Sharmell Mitchell, 48, of Vallejo, California, died on July 16, 2024, after a violent incident that ended in a multi-vehicle crash. Mitchell was a passenger in a white Isuzu Trooper that witnesses said was being fired upon by occupants of a black car. The Trooper collided with two other vehicles at Tennessee Street and Vervais Avenue; Mitchell was ejected and suffered a severe head injury. First responders initially mistook that injury for a gunshot wound. She was taken off life support and died the same day.

Bullet casings were found several blocks from the crash site. Vallejo police say the driver of the white SUV had clipped another car, whose occupants then chased and shot at the SUV before the crash. Vallejo officers arrested 46-year-old Jacoby Etter of Rancho Cordova on suspicion of murder; he was booked into Solano County jail. The vehicle that police say fired on the Trooper fled the scene and remained the subject of the investigation.

Mitchell had been a public advocate for her younger brother, Willie McCoy, who was shot and killed by Vallejo officers in 2019; the McCoy family had recently settled a civil rights lawsuit against the city for $5 million. Does anyone have information about the shooting or about the vehicle that fled the scene?