Police exploring accelerator issues in fatal Erie crash
By Ed Palattella
By Tim Hahn
Posted Jul 10, 2017
Friends of the victim who owned the SUV said Monday that the man had complained about mechanical issues with the vehicle, including the accelerator.
The Rev. Michael Coles, of House of Prayer Missionary Baptist Church on East 21st Street, said Monday that he had also been told, by friends of Johnson’s, that Johnson had been complained of mechanical problems with his SUV.
Investigators believe an SUV involved in a horrific crash that killed three older Erie men on Friday afternoon either had a mechanical problem, or its driver suffered a medical issue, before the vehicle slammed into a truck trailer at a busy westside intersection.
Friends of the victim who owned the SUV said Monday that the man had complained about mechanical issues with the vehicle, including the accelerator. And Erie Police Chief Donald Dacus said police are aware of numerous consumer reports nationwide which claim that model of SUV, a 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe, has experienced accelerator issues, including “an accelerator that sticks.”
“The investigators are aware of those complaints, and definitely exploring that as a possibility,” Dacus said.
However, Dacus said, proving either suspicion will be difficult.
“Given the catastrophic nature (of the crash), I don’t know if we’re going to find evidence to point in either direction with any certainty,” Dacus said.
A resident of Methodist Towers in Erie, where the three victims lived, said the victim who owned the SUV, Oscar Johnson, 65, got it five days before the crash, which happened at the intersection of West 12th and Cherry streets.
The Methodist Towers resident also said he heard Johnson had complained about mechanical problems, including issues with the accelerator.
The resident who commented on Johnson’s vehicle asked that his name not be used out of deference to the families of Johnson and the other two victims, Willie M. Byrd, 72, and Charles Barnes, 65. Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook, who released the identities of the victims on Sunday, said the three men died of massive blunt-force trauma with fragmentation.
“It’s devastating,” he said.
http://www.goerie.com/news/20170710/police-exploring-accelerator-issues-in-fatal-erie-crash
