St. Louis CofCC Blog

P-D, January 31, 2008:

3 die in crash of stolen car while fleeing city police

St. Louis — Three people fleeing from police in a stolen car were killed Wednesday when the car clipped another vehicle and careened into a Metro bus in the Dogtown neighborhood.

The crash happened just before 4 p.m. at Clayton and Tamm avenues.

The four people riding on the bus were uninjured, but the driver was taken to a nearby hospital, according to a Metro spokesperson.

The driver of the car that was struck by the stolen car was also taken to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.

St. Louis Police Chief Joe Mokwa said a police officer had spotted the Pontiac — which had been stolen downtown last Saturday — on Clayton Avenue. The officer turned his lights on, attempting to pull the car over, but the driver sped away. The officer did not pursue the car, Mokwa said.

“Obviously it was trying to elude the officer,” Mokwa said.

The white Pontiac was headed west on Clayton when it collided with the second car, which was heading south on Tamm and crossing the intersection. The Pontiac then careened off that car and struck the Metro bus, which was heading east on Clayton.

Two of the people in the Pontiac were declared dead at the scene, while the third was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead there. Police were still working to identify two of the victims Wednesday night. The third was an 18-year-old male, but police did not release his name.

(snip)

Mike Teepe, owner of Acme Guitars, said he saw the stolen car speed through the intersection and estimated it was traveling 70 mph.

“It’s a typical city intersection,” Teepe said. “Occasionally you see people doing something stupid, but nothing like this.”

“Nothing like this?” Well then, let me take you back to May 17, 2007, from the P-D:

Two are killed in crash of stolen car

Elizabeth Lewis had just parked her car outside Woodward Elementary School last Thursday night when a man attacked her from behind.

“He had a bandana over his face and began shaking me and yelling for the car keys,” she recalled.

Lewis, 29, a special education teacher, had about $3,000 worth of speech therapy equipment, a laptop and an iPod in her car.

The last time she saw the 2002 Toyota Camry, it was speeding away from her.

On Wednesday, police called Lewis to tell her the stolen car had resurfaced. It had crashed into the back of a Metro Call-A-Ride bus.

Two passengers in the Camry, Patricia Davis, 18, of St. Louis, and Derrell Roberts, 19, of St. Louis County, were killed, police said. The driver, Andre Eason Jr., 18, of St. Louis County, was in critical condition at Barnes-Jewish Hospital on Wednesday night, police said.

Davis rode in the front seat, police said. Eason is Roberts’ brother, police said.

The wreck happened shortly after noon Wednesday, while the bus waited at a red light on Broadway at Calvary Avenue, according to St. Louis police.

The driver of the bus and one passenger went to the hospital; they complained of neck and back pain. Two other passengers on the bus were not hurt.

None of the four people on the bus said they saw the car coming.

After the car slammed into the bus, knocking it into the intersection, it hit a pickup also stopped at the traffic light. The truck was not seriously damaged, and the driver was not hurt.

The driver of the pickup, George Hollins, 64, said, “I saw (the car) coming, right before it hit the bus. It was going 60 or 70, maybe faster.”

Hollins said the car made no attempt to stop before slamming into the bus. It appeared the driver lost control, he said.

In both instances, we have stolen cars, speeding at 70 mph, with three people inside the car, slamming into a public transportation vehicle that was stopped, killing two of the three inside the car instantly, with the third passenger dying later on in the hospital (Mr. Eason passed in the hospital several days after the accident), but nobody inside the public transportation vehicle was seriously hurt. The only difference is that in May, the speeding stolen car hit the bus first, then clipped a pickup truck, while yesterday, the speeding stolen car hit another car, then careened into the bus. Another difference — a Call-a-Ride van, essentially a souped-up and heavier Ford Econoline passenger full-size van, was hit in May, and the collision forced the van across an intersection. Yesterday, a regular bus was hit, and it barely moved.

UPDATE 9:10 PM: The P-D identifies the three men in the stolen car as Joshua Kennedy, 17, and Ryan Kennedy, 18, both of the 6800 block of Gardner in Dogtown, and Charles Pettus, 22, of the 5900 block of Wise, also in Dogtown — the Imo’s where at least one of them worked is in Dogtown, and that neighborhood was the place of their crime. The younger Mr. Kennedy was the driver. The TV news showed a photo of Mr. Pettus, and making a few assumptions about the Kennedy brothers, all three men were as white as the snow falling in St. Louis at the time of this writing.

UPDATE 2/2: Someone claiming to be the sister of the now-deceased thug Mr. Pettus e-mailed the site and demanded that this post be removed, or she was going to get a lawyer and sue. For what? Telling the truth and using colorful language in the process? She seemed to be particularly offended by the phrase “white as the snow falling in St. Louis…” The reason for that, dear, is that I naturally assumed that the three men, stolen car, city of St. Louis, were gentlemen of color. In this case, they were not, so I thought it was necessary to state this, because I classified this post under the category “Black Crime,” and had I not, I would surely get an e-mail bashing me/us for claiming that these three men were black, when they were obviously white.  (In such a case, we could have really been sued and for a very good reason.)

So, the answer to your request, supposed sister of Mr. Pettus, is, in the immortal words of David Spade — No.