John Jefferson
Scene footage of a crash in Florida that killed two people (WTVJ/YouTube).
A Tesla driver out on pretrial release in a firearm case in Florida may have been fleeing deputies when he caused a high-speed chain-reaction crash that left two women dead and injured two others — one critically.
The crash happened at 4 p.m. on Sunday near Northwest 27th Avenue and Northwest Sixth Street near Fort Lauderdale, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Authorities said Gavin Dorvil, 19, was behind the wheel of a 2023 Tesla Model 3 speeding when he T-boned a Dodge Durango in a chain-reaction crash that caused the Durango to strike a Chevrolet Trax, which flipped. The Durango and Trax crashed through a cemetery fence, officials said.
Godwin Ogiste, a food truck owner who witnessed the aftermath, described the chaos, local NBC affiliate WTVJ reported.
“It was so loud, like a bomb or grenade was let off,” he told the station, adding that he saw “all the cars piled up on top of each other,” including “one car flipped over in the street.”
The crash killed Lisa Jackson and Geraldine Francis in the Durango. An unidentified girl in the Durango was critically injured, officials said.
The Royal Gazette identified Francis as Jackson’s mother and Jackson’s daughter as the girl who was critically hurt. The three were from Bermuda and in Florida where Jackson’s daughter was going to start college, the paper reported.
The Trax driver was hospitalized, as was Dorvil. He was arrested on Tuesday at the hospital on charges of vehicle homicide and reckless driving causing serious bodily injury, authorities said.
His mother, Roseline Dorvil, told local NBC affiliate WTVJ that his leg was amputated. She said she didn’t know what her son had been up to the day of the crash.
“He always told me he’s doing business,” she told the station. “I can tell you yes, he’s a good kid because I don’t know nothing he do.”
Authorities said they have placed two deputies on restricted administrative assignment while officials probe the actions leading up to the crash. An affidavit said investigators obtained surveillance video from a gas station that showed two marked Broward Sheriff’s Office police vehicles following the Tesla before the crash.
It showed the Tesla traveling over 85 mph in a posted 35 mph zone, running a red light and striking the Durango, the document said. The Durango was sent airborne and redirected in a southwest direction, where it hit the Chevrolet, causing it to roll over, the affidavit said.
While at the scene, authorities said they recovered an “AR-15”-style pistol and several rounds of ammunition outside the Tesla, the affidavit said. The suspect admitted he knew about the firearm, but it belonged to his cousin, the document said.
Court records show Dorvil was out on pretrial release for previous charges from an arrest in July when he allegedly caused Sunday’s crash, court documents said.
He had been a passenger in a Honda Accord traveling 78 mph in a 45 mph zone when he was arrested after a traffic stop on July 14, an affidavit in that case shows. The officer who pulled the Accord over could smell the odor of “freshly burned cannabis” emanating from the passenger side of the vehicle, the document said. When the officer ordered the occupants out of the car, Dorvil, who had been in the back seat, bolted, crossing traffic lanes before tripping and falling and ultimately being arrested, according to the document.
During his arrest, police found a loaded Glock 19 “stuffed between his buttock cheeks,” the affidavit said. He was booked on charges of grand theft of a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm and resisting in a pending case.
He hadn’t been booked into the Broward County Jail as of Thursday night, but prosecutors asked the court to hold him without bond. He is set to be arraigned in the fatal crash on Aug. 19, online court records show.
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