Celeste Tinajero says that her mother and sister, Diamond and Clarissa Roman, were handing out donations to homeless residents Monday night when David Turner hit them with his car.
“(A) woman was looking through a bag of clothes, and my sister and my mom went over to help her, and it was in that moment, split second, that someone drove into them and hit them and hurt them pretty badly,” she told 2 News on Wednesday.
Diamond was discharged from the hospital Wednesday, but Clarissa is still in the intensive care unit with critical injuries.
According to Reno Police, the driver, Turner, told officers that he hit the three women on purpose. He is charged with murder and attempted murder, and he is being held without bail.
The woman who they were assisting was Michelle Jardine. According to the Washoe County Medical Examiner, she died in the crash. She was a 55-year-old homeless resident.
Clarissa says her family has never seen an act of violence like this one.
“My family has been volunteering with Food Not Bombs and doing feeds like this for years now, over ten years,” she said. “And so it’s unbelievable that something like this would happen that this is something that we would have to worry about.”
She said that her mother, Diamond Roman, owns a local salon, and likes to host holiday donation drives. Her sister, Clarissa Roman, recently graduated UNR with a bachelor’s in social work, and she volunteers with the Trauma Intervention Programs of Northern Nevada.
Clarissa says that this won’t stop the family from giving back to the community in the future.
“At the end of the day, it’s not going to stop Food Not Bombs. It’s not going to stop our effort in the community,” she said.
The Roman family has started a GoFundMe page to help cover medical bills and burial expenses for Michelle Jardine. They say that any excess donations will be given back to local charitable causes.
You can access the GoFundMe page through this link.
