Man charged with murder after car jumps curb in Queens, leaving 1 dead, 2 injured

LAURELTON (WABC) -- A man has been charged with murder after police say his car jumped a curb in Queens Saturday night and plowed into several people, leaving one man dead and two women injured.

The incident happened around 8:30 on Merrick Boulevard and 225th Street in Laurelton, near a banquet hall where a baby shower had been taking place.

"I hear people shouting, 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,' and shouting and running away," said Derrick Tohouagnon, an eyewitness.

Derrick was right in the middle of a melee Saturday night Security cameras at the tire shop where he works caught the chaos that unfolded, violence that turned this stretch of Merrick Boulevard into a blood bath.

"I hear ambulances and police coming to the place," Tohouagnon said.

Those agonizing screams, coming from outside of the banquet hall, where a baby shower was going on...where a memorial now stands in the exact stop where Kevin Lewis was killed. The 20-year-old was pinned under a car driven by Kevin Weekes.

Also hit by the Nissan Altima, Kiana Solomon.

"She doesn't remember what happened, she doesn't remember anything," said Coreen Solomon, the victim's mother.

Coreen Solomon tells Eyewitness News, like Kevin, her 19-year-old daughter was at the baby shower, when Weekes plowed into the crowd.

"The car approached from behind. My niece went to the shower also, my niece was close by," Solomon said.

In the minutes before the deadly chain of events, you see a group running away from the hall, into the tire shop.

A huge fight had broken out.

One person grabbed for a tool but changed his mind, and they headed back towards the scene.

A short time later, that same group ran away from the scene, and by now Kevin and the others had been hurt. Police arrived and then the chase took place. Detectives tackled and cuffed a person.

Sources tell Eyewitness News, Weekes was also heading to the baby shower, left and was then surrounded by more than 20 people who began assaulting him.

He says he ran with his friends to his car, was driving and hit someone.

At that point, he says his car stopped, the group continued beating him, and he broke free, realized he had been stabbed, went home and called 911.

As for Kiana, she's having a tough time accepting her friend is gone.

"They were friends since high school and I don't think it has really sunken in yet," Solomon said.

Friends and family stopped by the Lewis home all day Sunday, where he lived with his mother and his grandmother.

"He was more than a grandson, he was the kid who took care of the house, did everything for his grandmother," Ford adds.

Weekes was charged with murder, 3 counts of assault, and 3 counts of reckless endangerment.

Lewis worked at Toys R Us and went to school at Queensborough Community College. His friends say none of this makes sense.

"When I put all of this together, it was a numbing feeling," says Lewis' friend, Donte Cunningham, "I wasn't in tears, it was numbing."