MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Malcolm Antonio Lumpkin was 19 years old when he drove more than 50 mph over the speed limit down Northwest 37th Avenue in Miami Gardens in 2020 and hit a woman head-on as she tried to make a left turn, police said.
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Nearly five years later, Lumpkin, now 24, is facing a charge of reckless vehicular homicide. And it’s not the first time he’s been accused of killing someone out of negligence.
According to an arrest warrant from the Miami Gardens Police Department, the deadly wreck happened at around 7:45 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2020. Police issued the warrant this March.
In the warrant, police said 49-year-old Renee Symonette was trying to make a left turn on Northwest 179th Street when she turned in front of Lumpkin, who was “driving at an extremely high rate of speed and changing lanes erratically” after having just blown a red light at Northwest 183rd Street and nearly striking two vehicles.
Lumpkin, in a 2016 Nissan Maxima, hit Symonette’s 2014 Mercedes-Benz C-Class head-on, killing Symonette and injuring her passenger.
Lumpkin’s vehicle spun out, hit a chain link fence and burst into flames. He and his passenger exited the vehicle.
Police said the vehicle data recorder showed Lumpkin was driving 91 mph one second before impact and hit Symonette at 89 mph, having only hit the brake about a half second before impact. The speed limit on that stretch of road is 35 mph, authorities said.
About five years before the 2020 crash, officers with what was then the Miami-Dade Police Department arrested a then-14-year-old Lumpkin on a manslaughter charge after they said he shot and killed Jakyri Fleurimar, 15, of Hollywood, at a home in the 5300 block of Northwest 27th Place on Aug. 12, 2015.
It wasn’t immediately clear Tuesday what became of that juvenile case.
Fast-forwarding to Monday, authorities said a Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Robbery Intervention Detail detective spotted Lumpkin driving another Nissan Maxima ― this time a 2019 ― with an illegal tag cover and pulled him over at Northwest 27th Avenue and 165th Street in Miami Gardens.
Authorities said he drove off as the detective got out of his or her car. Deputies followed him without their lights and sirens on until he crashed at Northwest 167th Street and 22nd Avenue.
They said they took Lumpkin, of northwest Miami-Dade, into custody after a brief foot pursuit.
As of Tuesday, Lumpkin, also facing charges of fleeing and eluding and resisting an officer without violence, was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a bond of more than $250,000.