Police: Driver in Festival Crash Smoked Crack
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Anacostia
THE WOMAN who drove her car into a crowd of pedestrians Saturday during one of the most popular festivals in Southeast had been "smoking crack all day long," D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier said yesterday, according to The Post.
At least 40 people were injured in the incident, which D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty called "one of the worst serious traffic accidents" in D.C. history.
Witnesses reported that 30-year-old Tonya Bell of Oxon Hill was laughing as she drove through the street festival sponsored by Union Temple Baptist Church, held along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and W Street SE in historic Anacostia. (Get a a map of the car's route at washingtonpost.com.)
Bell has been charged with aggravated assault while armed (with a vehicle).
While there are still many questions left unanswered, details from The Post's Robert E. Pierre, Sue Anne Pressley Montes and Yolanda Woodlee paint a horrific scene in Anacostia, where people threw baby strollers in the path of the car as parents flung their children out of harm's way. In one case, as The Post's Brigid Schulte writes this morning, parent Vencent Hayes miraculously saved his 4-year-old son Marcellus, who was in the car's path as it barreled down W Street.
"Marcellus! Come here!" He remembered shouting to his son, who was walking a couple of feet in front of him. The boy froze long enough for Hayes to lift him above his head. He was so light, just 37 pounds. But by then, the oncoming car had hit Hayes directly in the knees.Police, in the end, stopped the out-of-control driver at Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Maple View Place by throwing motorized scooters into her vehicle's path.
Ward 8's D.C. Council member, former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, said that a woman named Tonya Bell may have worked as a temporary employee in his council office. He said his chief of staff is checking with other staffers to find out if she's the same woman who's involved in this case.
» "Driver Used Crack Before Festival Crash, D.C. Police Say" [WaPo]
» "Path of Destruction" [WaPo]
» "As Car Charged Down, Man Lifted Son Up and Out of Its Perilous Path" [WaPo]
Written by Express' Michael Grass and Clinton Yates
Photo courtesy WTTG/Fox 5
Map by The Washington Post
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