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'She was just the life of the party': Anger, sadness as loved ones remember Jacksonville mother killed in hit-and-run crash

Mourners shed tears, vented their anger after a 40-year-old mother of two was hit by a driver who witnesses say was speeding and fled the scene.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Friends and family gathered outside Lavilla Sportsman’s Bar on New Kings Road in Jacksonville Monday evening to honor the life of Shekeida Sherman. The Jacksonville native was killed by a hit-and-run driver while trying to cross the road near the bar during the wee hours of Sunday morning.

“This is a pedestrian hotspot,” Ben Frazier of community activist group the Jacksonville Northside Coalition pointed out to First Coast News Monday afternoon.

While it wasn’t clear whether the 40-year-old Sherman was heading to the bar, Lavilla, which sits on the north side of New Kings Road and was reportedly closed by that time, the establishment’s owner said she’s seen too much danger since taking over Lavilla in 2017.

“We’ve just had a lot of issues with people crossing the road,” Candice Kassab told First Coast News. “It’s happened about three or four times, where someone gets hit.”

Kassab explained that her parking lot fills on busy nights, and later-arriving patrons often park on the south side of the highway, which at that point is five lanes wide including a turning lane. It’s also part of a roughly two-mile stretch of road where five pedestrians were killed during a 30-day stretch in 2016.

RELATED: Woman killed in hit-and-run crash in Northwest Jacksonville

“It gets filled pretty fast,” Kassab said of Lavilla, “especially on a Saturday night, so people are having to park on the side of the road.”

The mood at Monday’s vigil was a painful blend of sadness and anger. Sherman’s daughter, a senior at Terry Parker High School in Jacksonville, shed tears talking about her mother.

“She was very outgoing and she loved people,” Alexandria Sherman reminisced. “She was just the life of the party, of every party.”

Alexandria Sherman lamented that her 4-year-old brother would spend the rest of his life without his mother.

“His Mom isn’t around, but he has memories of her and he’ll have me around to, you know, be there for him,” Alexandria Sherman said, her voice trailing off in anguish.

The gathering vented anger at whoever was at the wheel of the vehicle that hit Shekeida Sherman.

“We think it’s a heinous crime,” Frazier glared. “It’s certainly as bad a crime as any gun violence.”

Some vented frustration about the lack of a crosswalk or other pedestrian safety measures at the location. The nearest crosswalk is about a quarter-mile away.

“Maybe a couple more stoplights, crosswalks, something just to slow people down,” Kassab offered when asked what she thinks might enhance safety. “Even a speed bump.”

One man who said he witnessed the tragedy but declined to identify himself explained what he heard and saw.

“Boom!” the man described the sound of impact, moments after estimating that the vehicle was traveling 75 miles per hour in what is a 45-mph zone.

“So, I heard and turned around, and I see a body flip in the air, and it landed right over there,” he said, gesturing to a spot where mourners had formed a cross on the shoulder of the road using lit candles.

The same man questioned the response of detail officers he said were even closer to the point of impact than he was.

“Nobody moves,” he said, describing the officers. “So we had to keep repeating until they finally just got out of the car, and just walked over there all casual and normal.”

“I mean, why take so long?” he shrugged. “We can’t help her. We’re trying, but you all can and you don’t do nothing.”

The man said it was actually he and other civilians who first reached the victim, checking for a pulse and only finding a faint one.

Asked whether a faster response might have saved Shekeida Sherman, he said “Who knows. It’s like nobody put effort towards it.”

Meanwhile, Frazier and others spared their harshest venom for the hit-and-run driver in this tragedy and those in so many before it.

“It is simply another example of man’s inhumanity to man,” Frazier fumed.

Alexandria Sherman had a terse message for the driver.

“I just hope they turn themselves in," she said. "I really have nothing else to say to them.”

The Florida Department of Transportation told First Coast News on Monday that a crosswalk will be created near the Lavilla Sportsman’s Bar by summer 2021.

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