DPD Blames Impatient Drivers, But Say Officer Caused 635 Mayhem
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Dallas police blame inpatient drivers and acknowledge one of their own officers for causing a chaotic scene along I-635 in Dallas Tuesday.
Vehicles scattered every way, some turning in the opposite direction trying to get off the highway after police shut down all eastbound lanes because of an accident.
On Wednesday, Dallas police issued a statement blaming "...some motorists, apparently unwilling to wait until the collisions could be cleared, took it upon themselves to go against the flow of traffic in an effort to get out of the congestion..."
But police are also acknowledging, "...Adding to the difficulties, one well-intentioned officer appears to have directed some motorists up a closed ramp to try and get them off the freeway with no success."
One woman who was stuck in traffic is Jan Brashear of Flower Mound. "I've never seen anything quite like it."
Brashear said police directed them up the on-ramp, but there was just one problem: She says, "Nobody stopped the on-coming traffic, and an 18-wheeler started coming at us, so another police officer told us to come around again. There was no rhyme or reason or order to any of it."
Another witness, Michael Brown said, "We've all been stuck in traffic, but nothing like that there." He says an officer told him to turn around. "He kind of looked at me, made eye contact with me, going like that, telling me to turn around. I thought that was odd because we were bumper-to-bumper on 635 and he wanted us to turn around and that caused chaos. Once we got half way turned around, that's when he told us to turn back around."
Police say the confusion led to seven other collisions.
While officers say they tried clearing the scenes as quickly as possible, they say the problem was there were few alternate routes drivers could use to get off the highway.
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