UPDATE: Crash kills 2, closes Highland Park Way hill for 6+ hours

(LATE THURSDAY AFTERNOON: We’ve published a followup here)

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2:21 AM: Now another big Seattle Fire response – this time for a crash in the 6800 block of Highland Park Way, at least one person reported to be trapped, and at least one person is reported to be undergoing CPR.

2:26 AM: Per scanner, two people are dead – “one in each car.” Original report suggested this might have started as pursuit of a stolen car. We’re headed to the scene.

2:54 AM: The crash is on “the hill” – which is blocked off at both ends, near Holden at the top, West Marginal Way SW on the bottom; the vehicles are closer to the latter, which is where we and the other media crews are being “staged,” out of camera range but our photographer reports it appears the vehicles are on the uphill side, past Pioneer Industries, one in the road and one in the shrubbery off the road. The Traffic Collision Investigation team is on the way, which means the closure will be for hours.

4:08 AM: Police have confirmed that two people were killed, and that they were trying to stop one of the vehicles before the crash, but they are not going into details of whether it was a “pursuit.” They also tell us the investigation is likely to keep the Highland Park Way hill between Holden and W. Marginal closed for at least three hours.

5:17 AM: Metro has just sent an alert about Route 131 being routed off this section of Highland Park Way. This is the third major crash on the hill in a little over one month – on March 14th, two cars collided close to the same spot as this morning’s incident, and one flipped; that was just 10 days after the flipped-car crash that broke a natural-gas line and forced 150 nearby residents to evacuate.

5:53 AM: The Medical Examiner has arrived.

No information so far on the victims’ identities, not even ages/genders. Police have continued to keep media at the bottom of the hill. Also, no update on an estimated road-reopening time, but we’re still at the scene so we’ll be able to get the information directly as soon as there’s an update.

6:08 AM: Route 131 is using Highland Park Way again. We talked with the Metro rep on scene who says the buses are using the outside downhill lane, but otherwise the hill is NOT yet open to regular traffic. Seattle Fire Ladder 11 has been summoned, likely for scene cleanup before the road’s fully reopened. And if you’re in this area and seeing/hearing a helicopter, it’s TV (which otherwise has a full complement of ground crews).

6:25 AM: Buses are being rerouted again for a while; Ladder 11 has arrived.

Still no new information about the crash itself, not even which way the vehicles were traveling when they collided (they are both on the uphill/southwestbound side, but that doesn’t mean they started there).

7:49 AM: The Medical Examiner, Traffic Collision Investigation team, and Ladder 11 are all gone. We and other media have been allowed up the hill to photograph the wrecked cars.

But we’re told it still might be another hour-plus before the road reopens, because the vehicles must be towed and debris swept up.

8:26 AM: We finally had to leave the scene so this is via scanner: Eastbound (downhill) HP Way reopening. Westbound still awaiting some final cleanup.

8:39 AM: And it’s just been announced that the sweeper’s done and the road will be open both ways. Again, we have very little information about the crash itself and will be working to get more from police as the day goes on.

ADDED 10:15 AM: Published on SPD Blotter:

Traffic Collision detectives are investigating after a man in a carjacked vehicle fled from police early Thursday and crashed into another vehicle in the (Highland Park) neighborhood, killing both drivers.

The incident began with an armed carjacking shortly before 11 PM Wednesday in the 1500 block of South State Street, where three suspects stole a man’s 2002 Honda Accord at gunpoint and fled.

Around 2 AM, an officer on patrol in West Seattle saw the Honda, occupied by one man, near the Southwest Precinct and began following behind while radioing for additional units. When additional officers arrived, the officer activated her emergency lights in an attempt to pull over the Honda.

The suspect fled from police at high speed and collided with another vehicle in the 6800 block of Highland Park Way SW. The other car was driven by an adult male. The officers attempted to provide life-saving aid to both drivers of the two vehicles and called for Seattle Fire Department medics.

Unfortunately, both drivers died at the scene.

Detectives from SPD’s Traffic Collision Investigation Squad are processing the collision scene and have recovered a handgun from the carjacked vehicle. Robbery Unit detectives are also investigating the initial carjacking incident.

The department’s Pursuit Review Board will conduct a review of the incident following the completion of the investigation.

