Oklahoma school crash: One dead and several injured after truck hits students

Students are reportedly athletes from the school

A girl was killed and five other people were injured, three critically, when a motorist mourning the Sunday traffic death of his 29-year-old son slammed his vehicle into a high school cross-country team as they ran along a street outside their suburban Oklahoma City school Monday, officials said.

A total of six people were struck in the crash at Moore High School on Monday afternoon, police confirmed to The Independent.

The incident happened shortly after classes were dismissed at 3 pm on Monday and the group of students was training along heavily travelled North Eastern Avenue outside the school, said police spokesman Jeremy Lewis.

School officials identified the student killed as Moore High School senior Rachel Freeman.

Max Leroy Townsend, 56, has been booked into the Cleveland County jail charged with first-degree manslaughter and six counts of failure to stop and render aid.

A pickup truck driven by Townsend struck a vehicle before running over the students, then struck two more cars as he drove away, Mr Lewis said. A witness pursued the man for three blocks before stopping him, and police took him into custody. Police suspect alcohol was a factor in the incident, he said. Toxicology tests were pending.

Mr Lewis said Mr Townsend's son, Cody Townsend, was killed Sunday in a multi-vehicle crash in Moore.

The suspect - who was driving a red pickup truck at the time of the crash – has since been arrested. At this time police are not releasing the names of the students or suspect.

Reports suggested that the students were school athletes out for a run when they were hit.

A student on the school’s softball team was practising in a nearby field when she heard the crash. “All of a sudden we heard a loud something and a bunch of screaming and then the coaches looked over and we all ran to see what it was,” she told KoCo News. “It was a couple of kids laying on the ground and kids surrounding them.”​

Footage from the scene shows a man being handcuffed and put in a police car. Several local news reporters are saying the suspect is a 56-year-old male.

Moore Police Department are urging people to avoid the area “as emergency crews will be entering and exiting”.

It is not clear at this time if there was a motive to the crash.

Additional reporting by AP