Author name: CCAR Staff

STILLWATER, Okla. >> Police have revealed the identities of the three adults killed and dozens more injured when a woman plowed her car into the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade crowd, sending some spectators flying through the air and children’s shoes strewn around the site.

The crash also killed a 2-year-old boy and hurt other children during what was supposed to be a joyful event Saturday morning in Stillwater. Police arrested the driver, 25-year-old Adacia Chambers, on a DUI charge and are awaiting blood test results to determine if she was impaired by drugs or alcohol.

• Photos: Oklahoma State homecoming parade crash

After seeing the crash and surveying the street still strewn with lawn chairs, blankets and water bottles Saturday afternoon, Dan Whitmore said he had changed his mind about attending the homecoming game.

“You look at the carnage alone. (Someone) had a little baby stroller crushed up. It’s disgusting,” said Whitmire, who was visiting his daughter from Dallas.

Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis said there was discussion about canceling the homecoming game against Kansas, but that it was played as scheduled. The victims were remembered with a moment of silence before kickoff, and most of the OSU players knelt on the sideline in prayer.

Early Sunday, police identified the three adults who were killed at the scene, but declined to name of the 2-year-old boy who later died at a hospital and other minors who were hurt.

Capt. Kyle Gibbs said 23-year-old Nakita Prabhakar Nakal, a student at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond was killed in the crash, along with Bonnie Jean Stone and Marvin Lyle Stone, both 65 and of Stillwater. Another 47 people were injured in the collision, including five who remained in critical condition early Sunday, Gibbs said.

“I don’t know if they’re expected to pull through or not, we’re crossing our fingers at this point,” that they will survive, Griggs said.

Chambers, a Stillwater resident, remained jailed Sunday and could make her initial court appearance Monday, Gibbs said.

Chambers’ Hyundai Elantra struck an unoccupied motorcycle of an officer who was working security at the parade, then went into the crowd, according to Gibbs.

Gibbs said investigators are going through four to five dozen witness statements and may approach the district attorney Monday to discuss formal charges.

“Our investigators are going as fast as they can to collect statements from witnesses.”

One spectator, Konda Walker, from Anchorage, Alaska, told the Stillwater News Press that some people initially thought the crash was part of the show.

“People were flying 30 feet into the air like rag dolls,” Walker said.

Chambers’ father, Floyd Chambers of Oologah, told The Oklahoman newspaper he couldn’t believe his daughter was involved and said she was not an alcoholic. He described her as “timid” and said she had attended homecoming festivities Friday night with family but that her boyfriend had told him she was home by 10 p.m.

“This is just not who she is. They’re going to paint her into a horrible person but this is not (her),” Floyd Chambers told the paper.

A woman who answered a call to a phone number listed for Floyd Chambers told The Associated Press no one was available to talk.

It’s not the first tragedy to strike events connected to Oklahoma State sports programs. Ten people, including two OSU men’s basketball players, were killed in a 2001 plane crash while returning from a game in Colorado. And Oklahoma State women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant Miranda Serna were among four killed in a plane crash in Arkansas in 2011 while on a recruiting trip.

“The families, I know, and these victims will never be able to understand this, nor will we,” Hargis said. “But the Cowboy family pulls together. Unfortunately we’ve had to do it before and we’re going to do it again.”

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

STILLWATER, Okla. >> A woman suspected of driving under the influence plowed into a crowd Saturday during the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade, killing four people — including a toddler — and injuring dozens more in a collision that sent some spectators flying through the air.

Stillwater police Capt. Kyle Gibbs said the woman’s Hyundai Elantra struck an unoccupied motorcycle of an officer who was working security at the parade, then went into the crowd. She was taken into custody, and Gibbs said investigators were awaiting the results of blood tests to determine if she was impaired by drugs or alcohol.

Oklahoma University Medical Center and The Children’s Hospital announced in a statement Saturday night that a 2-year-old was the fourth person to die from injuries suffered in the morning crash. Five children and three adults remained hospitalized with conditions ranging from good to critical, officials said. Gibbs had said earlier that 34 people were taken to the hospital.

• Photos: Oklahoma State homecoming parade crash

Police said Adacia Chambers, 25, of Stillwater, was arrested on the DUI charge.

“We treat these like we would any homicide investigation,” Gibbs said. “It’ll probably take several days to get additional information as to the cause of the accident.”

Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis said the homecoming game against Kansas would be played Saturday afternoon.

Dave Kapple of Houston told the Stillwater News Press that he and his son were about 10 feet away when they saw the vehicle barreling into the crowd.