4:43 PM: We have just published a followup with dashcam video SPD has released from the pursuit that preceded the crash (ending as the officer arrives at the crash scene) and other new information. See it here.

70 Replies to "UPDATE: Crash kills 2, closes Highland Park Way hill for 6+ hours"

  • gogo April 7, 2016 (5:57 am)

    Is it still closed?

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (6:10 am)

      I just updated again, as we are still at the scene. Yes, it’s still closed. They’re letting the 131 through, using the outside downhill lane, but no traffic otherwise. We are staying here until it’s reopened and will have news of that immediately, when it happens.

  • NotOnHolden April 7, 2016 (6:13 am)

    I just read elsewhere that it was police pursuit.  Was one of the vehicles involved a police car or an innocent bystander at the most ridiculous intersection in all of West Seattle (as far as I know.)

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (6:15 am)

      We’ve been on this since before anyone else. The vehicles, albeit at a distance, are in our photo, and neither is a police vehicle. And yes, police confirmed that they were trying to stop one of the vehicles, but whether it was actually a *pursuit* or *chase* we don’t know yet and any other news agency casually throwing around that word is not necessarily accurate. (Same as one that was calling this “Delridge,” etc.) P.S. Police also have not yet confirmed whether the vehicle they were trying to stop was headed downhill or uphill. The crash is on the uphill side but that doesn’t necessarily mean any or all involved vehicles were originally heading that way.

  • Melissa April 7, 2016 (6:28 am)

    Hey Notonholden,  the neighborhood is trying to put in for a Neighborhood Street Fund grant for a roundabout on Holden and Highland Park Way.

    I hope the City finds the funding this time for it.

    • DumplingGirl April 7, 2016 (7:15 am)

      A roundabout would be great news there. Is there a way we can chime in with support for the Neighborhood Street Fund grant? I’m not sure it would have helped in this circumstance, but for everyday it would make things much safer and hopefully prevent people from cheating through the neighborhoods.

      • Steve Mansfield April 7, 2016 (8:00 am)

        While a roundabout is a great idea, all of these crashes are occurring at the bottom of the hill, around the point where the road takes that final bend Eastbound.  Likely due to people flying down the hill far too fast to make that corner, skidding out, and taking out someone coming uphill.  Something needs to be done to slow people down going downhill, especially in the rain.

        • ktrapp April 7, 2016 (9:31 am)

          At the very least, I wonder if it’s feasible to install a jersey barrier down the center of the road, going around that corner.  That way, rather than cars speeding down the hill heading straight into oncoming traffic, they bounce off the barrier.  They might hit another car going down the hill, but then it’s a fender bender of cars going roughly the same speed, rather than at a combined speed of over 100 mph.  I don’t know if there’s any way to keep idiots from speeding.  Installing speed bumps will only make them go airborne before flying into oncoming traffic.

  • Shawn April 7, 2016 (6:43 am)

    They need to get serious about the roundabout at Highland Park Way and Holden as well as consider making the hill a 1-lane each way street with a barricade in the middle. In the meantime, SPD needs to get real serious about enforcing the speed limit.

    • Jay Koster April 7, 2016 (9:21 am)

      I’m not normally for reducing lane availability, but in this case I think it would make sense. Even if you leave the two lanes, adding a Jersey Barrier from the bottom of the hill / left turn lane up to just before Holden would reduce a significant number of lane-crossing incidents.    

  • Lucky Neighbor April 7, 2016 (6:53 am)

    I live on 9th, a few blocks away from the top of the hill/Highland Park Way. Several minutes before the massive rescue response, I heard then saw a couple of SPD vehices speeding (really speeding) northbound on 9th. Looked like pursuit, and if whoever they were after hit the curve on the hill at anything remotely near that speed, losing control would be no surprise. 

  • Bonnie April 7, 2016 (7:05 am)

    How does the city determine if a roundabout is needed?  I just ask
    because there are places there roundabouts that I swear are not needed
    and other places they are needed greatly!

  • W.S.Driver April 7, 2016 (7:37 am)

    If you use your turn signal at the Holden intersection, pay attention to your lane positioning on the curve, and aren’t running from police then there is nothing wrong with this road as-is.  Stop adding roundabouts and road diets and bikelanes to everything just because some people really shouldn’t be driving!

