NJ drag race turns into horror show as reckless driver kills two after speeding through intersection
WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY: A man and a woman were struck and killed by two fast automobiles as they raced through the streets of New Jersey in violation of the law. Gerald J White, the driver of the 2004 Infinity collided with the 2014 Honda Accord and then swerved onto pedestrians during the incident in Wildwood, New Jersey. He was charged with the murders of Timothy Ogden, 34, and Lindsay Weakland, 18.
In the horrifying footage, the reckless driver is seen racing away from an intersection before colliding with another car and slamming into a golf-car-like vehicle. Local accounts state that Weakland was one of the pedestrians White struck. She was declared dead there, but it took the police some time to get there since so many people were in the way of their automobiles. Ogden is believed to have been a passenger in the Honda Civic that White collided with. After the crash, he was taken to a hospital but he eventually died of his wounds. White, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, attempted to flee the scene as well but was arrested by authorities. Prosecutors said further charges against White may be brought, although it is unknown if any other people were gravely hurt.
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According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the two individuals who died weren't in Wildwood for the unauthorized motor event. White was accused of fleeing the scene of an accident, evading, assault by a vehicle on two counts, and breaking the legislation pertaining to public safety. He is detained in the Cape May County Correctional Facility. In the video, drivers of powerful automobiles engaged in a variety of risky actions such as burnouts, donuts, and racing at high speeds while disregarding the rules of the road. The mayhem that resulted in these deaths and injuries was caused by "hundreds, if not thousands, of people driving high-performance vehicles to an area without any planning, staging, or permitting", according to Jeffery Sutherland, Cape May prosecutor.
Numerous automobiles collided with shops, parking meters, and each other as a consequence of White's reckless driving which also resulted in two fatalities. This left officials with a large clean-up. White's car was traveling at "like 80 miles per hour," according to a witness who observed the tragic collision as it "ran four red lights." Olivia Galing of Rahway told NJ Advance Media “we just heard a big bang, like a loud crash, and everybody started running down so we went down to the corner and we saw the car up on the curb and they had a sheet out already. There were so many people lined up on the side of the road. Kids were standing in the middle of the street on the yellow lines recording things. So it was gonna happen somebody was gonna get hurt.” According to the office of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, police were so overrun by people at the event that the New Jersey State Police dispatched troops to Wildwood to assist local police. “The Governor is saddened by the senseless harm and damage that has occurred in Wildwood as a result of this event,” Murphy’s spokeswoman Christi Peace said in a statement to NJ Advance Media.
Prior to the event, Wildwood officials were informed of the gathering and issued a statement saying that "all visitors to the Wildwoods are welcome and are expected to obey all ordinances and laws during their visit." “But local police were quickly outmatched by large crowds exhibiting raucous behavior,” Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron said. “The game plan did not anticipate the amount of people that came down, which was in the thousands. That game plan went right out the window by the second day, when the amount of folks that were here grossly exceeded what the projected amount were by the state police,” Bryon added.
Given that all administrators have already left the organization and a concerning note has been added to the about section of their Facebook page, it appears that the fatalities have caused the H2oi organizers to reevaluate their plans. “H2oi isn’t ever gonna be the same," the updated about me section read. “Even if all the sideshow kids [interlopers] stop coming the laws they set in place for car modification will never go away. It’s time to move on.”