Car Slams Into D.C. Festival, Injuring 35

"It was crazy," said Ryland Anderson, 19, who saw the car barreling down W Street SE. "It was madness."

Philemon Walker, 24, said, "Anything in that path, she wiped out."

Walker and Anderson said they were about to cross W Street as the festival was winding down when the car sped down the roadway.

"She was driving like 'if you're in my way, you're going to get hit,' " Walker said.

The two described strollers being flung into the air and said they saw the body of a man apparently lodged in the vehicle's wheel well.

"We heard the choir scream," said piano player Mike Scott, who was part of a gospel group on a stage.

He said the car kept going after bumping the stage, and he jumped off to check on a woman lying in the street bleeding.

Then, after sideswiping an oncoming vehicle, the car finally turned off W Street. Behind the vehicle, the pavement was strewed with bodies, witnesses said.

Witness Carole Harper said the scene was "like something out of the movies." Like the others, she told of seeing bodies fly over the vehicle's hood and onto its roof.

As it struck pedestrians, the vehicle, according to most witnesses, never stopped. "She rolled straight through," said Harper, a minister. "She never slowed down."

There seemed nothing anyone could do "but holler," Harper said.

The driver of the station wagon "was purposeful," said a man who saw some of the incident from his porch. "She was going purposefully. She was not going to stop."