Six months ago, a university student was killed when his car was struck by an off-duty police officer. Last week, a police report which was provided to the student’s family, blamed both drivers for the accident.
Junior Brian Gray was on his way to a final exam when he made a left turn onto Belair Drive in Bowie into the path of Mario Chavez, a Prince George’s County Police officer who was off duty at the time and driving a county police cruiser.
The police report concludes that Gray should have yielded the right of way, as his street had a stop sign, but that Chavez, 30, was driving 50 mph on the residential street, twice the posted limit. Chavez was also injured in the Dec. 10 accident.
Brian Gray’s mother, Mary Gray, who witnessed the accident from another car, said she was not surprised to see Brian bearing some of the legal blame, but she said if Chavez had been driving at the speed limit, there wouldn’t have been a fatal crash.
“If you were driving 25, I don’t think you would kill someone, regardless of whether they yield the right of way,” she said. “There’s no reason for anyone to die in a residential neighborhood.”
Brian Gray’s crumpled Chevrolet Beretta ended up 85 feet from the impact point, his mother said. He died shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Mary Gray described Belair Drive, where the accident occurred, as the “main street” of northwest Bowie. It connects Route 450 to Routes 3, 50 and 301, and the accident occurred just blocks from where the road narrows from two lanes in each direction to one. Nevertheless, she said, no one should be driving 50 mph on a house-lined residential street.
Although the police report determined Chavez’s partial responsibility for the accident, he faces no criminal charges pending review by Glenn Ivey, state’s attorney for Prince George’s County. Ivey’s office could not be reached for comment.
Prince George’s County Police spokesman Cpl. Stephen Pacheco declined to comment on the incident and would not say whether Chavez is still on active duty.
Even six months after Gray’s death, his active Facebook page continues to receive frequent wall postings from friends, such as Megan Johns, a junior at Salisbury University. Johns said in an e-mail that the police report was a step toward a resolution of the affair she hopes will eventually end in Chavez’s prosecution.
“I think that we are all still very numb from the accident and once the questions are answered it will really help us all cope better,” she said. “He was simply making a left hand turn to take himself to school, and he’s gone. Brian was a responsible young man whose life unfortunately was taken, and he and his family deserve justice in this case.”
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