“We heard somebody scream, ‘Look out!.’ (The driver) plowed through a police motorcycle, and then a crowd of people,” Kapple said. “People were flying everywhere.”

Konda Walker, from Anchorage, Alaska, was attending the festivities ahead of the homecoming game.

“At first we thought it was part of the show,” Walker told the News Press. “People were flying 30 feet into the air like rag dolls.”

Phone calls to Oklahoma State officials were not immediately returned.

The university posted on Twitter: “Oklahoma State University is saddened by the tragic parade incident earlier this morning. Our thoughts & prayers are with those affected.”

PARIS >> At least 40 people, mostly elderly tourists starting off on a day trip, were killed Friday when a bus and truck collided on a country road in wine country in southwest France, officials said.

The cause and circumstances of the crash — near the village of Puisseguin, about 50 kilometers east of Bordeaux — were unclear. Scores of emergency workers rushed to the scene.

The death toll may have been so unusually high because the bus caught fire, an official with the national gendarme service said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named.

French President Francois Hollande, on a visit to Greece, said the government was “totally mobilized” to help after what he called a “terrible accident.”

The bus was carrying mostly elderly people from nearby towns on a one-day tourist trip to another site in southwest France, and had just left when it collided with the truck, legislator Gilles Savary said on BFM television. He called it one of the deadliest accidents in recent years.

French media reports said some people managed to escape, notably by breaking windows.

The weather in the region was overcast Friday morning but not rainy.

JERUSALEM >> Two Arab attackers opened fire in a bus station in southern Israel on Sunday, killing one Israeli and wounding six others in one of the boldest attacks yet of a monthlong wave of violence.

The attack came as Israel further tightened security around the country, highlighted by the construction of a barrier separating Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. In a bid to halt the fighting, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Paris he would meet the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming days.

Israel has deployed thousands of police, backed up by troops, to maintain order following a spate of attacks, mostly stabbings, by Palestinian assailants. Those measures have so far failed to stop the violence.

In Sunday night’s attack, police said the two assailants entered the central bus station in the southern city of Beersheba and began shooting and stabbing people. They said an Israeli man was killed and six other people, including four police officers, were wounded to varying degrees.

Doron Ben-Hamo, a police spokesman, told Channel 2 TV that one of the attackers appeared to have stabbed a civilian and then stolen his weapon.

One of the attackers was shot and killed, while the second was shot and wounded. Details on his condition were not immediately known.

Israeli media showed footage of a blood-streaked floor and rows of ambulances outside the bus station. Security camera footage from the bus station aired on Israeli TV showed what appeared to be a civilian shooting one of the attackers as soldiers and civilians crouched for cover nearby.

The attack was one of the most serious incidents amid near-daily bouts of violence that has hit Israel and the Palestinian territories over the past month. After the attack, a crowd of Israelis gathered outside the bus station and chanted “death to Arabs.”

The unrest erupted in Jerusalem a month ago over tensions surrounding a Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims. It soon spread to Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and then to the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Israel has struggled to contain near-daily attacks by Palestinian assailants. Authorities have blocked roads and placed checkpoints at the entrances of Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. Other security measures include ID checks and requiring some Palestinian residents to lift their shirts and roll up pant legs as they exit their neighborhoods to prove they are not carrying knives. Soldiers have been deployed in Jerusalem and cities across Israel.

On Sunday, Israeli police erected a barrier to separate the Jewish neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv from the adjacent Palestinian neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber as part of the heightened security. A number of attackers have come from Jabal Mukaber.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the barrier, a row of six concrete slabs about five meters (16 feet) high, was meant to protect Armon Hanatziv from rocks and firebombs lobbed from Jabal Mukaber.

But erecting a barrier dividing areas of Jerusalem is a sensitive step, testing Israel’s repeated statements over the years that the city is its undivided, eternal capital.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the area in a move that is not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state.

“This has no political meaning, said Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry. “It’s one more aspect of our security measures.”

Samri, the police spokeswoman, said the barrier would remain “for as long as needed” and that it could be lengthened based on security needs.

On Sunday, the six slabs lined a sidewalk on a road between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. Writing in Hebrew on the barrier said it was a “temporary, mobile police barrier.” It did not prevent pedestrians from leaving or entering.

Palestinians said the roadblocks are collective punishment and ineffective in deterring attackers.

Israeli leaders say the violence is due to Palestinian incitement. But Palestinians say it is the result of years of Israeli occupation, failed peace efforts and lack of hope among their youth.

Much of that hopelessness is found in Arab areas of east Jerusalem. They complain of discrimination, noting that municipal services from education to garbage pickup in their areas are neglected.

