Cheyenne Mom Has Turned Tragedy Into A Crusade For Safer Streets

CHEYENNE — Nov. 17 was a bad Sunday for Janelle Jones, mother of Makaili “Mak” James Evans, who was killed in 2021 while navigating a local crosswalk. 

“I heard of another little boy in our community just being hit by a car,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “And I don’t know all the details to that story and there’s always two sides to everything, but it just brings back so much of the trauma. I have days where I just can’t hardly get off the couch. I really struggle.”

Jones has turned her struggles to deal with her son’s sudden death into a crusade. She wants to improve the safety of crosswalks across Cheyenne and has started an organization called #ForMak, dedicated to raising money to improve the safety of street crossings for all.

“I don’t think I’ll ever truly be OK or at peace with (Mak’s death),” Jones said. “It’s never going to sit right with me, I don’t think. But I’m very strong in my faith, and so I really owe it all to that. It’s by the grace of God that I am still standing, and that I’m able to do the work that I’m doing.”

That work has already placed two new HAWK signals at problematic intersections in Cheyenne, including Western Hills Boulevard at Moccasin Avenue, where her son was killed, and another at Pershing Boulevard and McCann Avenue. 

HAWK signals are pedestrian-activated crosswalk signs that warn motorists to stop with flashing yellow lights, followed by a red light, after a pedestrian has pushed the button to walk across the road. 

A Day She Can’t Forget

At first, Nov. 5, 2021, seemed like any other day. 

Mak hugged his mother on his way out the door, headed to school a little earlier than usual to retake a test. 

Seven minutes later, though, the day turned from normal to nightmare for Jones and her family.

“I got a phone call, and they didn’t say what had happened,” Jones recalled. “They just said, ‘We need you to get to the school right away. Something has happened.’”

Jones dropped everything to do just that. But as soon as she stepped outside, she heard sirens so loud, she felt as though they were in her own front yard.

As she drove up the street, she saw what no parent ever wants to see. It was her son Mak, and he was motionless, just lying in the middle of the road. 

“There was a fireman who was doing CPR and they just had me go up to the scene,” Jones said. “And I sat on the curb, and I was just watching this whole thing in horror.”

Jones would later learn her son had been struck by a distracted driver, who had not even seen him in the crosswalk, despite the fact three other drivers had stopped their cars so her son could cross. 

She would hear about the surveillance video later, where drivers of the other three cars started honking their horns, trying to warn Mak and the driver who was about to hit him. The passenger in the car also screamed, trying to let the driver know. 

But it was too late. The driver didn’t see Mak at all, and never even slowed down.

Right then, though, all Janelle was focused on was the motionless body lying in the street. Her son’s. 

People started asking Jones if they could call someone for her. But Janelle couldn’t think about that right then. In fact, she couldn’t even remember the passcode to her own phone, even though it’s something she uses all the time.

“I was just in complete shock,” Jones said. 

Holding Onto Faith

Mak was taken to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center and Jones followed, escorted by a Cheyenne police officer. 

“My son was a tough kid,” Jones said. “He was a big kid, 5-foot-6, so he’s strong. And I have faith. I try to keep faith in these things.”

She sat in a tiny little room, waiting to hear word on of her son, holding onto hope as much as any mother can at such a time. 

“The neurosurgeon came in with the computer and he had shown me what we were looking at from the MRI,” Jones recalled. “And basically, the impact had severed his spinal column.”

Jones remembers the neurosurgeon asking her permission to Life Flight Mak to Denver Children’s Hospital. 

“They just needed me to say, ‘Yes,’” Jones recalled. “And so of course, if I have a sliver of a chance, I was going to say ‘Yes.’”

But Mak never made it onto that Life Flight. As doctors were fighting to stabilize him and get him ready for it, the bottom dropped out of his blood pressure. Because of the severed spinal column, his heart wasn’t getting that steady signal to keep beating.

“I’ll never forget the doctor’s eyes when I looked up at him, and he said, ‘There’s nothing else that we can do for him,’” Jones said. “And I just heard the monitors slowing down, and then it was a flat line.”

Mak-ing A Difference

That moment is the worst in her life. But that doesn’t mean Jones doesn’t want to talk about her boy, Mak. Ask her for stories about him, and she is brimming over with just as many stories as the tears she has for the son she has lost.

“I brought that beautiful kid into this world, and I was with him when he left,” Jones said. “And I’ll tell you a little about him, because I love talking about the fun stuff.”

Jones had always known her boy was sweet, but after the accident she found out just how sweet. There were so many things she’d never even known about, things he had done to make a difference in the lives of others.

“I’ve had so many parents reach out to me afterwards,” Jones said. “They tell me how he was their kid’s first friend when they moved here.”

Some told her how Mak always made a point of sitting by the students who needed a little extra help in school, to help them out.