    • AMD April 7, 2016 (8:10 am)

      When everything is done correctly, the lanes still back up very far in two directions.  If there’s an opportunity to make an intersection safer and function better at once, we should do it.  No matter how safely I drive, I can’t control what other people are doing.  

      There were two fatalities, one in each car.  We don’t know the facts, but I’d be very surprised to hear that neither were obeying traffic laws.  There’s a real possibility that someone who did everything right still lost their life.  The limits exist to mitigate the impact of people who ignore the rules on those that do.  The numbers speak for themselves; there are a lot who don’t care and changes are necessary.

      • KM April 7, 2016 (1:42 pm)

        Add enforcement and stiff consequences to the list of physical barriers and I agree. I think that some traffic safety measure are necessary (that intersection and roadway is a real mess) but failure to punish dangerous drivers and remove them from the streets is just going to create a problem somewhere else. People are still terrible on Delridge and 35th despite road diets, people still drive in the bus only lanes on the WS Bridge despite the fancy paint, and even fly down Admiral hill with a 30 mph “safe” speed limit. Address the root of the problem, the poor and careless drivers, and fund SPD with the resources to do so. Solutions such as road diets and lower speed limits are a passive-aggressive approach when there are no added consequences or enforcement for those who misbehave.

  • 935 April 7, 2016 (7:42 am)

    I lived this area for over a dozen years. And I fail to see how a traffic circle, roundabout or rotary would have helped in this situation. The crash was further down the hill….

    With regard to the rotary question, as mentioned I lived in the area for over a dozen years and have negotiated this intersection hundreds if not THOUSANDS of times. Never once did I get as much as a scrape. Nor did I see any one ever get a scrape. That being said,  I know that giant squid exist, I have just never seen one – there ARE accidents here – just as elsewhere. YES, traffic gets backed up to Holden sometimes, YES, people fly up and down that hill. But here’s an idea. Do what YOU can do, drive defensively and find ways around congestion. That does NOT mean speeding up and down the adjacent residential streets, find a way around congestion. Have we truly become a society where we need government to handle ALL of the “scary” issues around us?? To put us into a bubble and hold our hands, stroke our hair (or lack thereof) and tell us it’s “going to be OK”?

    Back to the accident….If there WAS a pursuit 2 lives are lost, presumably 2 families broken all because someone decided not to stop. Take a theoretical step back from that. All because (perhaps)  some lost soul decided to steal a car. 2 lives destroyed – countless others wrecked, like the twisted metal on HPH. All because someone chose not to stop.

    RIP to the deceased, and peace to their loved ones. Peace to all involved.

    • Matt April 7, 2016 (8:20 am)

      Great points. 

      • WSB April 7, 2016 (8:26 am)

        We had to leave the scene finally after being there the better part of 5 hours so this is via scanner – eastbound (downhill) HP Way reopening.

  • T Rex April 7, 2016 (8:04 am)

    This road is only dangerous because of the aholes who SPEED down the hill. I never go up that hill in the left lane, for that reason. I have seen and almost been hit myself by speeding cars coming down that hill and when they hit the curve they lose control over their cars. I witnessed the car that took out the Pioneer sign years ago. He had to be going 60 miles an hour when he passed me and he hit the curve and then disappeared. When I came around the corner his car was in the Pioneer parking lot sitting on top of the sign.

    Slow the hell down people. So sorry for the innocence person that got hit by the car running from the cops. So very sad. 

    • Steve Mansfield April 7, 2016 (8:36 am)

      Indeed.  I regularly ride a motorcycle, and avoid the uphill left lane until things straighten out as well (since I need to continue straight onto 9th), and won’t even take the hill downhill if it’s raining – the banking on that part of the road at the bottom is *terribad*.  A lot of folks don’t realize that in a car, even just letting the car “do its thing” going downhill it’s real easy for gravity to get your vehicle up over 45 without realizing it.

