“Really great person. I just love him so much. I just wish like I could hug him again,” his younger brother Nelson Burns said.
DALLAS — Ronnie Burns II told his parents when he was just 8 that he would graduate college in three years and get a job paying six figures.
At 22, he kept his promise, graduating from Florida A&M University with a computer science degree and landing that first six-figure job in Atlanta that would begin later this year.
But an alleged drunk driver fleeing from police in Houston ended that promising future early Saturday morning, in a crash that also killed Burns’ fraternity brother and best friend.
“Ran through the red light on his third accident, and killed our babies,” Ronnie Burns Sr. said of the driver who was being chased by a Harris County deputy constable at 2 a.m. on Saturday.
The SUV broadsided the Lexus Burns had just bought. The vehicle caught fire, killing Burns and his friend and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother Jayden Flemming.
The recent graduates were in Houston to support their fraternity at the Texas Greek Picnic event and were on their way back to their Airbnb when they were hit. Flemming was scheduled to continue his collegiate studies in Germany.
“They had a very bright future, which was taken away from them,” Flemming’s mother, Leonie Williams, said through her tears when the Miami family visited the Houston crash site. “Trying to comprehend and I’m still asking, ‘why?'” she said.
Investigators say 21-year-old suspect Rene Hernandez was being chased by a Precinct 7 deputy constable for allegedly striking at least one other vehicle without stopping, in addition to running multiple lights.
“Once she observed it, she activated her emergency equipment and her visual and audio equipment and pursued after the truck,” Constable James Phillips said.
Police say Hernandez is charged with two counts of murder since he was allegedly already committing a felony when he crashed.
Burns was a Duncanville High School graduate. On Tuesday, his parents and his younger brother, in front of the banner they printed and wearing the shirts they made to celebrate his graduation from Florida A&M University just two months ago, wanted to thank their community for an outpouring of love and support.
“Really great person. I just love him so much. I just wish like I could hug him again,” his younger brother Nelson Burns said.
“I’m sad and I’m devastated,” his mother Kimberly Burns said. “But I’m so thankful that God gave him to us for these many years and that he had done so many things in these years that were good things.”
“We teach our kids and we teach our family we only get one life. So we tell them live it, live it to the fullest,” his father said. “And the lives he touched along the way, we’re proud. I was just happy to be his father, to be able to plant them seeds and to know my son went and touched lives like that.”
“God is lifting us. I know days ahead are going to be hard. It’s going to be very hard. But God has sustained us this far,” Kimberly Burns said.
“We’re hurting, we’re mourning,” his father said. “But I thank God for the 22 he gave us.”
The Burns family plans to visit the crash site in Houston on Wednesday. Funeral plans have not yet been finalized, but a GoFundMe account has been started to help both families.
The suspected drunk driver is hospitalized but expected to be sent to the Harris County Jail as soon as he is released, officials said.
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