Street-racing trial begins

Posted: 8:09 pm Tue, February 2, 2010
By Associated Press

UPPER MARLBORO — A Prince George’s County jury listened Tuesday to 911 callers begging for ambulances as they described bloodied and dismembered bodies strewn across a dark, rural highway after an illegal street race took a tragic turn nearly two years ago.

The man whose car plowed through the crowd, killing eight, pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter last week. But a second driver, 20-year-old Tavon Taylor, is on trial, facing the same charges.

Prosecutors say Taylor and Darren Bullock were racing in the early hours of Feb. 16, 2008, when Bullock slammed into the crowd that was standing in the road watching a different race.

Taylor’s lawyers say he was not racing, but came upon the accident scene after dropping a friend off at a house.

Defense attorney J. Wyndal Gordon played eight 911 calls for the jury during his opening statement, as he tried to make the point that only one car — Bullock’s white Ford Crown Victoria — was mentioned by the callers.

“One guy lost a foot. There might be a couple dead,” said one woman in the crowd who called 911.

“These people are torn,” said a man who drove by the accident scene.

“You mean there are people who are dismembered?” a dispatcher asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

The crash cast a spotlight on a widespread underground street-racing subculture in rural parts of Prince George’s County and southern Maryland. Police cracked down in the aftermath and those efforts, combined with the horror of the 2008 crash, have caused the practice to fade, said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office in neighboring Charles County.

“Periodically, we receive calls about street racing but the reports are more in line with a chance encounter and opportunity to race rather than the organized event that took place in February 2008 in Prince George’s,” she said in an e-mail.

Back then, the races were a popular pastime that attracted men and women of varying ages from around the area.

Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey told jurors Tuesday that Taylor and Bullock were among the crowd that had gathered for the organized races that night. While they were waiting for the races to start, they decided to go down the highway and have a race of their own, he said.

“The finish line also became the finish line for eight people,” Ivey said.

Ivey said the pair took off in the direction of the crowd, which had spilled out into the road to watch two cars that had just started off.

A security camera at the nearby Beretta gun factory caught two cars going by — Bullock’s Crown Victoria and Taylor’s dark-green Mercury Grand Marquis — Ivey said. The footage showed Taylor was going 102 miles per hour, he said.

Ivey said the camera showed Taylor’s car driving back in the other direction away from the crash scene a short time later. Bullock’s car ended up down an embankment with one of the victims inside.

Taylor repeatedly denied that he had been racing, including to a grand jury. But after testifying to the grand jury, he was arrested and signed a statement police had written that said he was racing with Bullock.

Gordon, the defense lawyer, told the jury that Taylor was high on marijuana and in distress about his arrest when he signed the statement.

“He’s a naive, immature and foolish young man,” Gordon said. “He’s no angel. But he’s no daredevil either.”