S. Samuel
A day after South By Southwest concertgoers lost their lives and handfuls were injured, new information including the identity of the reckless driver have been released.
According to reports, the driver is a 21-year-old aspiring hip-hop artist.
Rashad Charjuan Owens, 21, is an aspiring rapper who goes by the name KillingAllBeatz or K.A.B254. Mixes, posted on a SoundCloud account that matches his rapper name and mugshot, have attracted scores of comments in the past 24 hours. Owens, who lives in Killeen, Texas, was to perform Wednesday night at a venue in East Austin, according to the Austin American-Statesman. That night, he had been drinking, his brother told the paper. The man drove through temporary barricades set up for the festival and plowed into a crowd of people, killing two and injuring more than 20. Police said he was fleeing from an officer who was attempting to make a traffic stop. (Washington Post)
His family has also come forward to speak out on the fatal accident.
Owens’ brother and grandmother told the paper he was raised in a Christian home, enrolled in college and just trying to provide for his six kids. “He is good. He is so good. … Whatever happened was out of his control, I am sure,” the’ grandmother told the American-Statesman. (Washington Post)
Details of the horrific accident circulated across the Internet early Thursday (March 13).
Two people were killed and 23 injured when a car plowed into a crowd of people early on Thursday morning near the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) music and film festival in Austin, Texas, and a suspect was arrested, police said. Eyewitnesses and other news outlets on the scene described a grey sedan with a cracked windshield plowing into the crowd, leaving a trail of wounded clubgoers in the middle of the busy intersection. (Chicago Tribune)
Police claim the driver’s attempt to escape a possible traffic violation ultimately resulted in the injuries.
Austin Police Officer Jermaine Kilgore said the driver of the car was trying to evade police at the time of the crash. Kilgore said police attempted to stop the suspect for a traffic violation. He fled the wrong way down a one-way street at high speed. Police said the suspect then made a turn on Red River Street, which was barricaded off for the festival. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the two people killed were on a mo-ped that the motorist hit along with pedestrians who were leaving a club where a concert had been held, the Associated Press reported. (NBC News)
