Witness: Erica Crawley ‘blew through’ red light and hospitalized an old lady

"I think it’s crazy that they didn’t give her a field sobriety test. Anybody else would have gotten it."

Franklin County Commissioner Erica Crawley hospitalized an old lady after running a red light in downtown Columbus during the evening hours of Wednesday, July 2.

According to a report filed with the Columbus Division of Police, three witnesses affirmed that Crawley, driving a white Mercedes-Benz of an unspecified model and year, blew into the intersection and crashed into a red, full-sized Lexus.

The crash occurred at the intersection of E. Spring Street and N. Third Street, blocks from Crawley’s listed address, at approximately 8:45 p.m., according to the report.

However, what started as an everyday crash quickly devolved into something more bizarre, according to one witness granted anonymity by The Rooster to speak frankly about an embarrassing incident involving one of Central Ohio’s most powerful politicians.

“She blew through [the intersection],” the witness said. “Drilled this poor lady.”

Despite being at fault for the accident, Crawley’s Mercedes looked like it took most of the damage. However, when the witness asked Crawley if she was okay, the Commissioner had a troubling response.

“It was weird,” the witness said. “I felt a weird vibe as soon as she got out of the car and started talking to me. She told me to ‘Get out of [here].’ I was like, ‘What? No. No. I’m a good human. I’m not doing that.”

The witness went to perform a welfare check on the old lady, whose car had spun three times upon impact.

When suddenly, “This car rips up from High Street, going the wrong way down Spring Street. And this couple … dressed in fine dining wear… gets out aggressively.”

The witness turned his attention back to the old lady.

“I’m like, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ She said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, 'You had the green light. You were going through it. You got t-boned.”

Troubled by what they had seen and the presence of an aggressive couple who had arrived on the scene almost instantaneously after the crash, the witness left his contact information with the older woman before the medical squad transported her to Grant Hospital.

A couple of days later, an agent from Erie Insurance, representing the older woman, asked the witness if Crawley had anyone else in the car.

The witness said no, she didn’t, and that they had looked, given Crawley’s apparent age and the likelihood she might have had a child in the car with her at the time of the crash.

“Well, I’m glad you stayed and gave your information,” the agent reportedly told the witness. “Because [her insurance company] is making things up now.”

The witness, in a follow-up conversation with the older woman, relayed a belief that Commissioner Crawley’s insurance company was trying to shift the blame of the crash.

“I don’t care who she is,” the witness said. “[Commissioner Crawley] was wrong. Admit you were wrong. Let the insurance cover it, and be done with it.

“I think it’s crazy that they didn’t give her a field sobriety [test]. Anybody else would have gotten it.”

The report goes on to state that, in the insurance information that Crawley provided to the other driver, she claimed to be driving a BMW despite photographic evidence showing she was driving a white Mercedes-Benz SUV.

That’s a perplexing albeit honest mistake at best or an attempt at insurance fraud at worst.

Crawley is the latest Columbus Democrat to have problems following the traffic laws. City Council District 7 candidate Tiara Ross, whom Crawley endorsed five days before her crash, accrued $3,795 worth of parking tickets while driving on a suspended license for over a year and a half.

City Council President Shannon Hardin received a ticket in the village of Brice, a notorious speed trap, for driving ten miles over the posted 20 miles per hour speed limit in a school zone in December 2024. Last week, Hardin used his platform to bash Brice and propose putting a warning on a billboard at the city’s border with the village.

A quick perusal of Franklin County Municipal Court records shows this isn’t Crawley’s first traffic violation during her political career.

In Aug. 2018, as a first-time candidate for the House of Representatives, the Ohio Highway Patrol ticketed Crawley for failing to wear her seat belt. She failed to appear for her arraignment on Sept. 1, which resulted in a bench warrant being issued against her.

Crawley settled her account on Oct. 10, a little under a month before she won her election, submitting an online payment of $123.

In April 2021, the Ohio State Highway Patrol ticketed Crawley, then a Democratic member of the Ohio House of Representatives, for driving 87 miles per hour in a 65 miles per hour zone along the 270 outerbelt.

Crawley failed to appear for her arraignment, resulting in a bench warrant being issued against her. However, Crawley settled her account roughly three weeks later by submitting an online payment for $217.

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