Over the past month, nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. In that time, 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including 20 labeled by Israel as attackers, and the rest in clashes with Israeli troops.

The daily attacks have caused a sense of panic across Israel and raised fears that the region is on the cusp of a new round of heavy violence.

The outbreak was fueled by rumors that Israel was plotting to take over Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, a hilltop compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine and a key national symbol for the Palestinians.

Israel has adamantly denied the allegations, saying it has no plans to change the status quo at the site, where Jews are allowed to visit but not pray. It accuses the Palestinians of inciting to violence through the false claims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his government would start going after the finances of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a group he accuses of being the chief inciter of the recent violence.

“Israel is not the problem at the Temple Mount, Israel is the solution,” he told his Cabinet. “We will protect the status quo, we are the only ones who are doing this and we will continue to do it responsibly and seriously.”

Associated Press photographer Ariel Schalit in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES — Because of the mudslides and flash flooding in the northern part of the county, Amtrak Thruway Bus Service was suspended today between Bakersfield and Los Angeles on the San Joaquin Route.

“There is no alternate transportation at this time,” Amtrak said in a statement.

Passenger notices and other announcements are posted online at www.Amtrak.com/service-alerts-and-notices.

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Seattle Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman was suspended indefinitely by the team Thursday after his arrest in a hit-and-run investigation.

Coleman was booked into King County Jail in Seattle early Thursday and bail was denied until his first court appearance. He was arrested by Bellevue police but details were not immediately available. An afternoon news conference was scheduled.

Coleman’s agents said in a statement “it seems Derrick may have fallen asleep while driving home from a Seahawks’ facility.”

The King County prosecutor’s office said that because Coleman was not booked until after midnight his initial court appearance will be Friday at the earliest. He is being investigated for vehicular assault and felony hit and run.

Bellevue police described the accident on Twitter shortly after it happened Wednesday night as a “heavy rescue.” A police photo of the scene showed one vehicle on its roof on a steep, grassy embankment and another across a hedge, on its side on the roadway below.

Coleman is in his fourth season with the Seahawks out of UCLA. He was on the practice squad in 2012 before making the 53-man roster in 2013. Coleman missed 11 games and the playoffs last season because of a broken foot.

Coleman is legally deaf and his football success has made him an inspirational figure. He has been featured in TV commercials and written a book that was released this year.

LOS ANGELES — John Stamos has been charged with misdemeanor driving under the influence of a drug after he was arrested for erratic driving in Beverly Hills in June, prosecutors announced Thursday.

The “Full House” star was charged Wednesday and is due to be arraigned on Friday. The charging document does not identify the drug Stamos was allegedly using.

Stamos was arrested on June 12 on suspicion of driving under the influence and was hospitalized for a possible medical condition. Police said at the time they determined Stamos was under the influence at the hospital, but have not released further details about the incident. If convicted, the actor faces six months in jail.

Beverly Hills police declined to identify the drug Stamos had allegedly taken before his arrest.

The charges come at a busy time for Stamos, 52, who is working on a reboot of “Full House” for Netflix and has a Fox sitcom, “Grandfathered,” which premiered on Sept. 29. The show centers on Stamos’ character, who discovers he has a son and infant granddaughter he never knew about.

Stamos’ publicist Matt Polk did not immediately return email and phone messages Thursday morning.

ONTARIO >> A woman died and two children were injured in a crash Wednesday afternoon.

Shortly before 2 p.m., a 73-year-old Ontario woman driving a Ford Taurus sedan with her two granddaughters as passengers, ages 10 and 8, left a 7-Eleven convenience store at 2945 South Vineyard Avenue.

When the vehicle pulled out into traffic on Vineyard Avenue, it was broad-sided by a black Chevrolet Tahoe SUV driven by a 27-year-old Ontario woman, police said.

Initially, witness information led police to believe the crash was head-on, but as the investigation progressed they discovered that wasn’t the case. The woman was pronounced dead at the location, and her grandaughters were taken to a local hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

Police don’t believe drugs or alcohol attributed to the crash.

The woman driving the SUV received minor injuries, police added.

A fatal motorcycle crash early Wednesday led to the shutdown of Highway 138 near the 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass, California Highway Patrol officials said.

The fatal crash took place around 6:30 a.m. A witness reported the rider was struck by an unidentified vehicle, according to the CHP incident log. Initial reports indicated a vehicle ran over the rider and kept going.

Authorities issued a SigAlert for the area, and officials shut down both sides of the highway to conduct an investigation.

— Beatriz E. Valenzuela