Homeless people struck by hit-run driver in downtown Tulsa

TULSA — The person police say killed a man and injured two other people during an apparently intentional hit-and-run under a downtown Tulsa bridge Monday morning appears to be the same person who drove over another woman less than 12 hours later.

Tulsa police Sgt. Stephen Florea said Monday morning the first incident, which occurred about 6:15 a.m. under the Interstate 244 overpass in the 500 block of North Cheyenne Avenue, seems to be an “absolutely” deliberate act targeting people who are homeless.

That vehicular assault killed a 46-year-old man and left a 49-year-old woman hospitalized with severe injuries. A third person suffered a minor abrasion to his leg.

“The pickup truck actually circled the block a couple of times before coming back, driving up over the curb and driving down the sidewalk to run over these individuals,” Florea said.

Just before 5 p.m. Monday, Florea said the same man drove over a woman’s legs as she sat on a curb near 14th Place and Carthage Avenue, just northeast of a QuikTrip convenience store. The woman was hospitalized with injuries that were not considered to be lifethreatening.

Florea said evidence shows that the driver swerved to drive over the curb and hit the woman, who also is homeless, before fleeing north on Carthage Avenue to a highway access road and then driving east.

Florea urged the public to be vigilant in looking for a small, white, mid-1980s to 1990s model pickup, possibly a Toyota or Nissan, that could have damage on the passenger side because of the Monday morning hit-and-run.

James Russell, one of the three people hit Monday morning, told the Tulsa World in an interview at the John 3:16 Mission later that day that he had awakened under the bridge to the sound of a loud crash. He said the other man and the woman, whom he didn’t know beforehand, had been sleeping side-by-side about 15 feet away from him and had their feet toward the street when they were hit.

“The vehicle was driving across the concrete under the bridge, and as best as I could tell something kept it from hitting me (more directly),” Russell said. “It all happened so fast, and I was stunned to wake up that way.”

“I was right in the middle of all the carnage, and basically all I got was an abrasion,” he said, pointing to a spot on his left leg where he says he was hit.