      • JanS April 7, 2016 (11:00 am)

        “even just letting a car “do it’s thing” going downhill”…that reminds me of a forum poster once who was complaining about the speed limit on Admiral Way Hill being lowered…he argued that his car wanted to go faster….like he had no control. It amazed me that someone would even think that. I realize that this particular accident involved more than that…but everyday drivers are out there forgetting that they have a brake pedal, or can downshift. :(

        • David April 7, 2016 (2:12 pm)

          JanS, this just made me laugh out loud. Someone seriously wrote that?! Hilarious! Funny, because I have no problem keeping my 5.7L V8 Corvette at 30 mph down the entire length of the Admiral hill, without touching the brakes even once – just downshifting and applying a little gas if it starts to dip below 30 mph. But I have figured as I see people speeding down the Admiral hill regularly, as well as other slopes in the Seattle area, that given how many bad drivers there are here, they likely just don’t know how to properly operate a motor vehicle. Same with tailgating. I’ve never seen so many rear-end collision wrecks anywhere else I’ve lived in the country. I thought “one car length of following distance per every 10 mph of speed” was common knowledge, but I guess it’s not. I was educated in driving in a state (Colorado) where people are taught how to properly operate motor vehicles in all weather conditions, and then drove for several years in the snow and ice of Wisconsin. 7 years after moving here I’m still getting used to the driving mentality here. But I haven’t let it corrupt me and don’t plan to.

          • Highland Park Resident April 8, 2016 (3:31 pm)

            We approach Highland Parkway from 9th so we’re already in the curb lane.  At the brink of the hill, we always put our vehicle in “2” – and still have to tap the brake to stay at 30mph  – but we do it.  We now travel in the curb lane UP the hill as well.   

            Of course,  out-of-the-ordinary circumstances resulted in this most recent tragic accident.  Our prayers go out to the family of Devin Francis.

                

  • willbehonest April 7, 2016 (8:35 am)

    NEVER use the outside lanes of that hill! NEVER! Been driving it for 5 years and have seen so many close calls. It’s very unsafe with no median at all, just two narrow lanes. 

  • Chris April 7, 2016 (8:59 am)

    I really hope the crash was not the result of a puruit by SPD.  Barring the need to stop a suspect or wanted person who is suspected of or who has committed a heinous crime, high speed pursuits create substantial unnecessary risk to the public and to officers.

    With regards to law enforcement, there are very few things I’m critical of, however high speed puruits are one of them.

    BTW, nice job reporting WSB.  

  • Kat April 7, 2016 (9:33 am)

    Who was involved!! 😭😭😭 my bf might have been out there.

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (9:38 am)

      Kat, I hope your boyfriend is safe somewhere – if he is missing, for any reason, please call 911. So far we have no names, not even ages or genders, of the people who were killed. We’ve asked SPD yet again for information and they are “working on it.” – TR

      • Kat April 7, 2016 (10:17 am)

         Well hes 21 and works up there tell around 2 am and its not like him to not call or etleast text me i havent talked to him since yesterday 

        • ca April 7, 2016 (11:32 am)

          Oh my gosh, Kat. I hope it is not your boyfriend. Have you contacted the police? 

          • Kat April 7, 2016 (1:33 pm)

            Yes its not him but something did hapoen but hes ok

  • wsgal April 7, 2016 (9:38 am)

    IMO, part of the danger is that on that hill, it’s easier to pick up
    speed than one anticipates, so even those who don’t usually speed find
    themselves going faster than they would otherwise. And that means people
    who do speed, end up going faster than they intend. And, the outside
    lanes are graded so it’s harder to control your car at high speed,
    particularly if you’re not familiar with the road. All that put together
    makes it dangerous.

  • Stacy D Brady April 7, 2016 (9:45 am)

    We take this road almost every day and the issue is speed.  Plain and simple.  I’d like to see either a barrier or divider or possibly speed bumps on the downhill section.  As extreme as that sounds, accidents and deaths will only continue and I pray that it is not me or my family.  As a side note, my husband was ticketed on his way downhill to the airport to pick up family days before Christmas so this is a reminder that it’s not an easy road to obey the limits, even for people who consider themselves responsible and considerate drivers.

    • chemist April 7, 2016 (11:03 am)

      Speed bumps on arterials are generally a non-starter with the city and you also have to watch out for creating places where water can pool and freeze, particularly on a hillside that gets frosted over rather frequently.

    • Jason April 7, 2016 (11:31 am)

      I find it a bit bizarre that you blame the road for the death of an innocent driver. The ostensible dangerous driving conditions was not the proximate cause of this man’s death. The scumbags who carjacked a separate innocent person and then drove at ridiculously dangerous speeds to outrun the cops are the ones to blame. Period. 

