3 Die When SUV, Allegedly Racing, Runs Light

Three men were killed early yesterday when their sport-utility vehicle raced through a red light, was broadsided by another vehicle and flipped several times, D.C. police said.

The force of the collision sent the SUV careering into a parked car, which was propelled across six lanes of traffic and a median before it broke through the wall in front of a house.

Police said the crash occurred about 5 a.m. at East Capitol and 53rd streets. A 1997 GMC Yukon driven by Corey Williams, 24, of the 500 block of Wilson Bridge Drive in Oxon Hill, was traveling east on East Capitol, reportedly at a high rate of speed in a race with another vehicle, according to Sgt. Joe Gentile, a police spokesman.

Williams ran a red light and was struck by a Chevrolet Trailblazer, police said. The Yukon tumbled several times and hit a fire hydrant, a street sign, a tree, a fire alarm box and a parked Buick, pushing the car across the street where it crashed through a brick wall.

Kwan Cavanaugh, 28, a front-seat passenger in the Yukon, was taken to Prince George's Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead. Cavanaugh lived in the 1300 block of First Street NW.

Paramedics found no signs of life in Williams or the other passenger, Darryl Taylor Jr., 25, of the 1200 block of G Street SE. Williams and Taylor were taken to the D.C. medical examiner's office.

No one in the Chevy Trailblazer was injured, and the driver was not charged.

Police have located the driver of the vehicle that Williams was allegedly racing, Gentile said. That driver has not been charged, and the major crash unit is investigating.

As daylight spread, neighbors on both sides of the street poured out of their homes to observe the damage.

"It makes your stomach hurt," said one neighbor, who would not give her name. "All those bloody sheets."

Broken glass, chunks of metal car parts and debris from the car's interior littered the roadway and nearby yards. The toppled fire hydrant and the splintered tree rested on their sides. Magazines, CDs, empty cigarette cartons and a tennis shoe were piled amid the shards of glass from vehicles.

The house with the bulldozed brick wall has been vacant since June, Yolanda Childs, a next-door neighbor, said. The vehicle that plowed into the wall narrowly missed Childs's vehicle, which was parked in front of her house.

"Thank God I got lucky. It could have been worse," Childs said.

East Capitol Street remained closed between 53rd and 55th streets as police investigated. It was reopened about12:45 p.m.

Joseph Reese lives near the accident scene and, like most of the neighbors, was sleeping when the collision occurred. He "just heard that squealing noise, jumped up and looked, and that car was on its back," he said.

Reese, who has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years, said that motorists often race down the hill between the lights at 53rd and 55th streets but that he had never seen an accident as bad as yesterday's.

"Not like this, no I haven't," he said.

Staff researcher Rena Kirsch contributed to this report.