Trial ordered for Tamika Pledger in KCK traffic crash that killed teen

A Kansas City, Kan., woman whose car struck and killed a teenage girl in January will stand trial for involuntary manslaughter, a Wyandotte County judge ruled Thursday.

District Judge Mike Russell also ordered Tamika Pledger, 39, to trial on three counts of aggravated battery for injuring three other teens that day.

According to testimony in Pledger’s preliminary hearing Thursday, her car was traveling at least 55 mph in a 20 mph zone when it crested a hill and struck the teens in the 1300 block of Troup Avenue.

Two teens were fighting in the street and others were watching or trying to break up the fight when they were struck. Pledger had driven to the scene after receiving a call from one teen that there was about to be a fight.

One of the teens, 16-year-old Tierra Smith, a student at Raytown High School, died a week after the crash. Several witnesses testified that she was trying to break up the fight when the car hit her.

Pledger’s attorney entered a not guilty plea for Pledger, a longtime community activist who was running for the board of commissioners in Wyandotte County at the time of the wreck. She remains free on bond. A pretrial hearing has been set for Nov. 6.

All three teens injured in the incident testified Thursday. All three suffered broken bones and other serious injuries.

Mark Britt, 18, was playing basketball at a friend’s house when he saw the fight breaking out. He knew some of the girls involved and had walked over to try to break it up when he heard someone say, “Watch out.”

Britt said the next thing he remembered was waking up on the ground with blood streaming from his head and being unable to stand. He said he saw other people on the ground injured.

“At first it seemed like a dream,” Britt testified.

He said he heard Pledger saying she was sorry and telling someone, “I think I killed someone.”

Britt suffered two broken legs and a fractured vertebra in his neck. He spent two weeks in the hospital.

Essence Robinson, 17, also said she was trying to break up the fight, which involved a friend and another girl, when she heard a car approaching. She doesn’t remember being hit.

She came to while on the ground and saw Britt with blood on his head, she testified. She saw her sister, Brandy Glover, and Smith on the ground and thought they were dead, she testified.

Robinson said she heard Pledger saying she couldn’t stop because her brakes went out. Robinson suffered a shattered leg and spent more than a week in the hospital.

Glover, 15, said she was trying to break up the fight and didn’t see or hear anything before waking up in the grass next to the street with a broken leg. She spent several weeks in the hospital.

Watching from nearby, Ray’Von Hill, 15, saw bodies flying through the air after being hit by a car that “came down the hill so fast,” he testified.

“There was no time,” he testified when asked if any of those hit could have gotten out of the way.

Sgt. Tobi Wolf was the first Kansas City, Kan., police officer on the scene.

“It was very chaotic,” she said.

Wolf said Pledger was “visibly upset.” The officer put her arm around Pledger’s shoulder to comfort her.

Wolf said Pledger told her, “My car slipped. My car just slipped and hit them.”

A mechanical inspection of her car after the crash found that the brakes and steering were in good working condition, according to testimony.

Sgt. Steve Walsh, a traffic crash reconstruction expert with the Shawnee Police Department, said testing done after the crash showed that 1.28 seconds elapsed from the time Pledger would have been able to see the group of teens as her car crested the steep hill to when she applied her brakes.

Her minimum speed at the time of impact was calculated at 55 mph, Walsh testified. Based on the reaction time, if she had been driving at the posted 20 mph speed limit, her car would have stopped 120 feet short of the teens, Walsh said.

This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 2:23 PM with the headline "Trial ordered for Tamika Pledger in KCK traffic crash that killed teen."