AT ABOUT 2:30 AM last Wednesday, November 4, two drunken
drivers in two separate cars struck and killed 31-year-old Kipp
Crawford on N Willamette. Three days earlier, a car struck and killed
23-year old Lindsay Leonard as she was crossing SE Foster on a marked
crosswalk.
Ironically on Monday, November 9, five days after Crawford died, a
national study named Portland one of the 10 safest cities for
pedestrians in America. But the two tragic deaths last week highlight
the dangers of being a pedestrian or cyclist—even in one of the
nation’s “safest” cities.
Lents neighborhood activist Jeffrey Rose drove past the scene of
Leonard’s death minutes after the crash.
“We saw a couple people lying in the street and we just sort of
shook our heads. It wasn’t a real surprise,” says Rose, referring to
Leonard and her injured companion, Jessica Finlay. “We’ve got people
coming off the freeway and tearing down Foster Road. It’s not a
hospitable place for pedestrians.”
Leonard, who worked at Southeast sock store Sock Dreams, and
Crawford, a well-liked drummer in several local bands, are the 13th and
14th pedestrians or cyclists to die in Portland crashes this year,
according to the city.
Without strict punishments and tough enforcement of dangerous
driving, lawyers and alternative transportation advocates say that even
fatal traffic crimes often fall through the cracks of the state’s
justice system.
“If you want to kill somebody and get away with it, you should do it
with your car,” says Portland lawyer Ray Thomas, who has written legal
guidebooks for Oregon pedestrians and cyclists, and says Oregon is one
of only four states with no vehicular homicide law. Thomas notes that
while there are strict punishments for people who drive drunk, drivers
who kill out of pure negligence like talking on a cell phone are often
quickly back in their cars with only a slap on the wrist.
The driver who accidentally killed Leonard, Tito Jose Feliciano, was
released last week with no charge or citation. One of the two drivers
who struck Crawford, Felisa Washington-Berry, had a string of prior
traffic troubles, including getting her license suspended after
crashing into another car in 2003. Washington-Berry’s license was
restored in 2006.
“Unfortunately what you see time and time again is situations like
this where drivers who have a history, [a history that] points in the
direction of a train wreck, those are the kind of people that the
system has done a horrible job of keeping off the road,” says
Thomas.
Portland bike attorney Mark Ginsberg echoes Thomas’ thoughts. “All
the people dying because of cars are almost viewed as the cost of doing
business in our society,” says Ginsberg. “We need that separate
law—like a vehicular homicide law—because it would give us
an additional tool in holding drivers responsible for their
actions.”
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) spearheaded a vehicular
homicide law in the legislature last spring that would have given
drivers who kill someone while driving with a suspended license a
felony rather than a ticket. But the bill never made it to a vote.
“People could kill someone and don’t even have to show up in court,
they could just get a citation and mail it in. End of story,” says BTA
Executive Director Scott Bricker.
The report from transit think tank Transportation for America that
ranks Portland the ninth safest city in the country for pedestrians
notes with outrage that cars kill an average of 5,066 pedestrians and
cyclists every year in America.
“Though these are labeled ‘accidents,'” reads the report, “they
usually occur on roads that are dangerous by design, streets that were
engineered for speeding cars and make little or no provision for people
on foot, in wheelchairs, or on a bicycle.”
Mayor Sam Adams vowed to quickly improve the design of the SE Foster
intersection where Leonard died, visiting the site on Monday, November
9. In addition to installing brighter lights on the sidewalk and a
“pedestrian refuge island” in the center of the street, Adams says the
city has been spending $11 million to fix its 25 most dangerous
intersections over the last three years. But despite the efforts, Adams
notes, “We have a $400 million safety and maintenance backlog.”
Mississippi Studios and Celilo will hold a memorial show for Celilo
drummer Kipp Crawford on Saturday, November 21, at 9 pm. See mississippistudios.com for
details.
Geez, what a wonderful PROGRESSIVE city we all live in! Here, you can have the shit beat out ov you & tasered by police for, well… for being out in public really.
But run over someone while drunk, on a suspended license, & walk out ov jail with a little citation.
Those other 3 states are nuts for not having a basic vehicular homicide law, & so is Oregon. Why would such a proposed common sense law NOT even make it to a vote?! Who’s against this?
Any word on why the police didn’t cite Feliciano? Any word on the person who mugged Kipp before he appeared prone in the middle of Willamette Blvd?
i just found out about Kipp. this is fucking disgusting. fuck portland.
Not to excuse the drivers for being drunk, but what happened to the part of the story where someone pushed Crawford into traffic? Has that been substantiated at all? If that person exists, they are obviously way more culpable than the drivers…
I am also really interested in the follow-up about Kipp being pushed into the street. There is something very strange about this story. Also, how did he get run over by TWO cars? Please investigate!
Yeah, the part about Kipp Crawford being struck by TWO vehicles puzzled the Hell out ov me, too. Like, did the 2nd driver run over his body? Was he somehow hit simultaneously?
Merc, please follow-up!
I don’t have any other info about what happened to Kipp except that KATU news reported some neighbors heard shouting at the scene before he was hit and police are “definitely looking into” whether there was a second person at the scene who may be responsible for why he was in the middle of the road. I’ll keep looking into it.
I don’t have the gory details on exactly how the cars hit Crawford’s body, but yes, they were one right after the other, heading in the same direction.
RE: Why Feliciano hasn’t been charged, police spokeswoman Mary Wheat says police cannot cite or charge drivers at the scene unless there’s probably cause to make an arrest, such as if the driver is clearly intoxicated. Wheat says the officers involved are finishing up the investigation (as of today, Friday 11/13) and the case could be sent over to the District Attorney’s office for review.
I’m from Florida, home to the four deadliest pedestrian cities. When I first visited Portland, my girlfriend who lived here at the time laughed at me when I would run to cross streets. There’s always room for improvement, but relatively speaking Portland is pretty great.
“police spokeswoman Mary Wheat says police cannot cite or charge drivers at the scene unless there’s probably cause to make an arrest, such as if the driver is clearly intoxicated.”
That’s funny because, pedestrians can be cited (& extorted for money by the city) on the spot for jay-walking, even if you cross a street at a time when there’s no immediate on-coming traffic.
I walk 5 miles a day to work. There isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t have a close call with a car. The most common issue involves cars turning right out of parking garages or streets, and they only look to their left, never their right. Pedestrians approaching from their right have to watch their eyes to verify they can see them.
I recently spoke with a friend who couldn’t walk for over two months after surgery after a crash with a drunk driver. Not only did the drunk driver have two previous DUI convictions, he was then given only 5 years in prison with the right to a license after that.
My friend is lucky, but there are those that won’t be. When is the state going to step up and do something about this before more people get hurt?