Just after midnight on July 24, 2022, the noise of engines and the blur of speeding headlights drew a crowd to Bessemer Road near Avenue R on Birmingham’s west side. In the middle of that illegal street-racing scene, Kamari Deshaun Adams, a 14-year-old Black male, was on foot when one of the two racing vehicles struck him. The impact was fatal; the Jefferson County coroner reported he died around 12:30 a.m., and early reporting described him as a pedestrian hit during the race.
In the immediate aftermath, the crash was treated as more than a tragic accident—it was tied to reckless racing that turned a public road into a makeshift track. Accounts described the vehicles as racing along Bessemer Road at the moment Kamari was hit, and later coverage framed the case as a bystander death connected to a street race, with the driver leaving the scene after the collision.
Months later, investigators identified a suspect and the case moved from the street into the courts. Reporting said Zenardo LeGrant Marshall Jr. was arrested earlier in 2023 and later faced formal accusations after a Jefferson County grand jury issued indictments in September 2023. The charges reported in connection with Kamari’s death were manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident involving injury or death, reflecting prosecutors’ claim that the fatal strike happened in the context of the illegal racing and that the driver did not remain at the scene.
