United We Stand on PCP We’ll Fall… All Over The Grounds Of Unifest

Click on the map to explore all of the streets where the horrible scene took place.

Unifest is an annual festival in Southeast, Washington, DC meant to bring African Americans together as a people. However on Saturday, June 2, 2007 nothing related to its goal of peace and unity happened. Early in the afternoon a woman came flying down the street in an out-of-control car injuring about 40 people in the process.

I first heard about this deplorable event on the 11:00 FOX 5 News. As I stood there in front of my TV all I could process in my mind were the words coming from Brooke Baldwin, the Fox 5 reporter. The most serious injury that occurred during that afternoon happened to a four-year-old little boy. His leg was fractured in two places and his father injured his arm trying to save his son. The whole event puzzled me.

On Monday I caught up with Hassan Pye, one of my fellow classmates and an eyewitness of the unfortunate event. He told me that he was hanging out at Unifest with some of his friends when out of nowhere he sees people flying through the air. His initial reaction was to get “home to my mother ASAP!” but he decided not to. He and friends just stood there in awe, scared and horrified along with everyone else. “After she hit a whole lot of people she just stopped! I looked back to see the police after her. Then this man pulled her out of the red car and she laid on the sidewalk because she was high. I don’t know what type of car it was, but it looked like Volkswagon.”

Hassan and I talked about what we saw on the news and how we felt. I was horrified. Just the fact that I was thinking about going made my leg begin to hurt as if I could feel the little boy’s pain. But Hassan, on the other hand, was filled with more aggressive emotions. Rage, madness, revenge was clearly his thought pattern. “Man, all because of her the Unifest was shut down. Plus, she had a little seven-year-old in the back seat.”

Then I realized why he felt the way he did and began to feel the same way.

She was on PCP. Her name was not given, but she was known in the neighborhood by the everyday “corner hangers”. “Oh, that’s nothing like her”, or “I don’t know why she would do something like that,” they claimed. But I asked, why even try to defend someone who’s obviously wrong? Her actions could not be explained nor justified by anything someone says.

This is one extreme example of what happens when drugs enter our neighborhoods. No telling what else could have happened before, during or after Saturday afternoon. I personally don’t agree with drugs, guns or anything like that or putting children lives in danger because of your own stupidity. That little girl in the backseat could have really been injured. Thank God she wasn’t.

The Unifest is a time of celebration and unity through music and just having a good time. Saturday June the 2nd was unfortunate. But I feel it happened for a reason. Maybe now people will finally wake up to the issues that confront Southeast youth everyday. Think about Hassan who was right there in the middle. Think about the little boy who has to prepare for surgery and probably won’t be able to play the way he used to. Think about the family members of the victims, and the ones like me whose hearts are heavy. Think about children who live the life of the seven-year-old every single day—the ones who sit in the backseat and watch as their love ones harm themselves constantly. Who are they supposed to look up to? Who can they aspire to be like in life with such role models? Ponder a while longer and ask yourself, “What can I do to change this?”, “How can I stop this from happening to anyone else?” Well, the answer is simple and starts with you. The only question now—when are you going to do something about it?

A crowd at Washington, D.C.'s Unifest festival