Angela McDonald led a march and rally through Philadelphia's Cobbs Creek neighborhood Thursday night, more than a year after a hit-and-run driver killed her 32-year-old son, Mark Ringgold-McDonald. The march started at 58th Street and Baltimore Pike and walked toward Pine Street, where McDonald said the crash that killed her son happened. She has spent the time since searching for answers, and for ways to keep other families from living through what hers has endured.
Ringgold-McDonald was killed last summer in Philadelphia's Cobbs Creek neighborhood, according to CBS Philadelphia. Separate reporting has detailed the crash itself: an SUV struck McDonald-Ringgold on Delancey Street, according to NBC10 Philadelphia, which reported he was 32 at the time. The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported he was 33 and was crossing Delancey Street near South 58th Street when he was hit. The outlets differ slightly on his age and the precise street name, but both describe the same fatal crash in Cobbs Creek.
According to NBC10's earlier reporting on the crash itself, it happened just before 3 a.m. on July 31, 2025, and the driver fled north on 58th Street. Officers later recovered an unoccupied black Jeep Cherokee believed to be involved on the 6700 block of Chester Avenue, the station reported. Police have since said they identified the driver they believe was involved and forwarded the case to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, per the same NBC10 account.
A Mother's Search for Answers
McDonald has described the year since her son's death as the hardest of her life. She has said every day is a struggle, and that losing her son almost killed her. “It is not the grief that will hurt you. It's the not knowing,” she told NBC10 Philadelphia.
Those who knew Ringgold-McDonald remembered him as loving, gentle and someone who was always helping others, according to CBS Philadelphia's report on the march. Donna Madison, his godmother, said he would appreciate the outpouring of support for his mother. McDonald has said she wants to help others avoid experiencing the same pain, and she urged people to wake up, pay attention, get involved and act before tragedy reaches their own families.
Pushing for Speed Bumps and Cameras
Beyond seeking accountability for the driver, McDonald has pushed the city to install speed bumps and other road-design changes meant to slow traffic, along with surveillance cameras, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. A city official told the Inquirer that Philadelphia was working on safety treatments for South 58th Street and Delancey Street. McDonald hopes the push will eventually translate into changed laws and safety measures installed in neighborhoods across the city, not just her own.
The stretch of road near the crash sits within a larger problem. Cobbs Creek Parkway is part of Philadelphia's High Injury Network, the 12% of city roads where 80% of traffic crashes have occurred, the Inquirer's report notes. The city is also developing a nearby Neighborhood Slow Zone that would impose a 20 mph speed limit on residential streets and add traffic-calming infrastructure, according to the same report. The Inquirer also noted that 28 pedestrians were killed in hit-and-run crashes in Philadelphia the previous year.
Why So Many Cases Go Unsolved
Ringgold-McDonald's case fits into a larger pattern of hit-and-run crashes that rarely end in arrests. Since 2019, 230 people have been killed in hit-and-run crashes in Philadelphia, and police have made arrests in only 44 of those cases, according to NBC10's investigation into why so many of these cases go unsolved. Roughly four out of every five fatal hit-and-runs in the city have not resulted in an arrest, the station reported, even though the Philadelphia Police Department's Crash Investigation Division has 18 investigators working across three shifts on fatal hit-and-runs and other serious crashes. NBC10 also reported that Philadelphia logged four reported hit-and-run crashes in July 2025 alone, the same month Ringgold-McDonald was killed.
Under Pennsylvania law, a driver involved in a crash that causes injury or death is required to immediately stop at the scene, remain there and provide the necessary information and assistance, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. If a victim dies and the driver fails to meet that requirement, the violation is a second-degree felony carrying a minimum three-year prison term and a mandatory minimum fine of $2,500, per the same statute.
For now, McDonald and her family and friends continue seeking both justice for her son and broader changes meant to protect pedestrians along one of the city's most dangerous corridors. Thursday night's march was one more step in that effort, retracing the route from 58th and Baltimore Pike toward the stretch of street where her son lost his life.
