A deadly crash on Monday left a witness with questions about the behavior of other witnesses.
The crash happened along Hwy. 67 at Loop 12 in a closed HOV lane, leaving two people dead after they became trapped inside a burning car.
An off-duty Dallas police officer was first on the scene and says he’s upset because of what he saw in the car and because he was one of the only witnesses who tried to save the victims.
“You see the flying debris as you would at NASCAR or something like that, and then that’s when I decided to get out of the vehicle and do what I could to help out,” said Lt. Anthony Williams with the Dallas Police Department.
Williams was behind the horrific wreck when he saw the car involved was on fire.
“That’s when I started asking the gentleman in a white shirt who was standing there amongst the crowd of all these people, ‘Is there any way…does anybody have fire extinguishers? Just get me fire extinguishers,’” said Williams
After 30 years of police work, what Williams saw next left him almost unable to speak.
“You watched these folks in this car?” asked FOX 4’s Shaun Rabb.
“l just…literally be cremated, yes,” said Williams. “…To see the person writher, and you’re trying to do your best to talk to ‘em and using fire extinguishers to try and extinguish a flame, and at one point, uh…it’s the first time I’ve ever prayed for someone to go ahead and pass, and I say that not to be disrespectful to the family.”
That wasn’t the only thing that bothered Williams.
“In my peripheral vision, in addition within a very close distance, you see people filming with their cell phones,” said Williams. “That’s what you see — a person’s actually dying in front of their eyes, and rather than you making it a priority, putting yourself in the role of a first responder, just to try to help out in some way, you choose your priority to be filming somebody’s death.”