Floyd A. O'Reilly Blog: Two drivers arrested after a man was killed walking across SE Division last night

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Two drivers arrested after a man was killed walking across SE Division last night

View looking west on SE Division at crossings of 138th and 139th.

Portland Police have arrested two drivers and are looking for a third in relation to a collision that left another person trying to cross SE Division Street dead last night.

So far the investigation has revealed that an adult female was killed while crossing at SE 138th just after 10:00 pm.

Here’s more from the Portland Police Bureau:

“… officers believe the pedestrian was walking south across Southeast Division Street when she was struck by a vehicle being driven west on Southeast Division Street. Shortly afterwards the woman was struck by a second vehicle that was also traveling westbound on Southeast Division Street. The driver of the first vehicle that struck the victim drove away from the scene. The driver of the second vehicle remained at the scene.

Officers searched the area, but at this time have not located the driver or vehicle that was believed to have first struck the pedestrian. The driver of the second vehicle was taken into custody. The driver of the second vehicle involved in this crash has been identified as 42-year-old Brent A. Klausner.”

So. We have two drivers involved so far. One of them fled the scene. The other (Klausner) was taken into custody. But it gets worse. While officers were investigating the crash, “a driver traveled around the road closure and into the crime scene, narrowly missing a Major Crash Team investigator.”

The police took that third driver, 31-year-old Angel G. Cardona-Aguilar, into custody.

Both men have since been released. Klauser was charged with Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants and Reckless Driving. Cardona-Aguilar was booked on charges of Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants, Reckless Driving, and Reckless Endangering.

To summarize: Three drivers involved; one of them on-the-loose for felony hit-and-run, two of them arrested for reckless driving and DUII. This is complete madness. Auto abuse is an epidemic and we need much more aggressive actions to mitigate its myriad impacts on innocent people.

This is the 24th traffic fatality in Portland so far this year. 10 of those killed were walking. This is the fourth person to die while walking on outer SE Division this year. On March 11th, 74-year-old Fuk Chan was killed trying to cross at 115th. 86-year-old Dorothy Anderson was killed at SE 169th on May 8th. And on July 23rd, 69-year-old James Deery was hit and killed at 158th.

This is frustrating because we know how bad Division is, yet we haven’t completed the steps needed to fix it. City crash stats show Division ranks No. 1 for motor vehicle fatalities and serious injuries, No. 4 for pedestrian injuries and fatalities, and No. 2 for bicycle injuries and fatalities.

The good news is PBOT has a big plan to improve safety on this stretch of Division and it’s slated to be completed by mid-2019. Then there’s TriMet’s Division Transit Project expected to bring even more significant changes to the street when it begins construction next year. The bad news is these plans aren’t much solace given all the sacrifices we’ve made already.

And how many more people will be hurt and/or killed before these basic safety updates are completed?

Among these updates is a rapid flash beacon to be installed at 138th. It’s unclear whether that would have helped last night. As we saw last week when a man and young child were hit on 122nd, the presence of a beacon is often a weak countermeasure in the presence of such a massive threat like the one posed by reckless people driving on a high-speed arterial highway that cuts through residential neighborhoods.

I don’t know what else to write at this point.

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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