FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – With his arm in a sling, 20-year-old Tavan Graham stood in front of a Broward County judge Wednesday.
Graham is accused of crashing his vehicle while trying to evade police. The impact killed two of his friends and left another injured.
The crash occurred near Broward Boulevard and Hiatus Road in Plantation over the Fourth of July weekend. Graham's friends Bryan Davis, 17, and Rohan Brown, 16, died after they were ejected from a red Toyota Corolla.
Another teen was sent to an area hospital with critical injuries.
"It was just smashed to pieces. The back of the car was all demolished," Dana Abend, a neighbor who witnessed the incident.
Graham was driving the Toyota without a license when he noticed a police car make a U-turn, according to Plantation police.
He told police that he then sped off at 85 mph before he lost control of the car and crashed into a tree.
After the crash, Graham got out of the vehicle, police said, and walked toward his house. He then came back to see that one of his friends was still alive, and then left again.
"Right now, I am trying very hard to hold up, but I am very weak," Bryan's father said. "I can't talk too, because if I talk too much about him, it's like I gotta cry."
The father said he can't believe his son has died.
"To lose the kid, like, the way, but in an accident -- it's sudden, and took everybody by surprise," the father said.
He said while he won't judge Graham, there is a lesson in the incident.
"Don't try to run from the cops, because that's where the problems come in," he said.