Well-known Minneapolis artist killed in I-94 crash

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - A well-known Minneapolis artist was killed and five other people were injured in a crash along I-94 Monday night. According to the Minnesota State Patrol, just before 6 p.m., a truck traveling westbound on I-94 near Highway 280 crossed the median and struck a station wagon head on, pushing it into an oncoming Metro Transit bus.

The driver of the station wagon, identified as 41-year-old Kirk Washington Jr., was killed in the crash. Washington was a well-known artist, activist and community leader from north Minneapolis, according to the Harrison Neighborhood Association. 

“Kirk was a powerful voice for the voiceless community in north Minneapolis," Andrea Jenkins, an oral historian at the University of Minnesota who had worked with Washington on several art initiatives across Minnepolis, told Fox 9. 

Conversations with Kirk Washington Jr. from Made Here MN on Vimeo.

Mayor Betsy Hodges was one of many people to express her condolences to Washington’s family on social media Tuesday. Washington had written one of the stanzas for the poem “One Minneapolis: A city in verse”, which was written for Hodges’ inauguration in 2014.
 

Washington Jr. worked on the digital equity program at the City of Minneapolis IT department. Chief Information Officer Otto Doll released the following statement:

The 52-year-old driver who hit Washington was seriously injured in the crash. Four passengers on the bus were also transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The accident marked the was the second fatal crossover crash in this stretch of I-94 in the last year. Department of Transportation officials reported that a median barrier project is expected to begin on the freeway at the end of the summer.