Life, Death Intersect at SE Crossings

Officials Look for Answers, Relatives Mourn After 2 Children and 3 Adults Are Killed

The boy and his mother who had just gotten off a bus. The toddler being carried across a busy street to buy French fries. The two half brothers crossing a highway after a weekend night of partying.

Three journeys across familiar terrain -- the mundane, routine crossings that are a part of everybody's daily life -- but they ended in violent encounters with cars that left five people dead.

They were a girl about to celebrate her third birthday.

A 7-year-old obsessed with Spider-Man and Batman.

A mother desperate to regain custody of her son.

And two men, reveling in the renewed bond of their brotherhood.

Pedestrians are hit at a rate of 3,000 a year on the region's car-clogged roads, but it was extraordinary to have five die in nine days in one section of Southeast Washington.

Their deaths came after pedestrian fatalities in the District rose by more than 50 percent, to 16, since 2004. The random mayhem prompted a meeting last week of police and traffic planners who pondered how to make safer the simple act of crossing a street.

The victims' survivors were consumed by no such policy matters. Theirs was the pain born of sudden and almost inexplicable loss.

After Shanika Howard, 25, was killed Jan. 28 with her son Jayshaun, 7, as they crossed Southern Avenue, her mother, Donna Howard, 45, escaped to the Richmond area for a few days, desperate for solace and a change of scenery after burying her daughter and grandson.

"I have literally been through a living hell," Donna Howard said.

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