Foster-Powell T-Bone crash on Powell Boulevard kills one

INCLUDES VIDEO | Here’s why SE Powell Boulevard was closed down for most of the day on Sunday …

SE Powell Boulevard is closed, just west of the Lents neighborhood, while police investigate a deadly motor vehicle crash.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

While it’s not clear exactly what led up to the fatal, grinding T-bone crash on Sunday morning, January 15, on S.E. Powell Boulevard near 80th Avenue – what is clear is that the smashup is a setback for the Portland Bureau of Transportation Vision Zero program.

Portland Police Bureau (PPB) East Precinct officers were dispatched at 9:33 a.m., and upon arrival found a 1994 Chevrolet 2500 pickup truck in a westbound traffic lane of Powell Boulevard. Nearby, they also saw a 1999 Ford Escort with the driver’s-side door smashed in stopped partly in an eastbound lane of Powell, facing southbound at 80th Avenue.

The involved vehicles came to rest like this, when the Ford Escort was hit broadside by the Chevrolet 2500 pickup truck.

“Officers found the driver of the Ford Escort dead; the driver of the Chevy pickup remained at the scene,” a PPB official reported.

It wasn’t long until the PPB’s Major Crash Team (MCT) rolled in, across the street from the west entrance of the Winco-anchored parking lot. Investigators closed S.E. Powell Boulevard from 82nd Avenue of Roses west to 79th Avenue.

Watch, as PPB Major Crash Team investigators gather evidence in this crash:

Four days later, PPB identified the driver of the Ford Escort who perished in the crash as 44-year-old Tyler L. David.

MCT Investigators set up their FARO vehicle crash scene reconstruction device and place evidence markers in S. E. Powell Boulevard.

The preliminary investigation revealed that Tyler David was pulling out of the parking lot onto Powell Boulevard when his Ford Escort was struck broadside by the westbound Chevrolet pickup, which was being driven by a 17-year-old man. That driver has, so far, not been charged or cited – but the investigation is continuing.

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