A Small Town Grapples With Loss of 7 Teenagers

Never, as far as anyone knows, have seven residents ever died in a single day. No war claimed that many. Nor did the hurricane of 1999. Not even natural causes took seven lives in a day.

But Monday, at 12:10 a.m. on a two-lane road near the Iredell County cemetery, history of the worst sort was made: Seven Statesville teenagers, joy-riding in a stolen car, lost their bid to outrun a police cruiser. They left the road at 100 mph, hit a tree and died instantly. The unlicensed driver was 15.

Their deaths brought anguish -- and a good deal of soul searching -- to this prosperous Bible Belt town of 25,000, 35 miles north of Charlotte. The two girls who died were sisters. Two of the five boys were cousins. Six of the seven attended local schools. “We are gearing up for grief counseling,” said school Supt. Terry Holliday.

In the cafes and coffee shops, even in the churches, no one talked of basketball or NASCAR anymore. “How many of the kids did you know?” is all people asked each other. And they wondered aloud whether high-speed police chases were worth the potential danger and why parents let their kids -- six of the seven victims were 15 or younger -- run around after midnight.

“This is a small town and everyone knows everyone, even if you don’t know them personally,” said Debbie Keaton, who pulled off U.S. 21 on Tuesday to look at the crash site. “When a town has a big loss, everyone grieves. It tears your heart out.”

Her eyes followed the skid marks, which started across the highway from B & B Collision Repair Center, and continued through the off-road mud and a shallow canal. By the bark-torn tree, she noticed the remnants of a shattered windshield, a white headband and a black hat. “Excuse me for crying,” she said, drying her eyes with a tissue.

Eugene Arnold visited the crash site too, with his 14-year-old son, Nellow Brown. The youth was either a friend or a cousin of the teenagers in the 2001 Dodge Intrepid. Early Sunday evening, the teens had stopped by Brown’s house and asked him to come along for a ride. His father said no.

“I brought Nellow down here to show him the outcome,” Arnold told the Charlotte Observer. “Everybody he grew up with is dead.”

Although the accident is still under investigation, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol gave this account: Keith Bills, a police officer in nearby Troutman, saw the Dodge -- with a spare “doughnut” tire for a right rear wheel -- weaving erratically as it passed through the town at a high speed. He followed police protocol before initiating a chase, radioing his supervisor and turning on his flashing blue lights and video camera.

The chase, which lasted little more than a mile, reached speeds of 100 mph in a 45-mph zone before Bills eased off his accelerator after 15 seconds, not wanting to “push” the pursued driver. Troutman’s police dispatcher radioed Statesville for a patrol car to assist Bills, then after a pause added: “Disregard that. An accident happened.”

It was the deadliest car accident in North Carolina since 1997, when 10 high school students died in a crash 100 miles from Raleigh.

All the victims in Monday’s crash were from the southern part of Statesville, a poor section of town that has not shared in the prosperity of downtown, and relations between the area’s predominantly black population and the police have sometimes been edgy. All the victims of the crash were black.

The morning after the accident, Mayor John Marshall called Woody Woodard, president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, to see whether he thought it would be helpful to hold a community discussion panel. Marshall said he knew that some residents were already asking why seven black teenagers were chased at dangerous speeds when it might have been wiser for the white Troutman officer to note the license tag and make an arrest later.

Woodard replied that he thought the panel wasn’t necessary.

“I’ve been black for 68 years,” he said Tuesday in his Statesville real estate office, “and I think we have a tendency to find a cause related to race for too many problems. Sometimes, it’s not hard to find. But in this instance, we haven’t seen anything that has anything to do with race.

“The officer saw a stolen vehicle being driven erratically and he did what I probably would have done if I was a policeman.”

As Statesville prepares for seven funerals, it is left to ponder, as Marshall puts it, “what is the lesson learned from this tragedy? That life is short. Life is precious. And how do we prevent this from happening again? I don’t know.”