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Beloved Mesquite youth football coach killed in crash
Jonathan Washington was killed early Sunday morning while driving home from his part-time job. Police say a drunk driver in a truck hit Washington while traveling the wrong way down a highway in Sunnyvale.
SUNNYVALE, Texas - A Kaufman County man has been charged with intoxication manslaughter in connection to a wrong-way deadly crash in Sunnyvale over the weekend.
The crash happened early Sunday morning on US-80, near Lawson Road.
Police say 22-year-old Edgar Cortez was driving west in the eastbound lanes of US-80 when he crashed into a Dodge Challenger.
Edgar Cortez
Jonathan D. Washington was in that Dodge Challenger and was killed. He was on his way home from his part-time job.
The 34-year-old was heavily involved in youth sports in the Mesquite area and worked at Baylor Dallas.
Washington was headed home to Forney from a part-time job Sunday around 2 a.m. when tragically he was hit by a wrong-way driver.
"His brother passed in 2020. He took on the responsibility of being the father figure to his two nephews," said longtime family friend Anquan Jackson. "Outside of that, he was also a husband. He recently married about two years ago. A son. Worked at the hospital. All he did was just helped people."
Washington also coached a youth team to success.
"He was a youth football coach in Mesquite," Jackson said. "He was a finalist in Florida a couple of years back. Just won the championship this year in the Mesquite football league."
Washington was driving home Sunday when he was hit head-on by a pickup truck.
Police say Cortez was drunk and was driving the wrong way. He is charged with intoxication manslaughter and driving while intoxicated.
"It hurts the community," Jackson said. "It's a lot of kids impacted by this. As coaches as well, we getting texts from kids asking, ‘Why? Why coach? Why him?’"
Jackson says they are questions he doesn’t have answers to. However, he does have words for people who drink and drive.
"It's not worth it. You can either lose your life or be in jail. It's not worth it," he said. "Just be responsible because you never know whose life you can take, just like John. You impacted a lot of people. This one's going to hurt."
Cortez is being held in the Mesquite city jail on a $252,000 bond.
Funeral arrangements for Washington are pending.