STILLWATER, Okla. — The crowd was thick. The music was upbeat. The energy was at fever pitch. This was Oklahoma State University’s homecoming parade.
As it does here every year, the parade on Saturday, called the Sea of Orange, wound up a mile-long stretch from West Ninth Avenue to West Hall of Fame Avenue, as thousands of spectators — some of them small children being pushed in strollers, and nearly all of them dressed in orange — gathered downtown and packed onto Main Street to watch the penultimate event of homecoming weekend.
But the occasion for pomp and pep suddenly turned tragic when a car plowed into the crowd near the end of the parade, killing four people, including a 2-year-old boy, and injuring at least 49, law enforcement and hospital officials said.