6-Year-Old Hit, Killed Walking to D.C. School

After 6-year-old J'lin Tyler scurried out his front door to walk to the school bus stop yesterday morning, he turned around and dashed back inside his Northeast Washington house.

" 'Grandma, I forgot to kiss you goodbye,' " he said as he planted a plump kiss on Lorraine Tyler's cheek, she said.

Ten minutes later, one of her young sons appeared at the front door, breathless, saying J'lin had been killed, run over by a Jeep Cherokee while he was in a crosswalk.

The Cherokee, driven by Beverly Ellis, 54, of Takoma Park, hit the boy about 8 a.m. at Sargent Road and Emerson Street NE, police said. As of yesterday, the investigation was continuing, and Ellis had not been charged in the accident. She was taken to a hospital for treatment for emotional distress and a condition unrelated to the accident, authorities said.

The accident happened as J'lin walked with his twin 8-year-old uncles, Ricardo and Rinardo Perry, and some friends from the neighborhood to the bus stop for a ride to Bunker Hill Elementary, where J'lin was in first grade.

The twins, who are Tyler's sons, said J'lin was in the middle of the crosswalk when he was hit. He was walking a few steps ahead of them, as he always liked to do, they said.

"I heard the sound where he was hit," Ricardo said yesterday. "The lady knocked his shoes off and his hat off."

As J'lin lay on the ground, he muttered the name "Rinardo," his uncles said. He died a short time later at Children's Hospital.

His family remembered him as a cheerful boy who liked to wrestle and enjoyed watching a cooking channel so much that he could recite the chefs' names. He was looking forward to a pizza party at school yesterday.

Tyler, 58, said Rinardo feels responsible for what happened. "He wants to take the blame," she said. "He said if he had been holding J'lin's hand, it wouldn't have happened."

She emphasized to Rinardo that the accident was not his fault and told him that he would continue seeing a grief counselor, whom he has been meeting with since two close relatives recently succumbed to diseases.

J'lin lived with his uncles, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and other family members in a house in the 1200 block of Emerson.