as well as she is.

There are a couple of points that I would like to clarify from the article however. Annie Ruth was not walking in the pedestrian crosswalk, but neither does anyone else in Winnsboro. I defy you to drive down Congress Street any day of the week and not see someone walking across the street, not in a pedestrian crosswalk. Mr. Lorick told me that most towns in South Carolina have laws against jaywalking. I asked him how often his officers cited someone for the offense and he admitted that they did not. What Mr. Lorick neglected to tell me was that Winnsboro doesn’t have an ordinance against jaywalking. Which begs the question of why Mr. Lorick so adamantly claims that his department didn’t charge Annie Ruth with jaywalking if it is something that no one is ever charged with anyway? I believe that it is being used as a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that Mr. Johnson was charged with nothing.

Mr. Lorick wants to put responsibility on both parties citing jaywalking as Annie Ruth’s offense and speeding as Mr. Johnson’s. How is it possible to compare the two?

People are cited for speeding every day in Winnsboro. Why not Mr. Johnson? By Mr. Lorick’s own admission, his officers don’t cite pedestrians for jaywalking because they can’t, it isn’t against the law in Winnsboro, yet he tells me that if he writes a ticket to Mr. Johnson for speeding, he would have to write a ticket to Annie Ruth for jaywalking. How do you charge someone with something that isn’t against the law? Jaywalking isn’t. Speeding is. Just ask any of the folks who have been cited lately for speeding on Congress Street The undeniable fact of the matter is that if Mr. Johnson had not been speeding, Annie Ruth would have had more than adequate time to get out of the way of his vehicle. She was no more than two steps from being out of the lane of traffic when she was hit. Without question, if speed had not been a factor, there would not have been an accident at all.

Secondly, Mr. Johnson claims not to have seen Annie Ruth until he was about 5 feet away from her. She had crossed three lanes of traffic and was almost out of the fourth lane when he hit her. If he saw the grandchild, as your article states, how did he manage not to see Annie Ruth since she was only a few steps behind that child?

Mr. Johnson didn’t receive even a slap on the wrist. He walked away from this incident with no charges. Meaning that most probably the incident will not even show on his driving record since he wasn’t charged.

Mr. Johnson’s only concern was in getting his truck repaired. Not once, since the accident has our family had any communication from Mr. Johnson to inquire about Annie Ruth’s condition or express regret over the accident. We did, however, hear from the insurance agent regarding getting Mr. Johnson’s truck repaired. You cannot begin to imagine the degree of callousness and utter thoughtlessness that this family has had to deal with. Annie Ruth has been fighting for her life and Mr. Johnson’s only concern was in getting his truck repaired. Not one word of concern or regret over the accident. As a matter of fact, we were told of many things that Mr. Johnson had to say about the accident and none if it expressed concern for Annie Ruth or remorse for what happened. Far from it.

At one point in your article you quoted Mr. Lorick as saying that Mr. Johnson didn’t receive a ticket for speeding because his speed was an estimate and not an exact speed. Then later in the article it is noted that the M.A.I.T. team determined that the speed of the truck was between 30 and 36 mph, obviously over the 25 mph limit on Congress St. Mr. Lorick acknowledged to both Woody and to me that he knew Mr. Johnson was speeding. Now Mr. Lorick is saying that “we did what we thought was proper,” in your article.

I submit to you and to every reader that it is not proper that someone’s life be so damaged, so utterly altered, that all hope of complete recovery is lost and that the other person walk away with no repercussions whatsoever. Annie Ruth will never be the same healthy, vibrant woman she was. She will live with health issues for the rest of her life because of this accident, not to mention the fact that she and Woody will probably never recover financially from medical costs that have been incurred as a direct result of this accident.

The good news is that Mr. Johnson did get his truck fixed.

Finally, I dislike having to say this, but it is something that I feel strongly has to be said out loud. It is my firm belief that racial bias was a determining factor in the way that this situation turned out. I contend that if the entire scenario was the same and the skin color was reversed it would have ended much differently. One of the police officers even told Woody that Mr. Johnson was “a fine upstanding citizen and that they had no desire to put a 72-year-old man in jail.”

Annie Ruth is a fine, upstanding citizen as well, but there seems to be no problem with her being injured so badly and her life altered so severely that any hope of complete recovery is gone.

I asked Mr. Lorick what the outcome would have been if Annie Ruth had been killed. He looked me in the eye and said it would have been the same.

The same? How is that possible?

There is no justice in this situation, none at all. Your police chief has chosen to defend the man who almost killed my sister-in-law by citing an ordinance against jaywalking as her offense when, in fact, Winnsboro has no law against jaywalking. How can someone be held at fault when they were doing nothing wrong?

Surely Mr. Lorick knows that Winnsboro doesn’t have an ordinance against jaywalking or was he just trying to mislead our family? Was your police chief ignorant of the law in his own town or was he just arrogant enough to think that our family would be ignorant of the law? What purpose would it serve to intentionally mislead us?

I think that the truth is that Mr. Lorick chose not to cite Mr. Johnson for being at fault in this accident because of racial bias.

Why don’t I let it go and just forget about it? you’re probably wondering. Ask yourself if you would.

I know that what has happened is both intellectually and morally wrong and I can’t be quiet about it. I believe personally that when something is wrong and nothing is done to correct it the problem only gets worse. This particular time it happens to be personal in the sense that I’ve been through it first hand. I refuse to be part of the problem by ignoring it. So many people have come to us and told us things, but when we ask for their help, they tell us that they don’t want to get involved.

Guess what, we didn’t want to either.

Our family’s biggest fear is that it will happen again and that another family will have to endure what we have or worse. Sadly, there seems to be no one we can turn to and nothing that our family can do about it except speak up and let anyone who will listen know that something is terribly wrong in Winnsboro, S.C.



Barbara A. Lyles

Great Falls