      Let let guilt lie where it belongs. The scumbags who stole someone’s property and took an innocent life in the process. 

      • Steve Mansfield April 8, 2016 (11:35 am)

        I think it’s fairly clear that the driver in this case was truly the one at fault, however, the other two accidents this month in the exact same stretch of road leads us all to consider that *possibly* that bend in the road needs to be addressed in some way, or that peoples’ means of speeding so badly along it needs to be impaired in some way.

  • Overthere April 7, 2016 (9:59 am)

    It sounds like this guy was trying to get away from the police, if that’s the case a higher level of enforcement would not have had an impact in this crash. My prayers to the families.

  • Samson April 7, 2016 (10:10 am)

     3X in a month and half.  I have seen the police car parked couple weeks ago and now it is stopped, why?  it needs to be slow down!!!  I have to agree with few others who have/has close calls with accidents.  Stop Speeding.  Do me a favor, just come home to your family, what is the rush out there.  it is not end of the world.  I take my control with my speed to get home to my family.  now the big question – why are you or anyone else speeding??  it did ruin my commute to work as my work is just down the road.  And Also, knock off the cut off to the lane that you want to cut off to get off to make a right to Holden.  Chill out and have some respect to share the road.  it is not yours, its OURS!!!

  • Kit Harris April 7, 2016 (10:33 am)

    I come home every night on that road after midnight when I get off work. There are rarely more than 2 or 3 cars on it at that time. However, even if there is a slight fog, it is slippery as the Dickens. One time I turned to come up and the street light glowed aurora borealis on the street …slicked with oil. I crawled, and slid uphill through that turn. If you were traveling downhill, you would not have had ANY control.  My guess is that it was a downhill, speedy travel to get that kind of damage to the cars.

    This must have happened well after 1a or so….

  • Shawn April 7, 2016 (10:51 am)

    Since the hill was closed this morning, I diverted to taking Delridge north to the WS bridge to get to work. As I was going past the school, a very self-important driver decided he/she was too important to follow the flow of traffic and instead was entitled to use the middle turn lane to pass about 15 cars at a high rater of speed. This is why we have fatality crashes.

    Going 50mph up Delridge as opposed to 30mpg is only going to gain you about 20 seconds. Is 20 seconds worth the risk of a head-on collision that could kill you or someone else?

  • Jason April 7, 2016 (11:32 am)

    I find it a bit bizarre that anyone would blame the road for the death of an innocent driver. The ostensible dangerous driving conditions were not the proximate cause of this man’s death. The scumbags who carjacked a separate innocent person and then drove at ridiculously dangerous speeds to outrun the cops are the ones to blame. Period. 

    Let the guilt lie where it belongs. The scumbags who stole someone’s property and took an innocent life in the process. Shame on them and the people who enable them.

    • AMD April 7, 2016 (12:44 pm)

      Bad or inattentive drivers (or criminals in this case) cause accidents.  Traffic calming helps mitigate the effects of driving who aren’t doing as they should.

      The conversation focused on the road early on before anyone knew anything about the accident except that it was bad.  The intersection nearby is notoriously bad and there have been a number of accidents there recently (well, for a while).  

      What’s done is done and we can only guess how things would have played out differently if there was a traffic calming solution in place (would a roundabout have slowed the driver enough to make the crash survivable?  Would a Jersey wall have kept his reckless driving from affecting oncoming traffic?)  

      But I think the road is brought up because any ideas that could have made the outcome different seem worth discussing.  It’s a very sad situation.

      • Jason April 7, 2016 (2:46 pm)

        True, the driving conditions are dangerous at this particular intersection.

        However, I would like to reiterate that the carjacker fleeing police was likely more of a contributing factor than the ostensible dangerous road conditions. Our outrage ought to be directed at people who are willing to lethally endanger others in order to take their property. He pulled a firearm on some unsuspecting motorist. He then slammed into another unsuspecting motorist in order to escape the consequences of his first selfish decision. Urban planning, traffic safety and public health do little to address these kinds of disgusting behaviors. 

  • La April 7, 2016 (12:22 pm)

    On an unrelated note, why is Highland Park Way said to be in “the Delridge area of West Seattle” as it was on the P-I website (and as it was whenever the RV lot near there was discussed)?

