Suspected driver in road-rage shooting was arrested 2 months ago in a drive-by

A woman police say was the getaway driver in a Wichita road-rage shooting on Wednesday had been arrested two months earlier as a suspect in a drive-by shooting a few blocks away. The arrest two months ago was her second on suspicion of a violent crime while serving probation for a felony conviction in Greenwood County.

If her probation officer had known about that arrest, 21-year-old Ramonyka Smith could have been in state custody on Wednesday instead of the driver’s seat of a silver Ford Mustang. Police say a man got out of the Mustang and fired two shots into a Chevy Tahoe after a two-and-a-half-mile road-rage incident, injuring a 4-year-old boy.

On Aug. 1, Wichita police arrested Smith on suspicion of being the driver in a drive-by shooting in north Wichita. Police said Smith had a gun, cocaine and marijuana when they pulled her over near East 10th Street North and Broadway.

About a block away on Wednesday afternoon, police say 19-year-old Tylin Atkinson got out of a silver Ford Mustang that Smith was driving and fired two shots into a Chevy Tahoe carrying nine passengers, including six children under the age of 10.

One of those bullets hit a 4-year-old boy who was riding in the rear passenger side of the Tahoe, police said. As of Thursday, he was in stable condition at a local hospital.

Arrested, no charges filed

Smith’s probation started on July 20, 2017, Greenwood County District Court records show. She was sentenced to 18 months for unlawful distribution of a controlled substance while in possession of a firearm and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.

About three months later, Smith was arrested by Wichita police and booked into Sedgwick County Jail on suspicion of felony aggravated assault and domestic battery.

The Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office did not pursue charges in that case, spokesman Dan Dillon said.

As of Thursday, Wichita police had not presented the Aug. 1 drive-by case to the district attorney so he could make a decision whether to pursue criminal charges against Smith, Dillon said.

The Wichita police department did not respond to questions about why that two-month-old case was not been presented to the district attorney.

No one was injured in the August shooting, but it was high-profile enough that Wichita police held a news conference the next day announcing the arrest as an example of “great police work” by the two officers who made an arrest “in a violent crime.”

Shell casings and a witness’s description of the car involved in the shooting led police to a silver Mustang with Smith, who was driving, and 21-year-old Travon Coleman inside, both armed with handguns, police said.

Smith posted a $25,000 bond and was released from jail shortly after her arrest, Dillon said.

On Wednesday night, Wichita police pulled over a car with the same description and the same two people inside. The suspected shooter, 19-year-old Tylin Atkinson, had apparently split up with them and was arrested in a different part of town, Wichita police Officer Charley Davidson said.

‘Hindsight is 20/20’

If a probation office doesn’t know about a probation violation, it can’t do anything about it, said Ann Carpenter, the director of probation officers responsible for overseeing Smith. If it does, it can move to revoke that probation and ask a judge to consider whether to put a person in prison.

Because Smith was never charged or convicted of the violent crimes she was arrested for, Carpenter’s office was limited in what it could do, she said.

“If charges are filed, it gives more weight for our staff to really push for a probation violation or a warrant pick-up on a probation violation,” Carpenter said.

When Smith was arrested three months into her sentence on suspicion of aggravated assault, her probation officer in Sedgwick County alerted Carpenter’s office in Butler County that she had been arrested.

After a discussion between staff, Smith’s probation continued without any additional sanctions. One of many factors considered in that sort of meeting would be whether she was charged with a crime, Carpenter said, which generally speaks to police and prosecutor’s confidence in a case. Smith was not charged in that case.

In the August drive-by arrest where police said she had drugs and a handgun, no law enforcement agency contacted Smith’s probation office, Carpenter said.

Smith self-reported that she had been pulled over for driving without a license, but it doesn’t appear she included the severity of her arrest in the account she gave her probation officer, based on her case file, Carpenter said.

If the severity of the arrest had been known, Carpenter said, it’s more likely that her probation officer would have sent a request to have her probation revoked. A judge would have reviewed her case and could have changed the conditions of her probation or sent her to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence before the road-rage shooting.

Her probation officer also could have put her in jail for two or three days without a revocation hearing — what probation officers call a “dip and dunk.”

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Carpenter said. “Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the person who did it.”

“Typically supervision officers statewide do the very best job that they can and are sincerely trying to help people be successful,” Carpenter said. “We cannot control somebody if they decide they are going to go out and shoot somebody up or rob a store or anything like that. We just don’t have that control over people.”

The Wichita police department did not respond to questions about whether Wichita police alert probation offices when someone under supervision is arrested.

The typical way the probation office learns of an arrest, Carpenter said, is through self-reporting, “because there’s no statewide database that gives us alerts when somebody is arrested.”

Smith is being held at Sedgwick County Jail on $100,000 bond. Her probation officer issued a request to revoke her probation on Thursday afternoon.