Beltway Collision Video Reviewed

Prince George's County police searched yesterday for a motorcyclist and watched video from a police cruiser in connection with an investigation into a series of collisions on the Capital Beltway that left two men dead, one police officer hospitalized and 14 other people injured.

The men who died Wednesday night were in the same vehicle. One was a Fort Washington resident who was heading with two friends from Buffalo to an Al Jarreau concert, his wife said.

At 10 a.m. yesterday, a team of police accident reconstruction experts closed lanes near the scene of the crash, just north of Forestville, as they tried to figure out what happened. By 11:30 a.m., all lanes on both loops were reopened, said Cpl. Debbi Carlson, a county police spokeswoman.

Police said Wednesday that the accident was touched off when a county police officer tried to stop a speeding motorcycle. The officer was chasing the motorcyclist about 7 p.m. on the outer loop, near the Ritchie Marlboro Road exit, police said. The police cruiser slammed into a vehicle after the motorcycle cut in front of a car, police said that night.

The force of the impact sent the car airborne over the median's guardrail and into oncoming traffic on the inner loop, causing a chain-reaction crash involving five southbound cars, police said Wednesday. The collisions left a seven-car pileup, snarling traffic on both sides of the highway for hours.

Yesterday, Carlson said police would not provide a narrative of how the collisions occurred until the accident reconstruction team completed its work and filed a report, which would take days.

She declined to confirm that an officer was pursuing the motorcyclist, saying that that was part of the investigation.

The accident reconstruction team has a lot of ground to cover, she said. "They have to take measurements. They have to talk to witnesses."

On Wednesday night, Police Chief Melvin C. High said a cruiser's camera captured the encounter with the motorcyclist and the crash. High said police would use the footage to try to identify the motorcycle and its driver.

Carlson said yesterday that police are looking for the motorcyclist and urged anyone who had information to call police at 301-731-4422.

The two men who were killed were Kevin McCarter, 49, of Fort Washington and Sidney Clanton Jr. of Buffalo.

A county police officer who was driving home on the inner loop when he was injured remained hospitalized yesterday at Prince George's Hospital Center. He was in serious but stable condition, Carlson said.