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (12:32 pm)

      Because the city lately keeps calling it that. And it was written that way in SPD Blotter (note that I put Highland Park in parentheses, signifying an edit, because I wasn’t going to let an error go through). And also in city releases about the recently scrapped “RV safe lot.” Delridge is the city’s name for the “district” that includes many eastern West Seattle neighborhoods – but we all know this happened in Highland Park.

    • Highland Park Resident April 7, 2016 (8:05 pm)

      Here is the City’s designation of neighborhoods in the Delridge District

      http://clerk.seattle.gov/~public/nmaps/html/NN-1550S.htm

      Map of Delridge

      • WSB April 7, 2016 (8:32 pm)

        Yes, it’s the Delridge DISTRICT, but that is not a common reference and should not be the reference when you’re describing what neighborhood something happened in. If we did that, based on the city’s districts, we’d have reported that this afternoon’s pedestrian/driver collision happened in “Southwest.”

  • John April 7, 2016 (12:58 pm)

    Sad…..some thief steals a car, runs from police, and ends up killing an innocent person in another vehicle.  Life is not fair.

  • Curious April 7, 2016 (1:03 pm)

    Do we know if the other car had a dog? 

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (1:11 pm)

      Curious – we heard some scanner traffic about finding an emergency vet for a dog but officers at the scene were not commenting and when the SPD media item arrived, as you can see, it said nothing about a dog. So I have to ask about a followup.

  • waikikigirl April 7, 2016 (1:42 pm)

    OH geez this story just gets worse and worse…now a dog may have been in one of the cars?!

     

     

  • Brenda April 7, 2016 (1:44 pm)

    Poor Pup 

  • WS Joe April 7, 2016 (1:46 pm)

    People like to jump and down about cars traveling too fast.  Are you forgetting this was a criminal act with a lethal weapon, who stole this vehicle at gunpoint?  Where is the outrage for this behavior, and need for more judicial action(s)?

  • David April 7, 2016 (1:56 pm)

    I agree with all of the comments here regarding how dangerous this road is, especially when idiotic reckless drivers speed up and down it on a daily basis, but in this particular case I think it’s somewhat beside the point because a stolen car pursuit can make even the safest street dangerous. The real cause here was a worthless thug that stole an innocent person’s property (an innocent person who may now have psychological damage from getting carjacked at gunpoint) and then killed another innocent person. Good riddance to the carjacker – the only tragedy on that half of the wreck is the destruction of the stolen car and the trouble the carjacking victim is going through. But on the other half of the wreck, my thoughts are with the innocent driver and their loved ones. That could have been any one of us or our loved ones. Keep that in mind before you think of having any sympathy for the carjacker. Criminals willingly choose to be criminals. Innocent people do not choose to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

    As for the safety of this road and others in West Seattle, and Seattle in general, consider this. Last year I attended one of the community meetings regarding the re-channelization  of 35th Ave SW. After the meeting I went up and spoke with one of the SDOT engineers. I applauded the work they did in bringing the road down to two lanes with the center turning lane in the name of safety, but I suggested more could be done in regard to enforcing the speed limit. I described installing the speed cameras like the ones in some school zones like near Gatewood Elementary that automatically take pictures of speeders and issue tickets, similar to red-light cameras. He said that those are “banned by state law, and wouldn’t be very popular anyway” (those were his exact words), and sort of laughed. At that moment I got the clearest picture of Seattle’s traffic mess I’d ever had, and I haven’t been back to any of those meetings since. So the moral of the story: make sure to tell your loved ones regularly that you love them and enjoy every day as if it were your last, because an ordinary daily drive might be where you unexpectedly meet death. After all, we don’t want to upset reckless drivers.

    WSB, please keep us updated on any fundraising efforts that may arise to help the family of the innocent victim killed in this crash.

  • Joel April 7, 2016 (1:59 pm)

    The criminal who stole the car and killed the innocent driver…,.when he is identified please post his criminal record

    • Steve Mansfield April 8, 2016 (11:37 am)

      Since he was a minor – won’t happen.

