A Capitol Heights grandmother and her friend were killed Wednesday morning in a collision with a Mount Rainier police cruiser at a busy Prince George’s County intersection.
Barbara Hagans, 69, was driving her 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser when it was struck by a cruiser driven by an on-duty Mount Rainier officer as Hagans was making a left turn from Route 202 to Technology Way. Hagans’ passenger, Lillie Rowe, 78, of Upper Marlboro, was also killed.
Hagans left behind six children and more grandchildren than her grief-stricken daughter Debbie Brown said she could count.
“She was a good woman,” Brown said.
The name of the officer, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, is being withheld for 24 hours as required by police policy, Mount Rainier Police Chief Michael Scott said.
Around 9:30 a.m., the officer was driving south on Route 202 to a court appointment in Upper Marlboro as he approached the intersection of Technology Way with a steady green light, said Sgt. Arthur Betts, a spokesman for the Maryland State Police.
Hagans was turning left from the northbound side of the divided highway when she crossed two lanes of the southbound side and was struck by the cruiser on the passenger side where Rowe was sitting, Betts said. The officer, who was in the lane to the left of the right-turn lane for Technology Way, braked but didn’t stop in time. The collision caused Hagans’ car to flip at least once before it halted on the south side of the intersection.
There are no hills or curves that could have disrupted Hagans’ view, but it’s possible a vehicle in the left lanes of Route 202 southbound could have prevented her from seeing the police cruiser, Betts said. The officer involved has been on the force for 18 months and has been in one other accident in which he collided with an officer while responding to a burglary in progress, the police chief said. Neither officer was injured in that crash.
“It’s too early to tell if the officer did anything wrong,” Betts said. The investigation could take up to 30 days.
