Car Slams Into D.C. Festival, Injuring 35

By Susan Levine and Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 3, 2007

A vehicle hurtled through a crowded street festival in the District last night, knocking people down, throwing some in the air and pinning others beneath its wheels, according to accounts from police and witnesses. Authorities said 35 people were taken to hospitals, seven with severe injuries.

The chaotic scene occurred about 8 p.m. at Unifest, an annual street festival sponsored by a prominent Anacostia church. Witness accounts indicated that a gray station wagon, with a woman driving, plowed through swarms of festival-goers on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and W Street SE, among other thoroughfares.

Police said a 30-year-old Oxon Hill woman was taken into custody near the scene. They identified her as Tonya Bell. They said a child who was 7 or 8 was in her vehicle.

It was not immediately clear what might have prompted the incident.

Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the station wagon might have been the same vehicle that struck a police car some distance away about 25 minutes earlier. She said as far as she knew, police did not pursue the vehicle after that incident.

After the vehicle began knocking down members of the crowd, police at the scene jumped on their scooters and bicycles and tried to stop the car, Lanier said.

She said one or two officers were struck when they pulled their scooters in front of the station wagon.

It was not clear what finally caused the station wagon to halt. Lanier said a variety of accounts had been put forward; some suggested that members of the crowd had played a part. One man told reporters that he had dived through the vehicle's window in an effort to bring it to a halt.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), who was at the scene with Lanier, expressed sympathy to the victims and their families. He said the city would "do everything we can to make sure you get the best care."

A fire official said that of the 35 people taken to hospitals, seven had "major injuries" and two had what he called moderate injuries. Two of the injured were children younger than 3.

Authorities could not recall a pedestrian incident with a larger number of injuries. The number of injured was greater than in any vehicular incident in years.

Long after the car had been brought to a halt, the frenzy of the incident at the festival stood out in the minds of those who witnessed even a part of it.

"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."

The man, Eric Traylor, who lives in the 2200 block of 13th Street, said he saw the vehicle crash through a gate at W and 13th streets. "Everybody screamed at her, 'Stop! Stop!' "

One victim Traylor saw was a woman whose skin had been torn from her body as she was dragged, he said. He also saw an unconscious man bleeding from the head.

Relatives spent much of the night in an anxious effort to find family members who had been taken all over the city for treatment.

Andre Johnson and three relatives were on Good Hope Road SE watching the festival when the car headed toward them. Demari Robinson, who is 23 months old, was in a stroller, and Johnson swung it out of the way.

Johnson was struck, and the boy was scraped. Both were being treated at hospitals late last night, according to Shirl Scales, a family member.

She said another relative, a 13-year-old girl, was taken to Georgetown University Hospital, with a possible broken leg.

Still another member of the family had not been located, Scales said.

Unifest, which was started in 1982 by Union Temple Baptist Church as a small soul-food festival, has grown into a massive celebration that stretches for blocks along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and into side streets. The church pastor, the Rev. Willie Wilson said that one year 300,000 people attended.

Staff writers Martin Weil and Robert E. Pierre contributed to this report.