  • Bill Bob April 7, 2016 (3:02 pm)

    I hate going down this hill. I do the speed limit, and get tired of all of the dirty looks I get as people zoom pass me 15mph over the limit. I love driving, but really don’t enjoy the rush rush attitude people have. I’m 38 and don’t need to rush around in a car, nor did I when I was 17. One of the reasons that I left California 20 years ago was because of the hurry up I’m important attitude. It used to be so chill up here :-(

    • Bill Bob April 7, 2016 (3:03 pm)

      PS. I realize this wasn’t the scenario, but the point is…that road is dangerous.

  • A April 7, 2016 (3:54 pm)

    So the car jacking took place with 3 males but the police report says only one person was in the car jacked vehicle when it crashed and killed the drivers of both vehicles. This means there are 2 idiots still out there that were part of a car jacking that lead to the death of an innocent driver. Does this mean said idiots can be charged with vehicular homicide since their actions lead to the death of an innocent person? I really hope so those 2 idiots need a long time in a cage to think about their actions that lead to the death of an innocent person. Thoughts and prayers to the innocent person’s family

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (4:07 pm)

      Don’t know but not likely if they weren’t in the car at the time – I’m expecting updated information and eventually the full report on the incident but SPD so far says one person was in the car when it was spotted “near the precinct” which is relatively nowhere near Highland Park Way hill – don’t know if this means the driver, with the officer following, went to Orchard/Dumar then up to 16th then down Holden, or some other route – the carjacking was on Beacon Hill.

    • WSB April 7, 2016 (4:20 pm)

      Couple other points – We will probably have a separate followup soon as SPD will be releasing dash-cam video, we’re told. What part of all this will it show? We’ll find out when we see it. It’s confirmed that a dog in one of the cars was badly hurt and though it was rushed to an emergency vet, it did not survive. And the Medical Examiner has released ONE of the two victims’ names in the past hour or so, but we have no way of knowing which driver he was, and police aren’t commenting – don’t read anything into that, as giving out names of dead people is just not their business. So stand by for the followup … Tracy

    • Steve Mansfield April 8, 2016 (11:38 am)

      It was about 3 hours between the carjacking and the crash.  Clearly the other two involved in the carjacking got out at some point.  They can’t be made accessories to the vehicular manslaughter.

  • ScubaFrog April 7, 2016 (4:27 pm)

    Tragic.  My thoughts are with the victim’s family and loved ones.  How sad.

  • J April 7, 2016 (5:11 pm)

    After watching this video, when is time for the police to let the car go? You’re flying down residential streets at very unsafe speeds, which causes the suspect to not only become more reckless by driving even faster. Had the officer backed off, it’s likely that the suspect would have slowed down if he wasn’t being pursued. I don’t think the innocent man that was killed would have been killed if the suspect wasn’t being chased at such ridiculous speeds. :( I don’t know the solution, but I think incidents like this are a bit too crazy.  Heart out to his family.

    • 935 April 7, 2016 (5:40 pm)

      Hey J – and to all the others questioning the police….Step 1 – if the car had not been stolen – this wouldn’t have happened. Step 2 – if the driver had pulled over – this wouldn’t have happened. Step 3 – if the offender had not made the decision to speed through the area – this wouldn’t have happened.

      This is NOT the fault of the police. In any way.  Just patrol trying to do their job.

  • Michael akers April 7, 2016 (5:58 pm)

    This road is not dangerous at all ,it’s the people driving the road that are dangerous there are a thousand more roads in the city which are more difficult to maneuver ,yet we have seen accidents throughout the years on here all from poor choices not the road it self ..

    • Steve Mansfield April 8, 2016 (11:41 am)

      yes it is the drivers, but folks don’t realize just how little above the speed limit you need to be going at that bend to completely lose it.  Enforcement needs to be done, yes, but doing something to make that bend in the road less prone to this exact kind of accident would be a good thing as well.

  • faceless April 9, 2016 (12:16 pm)

    Its interesting that all we are focused on is the speed at which you can go up or down a hill. I agree with the guy above. Some dope car jacked someones vehichle (victim #1) then runs from the cops and hits another vehicle and kills the guy (victim #2). This guy probably has a mother, dad, girlfriend, wife, boyfriend, childern and grandparents and we are focused on vehicle speed. Its awful that this person died. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and may they find peace in their lives going forward. 

    Sorry- this just really makes me angry that someone died for some really lame reason

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