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Stolen car chase kills 3 teenagers
By AMY HERDY, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- With police sirens wailing behind him, 15-year-old D'Vonn Green punched the accelerator to 80 mph.
Ahead of them, a deputy was ready. He threw metal sticks imbedded with nails into their path, hoping to puncture the tires. But the teenage driver saw the sticks and swerved to avoid them. He lost control. The car flew across the grassy median and slammed into a concrete pole near the U.S. 301 overpass. The impact sheared the car in half, the front end hurtling another 277 feet and crossing three eastbound lanes of I-4. Three passengers were killed: 15-year-old Talanda Holder, who recently promised his mother he would get a high school diploma, died instantly; Luke Hannah, 16, who was beginning to record his own music, was pronounced dead at the scene; and James Lumpkins Jr., 17, a Hillsborough High sophomore who loved basketball, died shortly after 10 a.m. Thursday at Tampa General Hospital. Green, the driver, sitting in the only part of the car that was not damaged, ran from the scene. "He doesn't have a scratch," said Hillsborough sheriff's Lt. Rod Reder. After a brief chase, sheriff's K-9 deputies tracked Green to the nearby Florida State Fairgrounds, where he was taken into custody. He was booked at the juvenile assessment center on charges that include three counts of vehicular homicide and leaving a scene with death, grand theft auto and aggravated fleeing and eluding. The crash was the latest in a long line of fatal police chases in the Tampa Bay area. Since 1993, at least 20 people have been killed in such pursuits, most of them involving stolen cars. Hillsborough Sheriff Cal Henderson said Thursday that chasing car thieves is a necessary part of upholding the law. "This is a real tragedy, but I don't see how a law enforcement agency can do without some sort of pursuit," he said. "If the word gets out you can steal cars and nobody will chase you, we might as well fold up house." Annette Warren, mother of 17-year-old James Lumpkins Jr., said she learned about her son's death from a stranger who knocked on the door of her apartment in the Robles Park housing complex. She said she wasn't angry at the deputies. "They just shouldn't have chased them," she said. A few blocks away, Marcellia Holder, Talanda's mother, agreed. "They were wrong," she said of the deputies who pursued the stolen car. "Now that's three kids who had their lives ahead of them, gone." Henderson said Wednesday night's pursuit appears to have followed department policy, which allows officers to chase a vehicle involved in a felony if a supervisor gives approval. But he said the incident would be investigated, as is standard procedure. The chase began about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday in Brandon, when the Dodge Neon stopped at a red light at State Road 60 and Regency Boulevard, in front of a patrol car driven by sheriff's Deputy Brian Wells. The teens inside were acting suspiciously, said sheriff's Lt. Reder. Wells ran the Neon's tag and learned it was stolen. The Neon made a quick U-turn and headed west on SR 60. It moved onto northbound Interstate 75 and then went west on Interstate 4 before crashing near the U.S. 301 overpass. Family members who learned of the crash began to show up at the scene even as sheriff's investigators were arriving. Luke Hannah's mother, Cynthia Browdy, 34, said she repeatedly begged a deputy to let her see the bodies. She said she left after a deputy threatened to arrest her if she crossed the crime scene tape. "It's a horrifying thing that that's the way they found out," Reder said. "But there's no way we can let them near the crime scene." On Thursday afternoon, a distraught Browdy said she still had not been allowed to see her son, whose body was at the medical examiner's office. "I just want to see him. I don't care what he looks like," she said. "That's my baby." Marcellia Holder, 30, the mother of Talanda, said her son had been suspended from Webb Middle School but was supposed to go back Thursday. She last saw him Wednesday morning as she was leaving for her job as a security officer for the Tampa Housing Authority. She had recently asked him which of her five children was going to give her a high school diploma. "I'm going to make you proud of me," she said Talanda told her. "He kissed me on the cheek," Holder said, "and told me he loved me." Her son had been in trouble for fighting, she said, but had promised his mother he was staying away from bigger problems, such as stolen cars. He had lived with his grandmother, Patricia Whaley, until she died in January from a brain tumor, Holder said. Her son had taken her death hard and looked at her photo albums every night. Holder said she did not know the other boys who were with her son. "My heart goes out to the other mothers," she said. Browdy, Hannah's mother, said her son had been arrested for being a passenger in stolen cars in the past, but had promised those days were over. He had been drug free for about a year, she said, and was concentrating on writing music. Authorities made two other arrests Thursday in connection with the fatal crash. Terrance Goss, 15, of 1910 E 22nd Ave., was charged with grand theft, and Martin Luther Johnson, 18, of 3719 N 36th St., was charged with driving a stolen vehicle. The two teens were in a stolen Ford pickup truck that was accompanying the Dodge Neon, police said. They apparently fled after the wreck occurred. -- Times staff writer Tamara Lush and researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.
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