“The teachers would let him do that because they said he always helped better than what they could,” Jones said. “Mak’s birthday was in June, so instead of sending him at an early 5, I sent him as a 6-year-old. So, he was a little more advanced.”

Mak also made a point of sitting with the lonely kids at lunch, too, taking them under his wing.

“He’d ask them to play basketball and to shoot hoops,” Jones said.

Or he’d invite them to join the football team, where he promised a band of brothers who would look after you like family.

During the balloon release ceremony for her son after he had died, a girl came up to tell Jones how her boy Mak had been especially kind to her.

“She said some of the kids made fun of her, and she said, ‘He was always so nice to me, and he wouldn’t let other kids pick on me.’”

Another mom came and handed her a note with a story about how Mak had helped her daughter. She had been crying in the hallway.

“She didn’t know Mak, and he didn’t know her,” Jones said. “But when he saw her crying, he walked up to her and asked her if she was OK, and he put his arm around her and walked her to class.”

The day Mak was struck by a vehicle and killed, the girl came home from school crying.  His death had hit her particularly hard.

“I didn’t know all of this stuff,” Jones said. “I knew some things about my son. I knew how sweet he was because he loved to cook with me, and we only live a couple blocks from where I worked, so some days he would walk up the street and meet me at my job just to walk home with me.”

Sleepless Nights

For weeks after the accident, Jones found it difficult to fall asleep.

Instead, she replayed her last morning with Mak over and over again. What could have been done differently? What could have been better?

She’d already told the school about how the flashing lights that were supposed to signal slower speeds weren’t on that morning at 7 a.m. when Mak had been walking to school.

“And I knew that flashing lights weren’t going to be enough,” she added. 

Jones quickly realized that all the twisting and turning of those fateful seven minutes between when she hugged her son for what she didn’t know was the last time and his being struck by a car weren’t really helping her to heal.

The rumination itself, though, was a signal. She needed to do something. Something that would make a difference for other children. 

That prompted her to start the 501C3 she calls #ForMak. It raises money to improve the safety of street crossings, as well as to advocate for harsher penalties for distracted driving.

“I wasn’t really sure what we were going to be able to do,” Jones said. “But I thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to start raising money anyway, and then get with the city engineers.’”

From that effort, she learned that Cheyenne’s last Safe Routes to School audit had been done in 2010, and that not much had really happened with that audit.

“That was hugely disappointing,” Jones said. “Because I mean it’s taxpayer money that goes into that. And I know that McCormick has always been a really bad area, too. I’ve heard so many stories since this incident of this happening to other people.”

More HAWKS Are Coming

The HAWK lighting systems Jones’ efforts have helped to raise in Cheyenne at Pershing Boulevard and McCann Avenue and Western Hills Boulevard and Moccasin Avenue cost close to a million dollars, according to Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins.

Cheyenne received a federal transportation grant that was $543,000 while the city kicked in another $284,000, Collins said. ForMak, meanwhile, contributed $57,000 for costs associated with the project, including the poles. 

That allowed the city to order the poles in advance, so the project wouldn’t be delayed until next year. 

“I find Janelle’s courage and her vision amazing,” Collins told Cowboy State Daily. “She’s turned a very dark day into a mission that makes our streets safer for the children of other people’s families, and I just find it amazing she would do that.”

Collins said the city is working on a new Safe Routes to School plan, which will identify more places that need better safety measures, as well as a Safe Streets For All plan that will look at how to improve all of Cheyenne’s streets and make them pedestrian friendly.

The new HAWK lighting systems stands for high-intensity activated crosswalk beacon. Jones particularly likes that they are pedestrian activated, and that they have higher visibility from further away, so that drivers are more likely to see the signal to stop.

During times of no pedestrian activity, the traffic signals will appear to be off for motorists. But once a pedestrian activates the push button, the HAWK lighting system will activate a flashing yellow light to signal drivers that a pedestrian is preparing to enter the crosswalk. That’s soon followed by a solid red light, that requires drivers to stop before entering the crosswalk.

The pedestrian, meanwhile, will see a “Don’t Walk” symbol until the solid red light appears. After that, the pedestrian will see a “Walk symbol.” The pedestrian should still look both ways to be sure the crosswalk is clear of traffic before proceeding into the crosswalk.

Jones still walks her dogs just about every day right by the place where her son was killed.

“I often get very emotional then,” Jones admitted. “But I find so much comfort and peace walking past the football field where he played.”

There’s a memorial bench near McCormick that says in Loving Memory of Makaili“Mak” Evans, with the dates 2008 to 2021.

And now there’s also the brand-new lighting system that Jones helped place at the dangerous intersection where her son was killed.

“It’s hard some days and I still get emotional,” Jones said. “I’m not going to lie. But when I walk past that area, I feel like I’m very proud of what we have done for him in his honor.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.