A hit-and-run that killed an Oakland man next to Lake Merritt led to further anguish, as his neurodivergent son and wife were left to fend for themselves for two weeks with a limited supply of food. 

That’s according to Karen McElroy, the niece of Eugene Lynch, the 81-year old Oakland hills resident who was run over by a speeding driver on October 3 as he walked in a crosswalk near Lake Merritt. 

In the days after the collision, the Oakland Police Department provided a few details about what took place. Just before 6 a.m. that day, the department said, a man carrying a bag of plastic bottles was hit while walking on the crosswalk on the corner of 17th Street and Lakeside Drive when a driver traveling downhill “at a high rate of speed,” struck him and threw him into the air. OPD told us the suspect fled the scene in a white Nissan. OPD and the coroner’s office said the victim’s name was being withheld. Authorities usually withhold the names of victims until they are able to notify next of kin. 

McElroy told us that Lynch, despite getting up in age, was a dynamic person who was the main caretaker for his wife and son. He did everything for them, from shopping and cooking to helping them with personal hygiene. His wife, she told us, has dementia and his son has autism.

A former baker at Safeway, who worked for the company for about 40 years, Lynch was known as a kind and considerate man who stayed informed by reading the news and volunteered for the  God’s Resting Place food bank, his niece said. He was gathering plastic bottles around the lake to donate to the food bank when he was hit and killed. 

“He was very much into the community, was a Christian, a praying man who demonstrated good morals,” she said. She said he was smart about financial planning and didn’t spend money on “flashy things,” instead opting to help people. 

Linda Jackson, Lynch’s sister-in-law, told us that he loved to travel and he had gone with his family all over the world, including to the Serengeti in Tanzania, the Taj Mahal in India, and the Galapagos Islands.

Residents left flowers near the crosswalk where Eugene Lynch was killed on Lakeside Drive. Credit: Jose Fermoso/The Oaklandside

Neighbors also placed this sign on the pole near the crosswalk, seeking “compassion and respect.” Credit: Jose Fermoso/The Oaklandside

According to McElroy and Jackson, Lynch’s wife and son didn’t know he’d been killed until October 17, when their food supply was running low. That’s when Lynch’s son — who lives by himself in a separate house near his parents, but had lunch and dinner with them every day — called the family to ask where his father was. Quickly, several family members stopped by, where, McElroy said, they found a situation that was “even sadder.” 

“They went two weeks without him, their source of survival, and were not mentally capable of knowing there was a problem,” she said. 

Jackson told us that it looked like Lynch’s family had been living on yoghurt and peanut butter crackers. “My sister was off her medication for two weeks,” Jackson said.

Family members reached out to hospitals in the area, McElroy said, and eventually to the police and the county morgue. Jackson told us that a thoughtful coroner’s deputy at the morgue informed her that Lynch’s remains were there and that they had tried to contact the family twice at the primary home, knocking and leaving a card at the front door. Jackson said the coroner’s office told them that Lynch had identification on him when he was hit, including his driver’s license and his Kaiser Permanente insurance card.

McElroy and Jackson told us they didn’t know whether there were other attempts to contact the family or what efforts were made to identify his survivors. 

The Oaklandside has reached out to the coroner’s office and OPD to ask what efforts each department made to identify and contact members of Lynch’s immediate or extended family during the two weeks after he was killed. Neither office immediately responded. 

“If they would have contacted Kaiser, they would have seen that Eugene’s wife was on that policy,” Jackson told us. She said recently both OPD and the coroner’s office provided direct lines so the family can get in touch if they need further help.

Driver in hit-and-run turns himself in

On Nov. 5, the police department provided the name of the person who ran over Lynch on Lakeside Drive. They said it was a 22-year-old Abdullah Mohamed, who, weeks after the collision, turned himself in last week. The OPD said Mohamed’s case “has been turned over to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for possible charging.” The DA’s office has not responded to queries asking for updates on the case. 

Jackson told us that she will be paying attention to what happens with Mohamed’s case and would like to see charges filed, since he drove off after hitting Lynch instead of helping him. 

“He’s old enough to do wrong and is old enough to do right,” she said. 

Traffic safety advocates Traffic Violence Rapid Response issued a statement to The Oaklandside last week saying they were “saddened and outraged that yet another life has been tragically taken due to traffic violence.” Bike advocate Robert Prinz, from Bike East Bay, told us in the days after the tragedy that Oakland had created designs to narrow Lakeside Drive to make it easier for pedestrians to cross and to force speeding drivers to slow down, but those upgrades had been postponed. 

Traffic Violence Rapid Response issued a statement asking the Oakland Department of Transportation to implement some quick solutions at the intersection where Lynch was killed, on Lakeside Drive and 17th Street. They asked for the crossing distance to be reduced with bulbouts or islands and to “reduce Lakeside Dr. to one travel lane, and reduce contracting delays to get safety in the ground sooner.”

“We call on the Oakland Fire Department to work collaboratively with OakDOT to convert Lakeside to a one-lane road without sacrificing fire safety” by being flexible with the 26-foot clearance requirement, they wrote. California fire code requires roads in California to be a minimum of 20 feet wide, curb to curb, to provide an unobstructed travel lane in case of emergency. If buildings along a roadway are taller than 30 feet, where the department would need to use ladders, platforms or other aerial apparatus to respond to a fire, the requirement is 26 feet.

A funeral for Eugene Lynch will be held at the Rolling Hills Memorial Park cemetery in Richmond next Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 11 a.m. McElroy and Jackson told The Oaklandside that members of the public who have suffered similar losses are invited to attend. 

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