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OAKLAND — Three people were killed and three others injured in East Oakland early Saturday morning when a speeding car, possibly involved in a sideshow or street race, careened along MacArthur Boulevard on the wrong side of the road, slammed into two parked vehicles at 100th Avenue, flipped over and hit a pedestrian, throwing him over a fence and breaking both of his legs, police said.
Five people were in the car. Those killed were identified as Rickie Reyes, 22, of Hayward, Racquel Cassini, 22, of San Lorenzo and Zsorhzinnia Tevaseu, 19, also of San Lorenzo. Two other passengers were taken to local hospitals and later listed in stable condition. The pedestrian was also listed as stable.
Tevaseu's cousin, Talia Summers, of Oakland, arrived at the crash scene later in the morning with other tearful relatives to see if they could retrieve Tevaseu's purse. She said Tevaseu had a 1-year-daughter and had recently started a job at a photo studio in San Bruno.
"We're not sure exactly what happened," Summers said. "She was with some friends. Maybe involved in sideshows, racing."
The horrendous wreck occurred about 4:31 a.m. in an area of MacArthur with numerous apartment buildings and corner markets. The posted speed limit along that section is 30 mph.
The speeding vehicle was a late-model silver car, possibly a Nissan Altima, although investigators were unable to immediately determine the car's make because of the extreme damage
"We haven't determined yet how fast they were going, but I can tell you it was a high rate of speed," said Oakland police Officer Greg Bellusa, part of the department's fatal crash investigation team. "It looks like they had come over on the wrong side of the road, as you can see by these fresh gouge marks over the median."
The silver car then crashed into a parked gray Toyota Corolla and a white van, pushing the Corolla up onto the sidewalk. The silver car flipped over, landing on the sidewalk on its roof on the other side of the Corolla, up against a light pole and a wooden fence outside an apartment building. As the car slammed to the ground it also struck a man walking on the sidewalk, the impact propelling him over a chain-link fence and into a vacant lot.
Police were investigating whether the wreck was sideshow-related. Residents in the neighborhood said sideshow activity, in which motorists show off their vehicles by spinning doughnuts, hanging out of cars and speeding, is a constant problem in the neighborhood.
"It's every weekend, from that stop light right on down to the next," one resident said. "These kids spend $5,000 on paint jobs, then they crash their cars."
The block of MacArthur was shut down until early afternoon Saturday as police measured tire marks and collected evidence.
"We've had multiple fatalities before in crashes involving more than one vehicle," Bellusa said, "but it's rare to have three people die in a solo car crash."
