Woman Killed In Possible Drag Racing Crash On Detroit's West Side

DETROIT (WWJ) - Detroit police are investigating a fatal crash on the city's west side that the victim's family claims was the result of an illegal street race.

The crash happened early Tuesday morning on Evergreen Road just south of 7 Mile Road.

Reporting live from the scene, WWJ's Mike Campbell said an SUV took out a light pole and rolled several times, smashing into a house, before coming to a rest on the front lawn of another house.

LaRonte Bean-Benion identified the victim as his sister, Cierra Bean. He thinks speed had something to do with her death.

"She was just a passenger trying to get a ride to work and now she's no longer here over some fools drag racing. As you can see, you know, down Evergreen, it shopped the pole in half and rolled over I don't know how many times, and she was ejected from the vehicle," said Bean-Benion.

Katon Early, who lives nearby, said he came out of his house after hearing screeches and a bang, and found a cellphone in the road.

"I said, 'I don't know who this is who I'm speaking to, but there's a car accident that happened on my block. I walked down there and found this phone, I don't know who it belongs to.' And then she was like, 'Oh, that's my daughter Cierra,' and I'm like, 'I can't tell you much because I don't know nothing, I just have her phone and you can come back and get it if you want it.' She was like, 'I'll be there just stay by the phone,'" he said.

Bean-Benion said it looks like the driver of the SUV may have been drag racing.

"They're saying something like they're trying to figure out whether or not it's a homicide, a murder or just an accident," he said. "And from the looks of it, for somebody to be racing, I mean it don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that's just not no accident. That's murder."

An investigation is ongoing.

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• Detroit