Speed a factor in many fatal crashes involving SC police

A Columbia officer died Nov. 7 after running a red light at 64 mph in a 30-mph zone and being hit by another officer while both were responding to a call. The other officer was injured, but no civilians were hurt – although they are more often the casualties in high-speed police crashes in South Carolina.

Stacy Case was responding to a report of gunfire in the Vista late that night. Her vehicle was struck by a car driven by University of South Carolina police Sgt. Allan Bolin, who was traveling 76 mph. The crash sent Case’s vehicle off the road and into a curb, a mailbox, a concrete wall and palmetto trees. The two crashed at the intersection where Bolin had a green light and Case a red one.

Case’s fatal crash isn’t the only one involving high speeds that ended badly.

From 2010-14, 24 crashes involving law enforcement vehicles in South Carolina left someone dead, according to the S.C. Department of Public Safety. That’s almost five fatalities each year. Eleven of the 24 crashes involved police vehicles traveling faster than the speed limit.

Speed is one of three main factors in fatal officer-involved crashes, according to USC criminology professor Geoffrey Alpert, who has studied police chases extensively. The other factors are seat belt use and distractions.

“More cops get killed by cars than they do by bullets,” Alpert said.

Police speeding on the job becomes an especially dangerous issue in certain circumstances — such as in areas with a high concentration of college students, Alpert added.

“A lot of times, especially in a college town, kids are driving around windows up, radios blaring, and they don’t hear the sirens and don’t see emergency lights — and they don’t respond,” he said.

That same problem might have played a part in Case’s crash as both officers were using lights and sirens.

“At 60 miles an hour, you don’t have time (to adjust) anyway,” Alpert said. “Even if you could hear the siren, you may not know where it’s coming from and wouldn’t have time to react — and of course, if you have your siren on, you can’t hear the other siren.”

Such crashes aren’t just dangerous to the officers involved. Twenty of those 24 casualties were civilians:

▪ At 4:31 p.m. on June 5, 2010, Thomas Howard of Travelers Rest tried to turn left onto U.S. 276. He was struck by a Travelers Rest police car traveling 72 mph. He died that day. Officer Alva Williams was speeding in pursuit of a motorcycle that had been seen driving dangerously through town, and Howard ran a stop sign, Travelers Rest Police Chief Lance Crowe said. Williams was doing his job, but there were some things he could have done better, the chief added.

“You combine that with Mr. Howard running the stop sign, and it all came together for a tragic situation,” Crowe said. Williams was disciplined, but the chief didn’t specify how.

▪ Just before midnight on April 18, 2014, an Anderson County police vehicle was traveling west on U.S.76 at 62 mph with lights and sirens turned on in a 40-mph area. Deputy James Richey was going too fast for conditions and crossed the median, striking a vehicle traveling east at 30 mph, according to the collision report. A woman in that car was killed, and a reserve deputy riding as a passenger in the patrol car was injured, The Independent Mail reported.

▪ At 10:14 a.m. on June 30, 2011, Tommy Hawkins of Sumter tried to turn onto U.S. 76 when he was struck by a Richland County sheriff’s vehicle that ran a red light at 79 mph in a 45 mph area. Hawkins died that day, according to his obituary. The deputy involved, George Mickens, lost control “most likely due to a medical situation,” according to the crash report. Mickens was placed on inactive deputy status but continued to drive and was involved in another wreck later that year.

▪ At 11:05 a.m. on Dec. 12, 2010, an off-duty Sumter County deputy struck 17-year-old Kedreana Shakan Felder. She died the next day, according to WIS-TV. Deputy Kenneth Burris was traveling 57 mph in a 40 mph area, according to the crash report. Burris and Felder were both listed as contributing to the collision.

▪ At 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 25, 2010, state trooper Eugene Kennington struck a minivan that pulled out onto U.S. 521 in Lancaster County. The crash killed Laxiben Patel, a passenger in the van, Charlotte television station WSOC reported. Kennington was responding to an emergency call, but did not have his lights and sirens on, WBTV of Charlotte reported. The crash report listed the trooper as not contributing to the collision. He was traveling 65 mph in a 55-mph area.

As with officer-involved shootings, there currently is no national resource from which to draw information on officer-involved crashes, said Ken Novak, professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. But emergency vehicle usage is one of the top ways in which law enforcement actions can put the public at risk, second only to use-of-force situations, Novak added.

“In a democratic society, we want to demand police actions are something that we as citizens agree with,” he said. “If we’re not aware, or if we’re not collecting these types of information in a systematic way, we don’t have a clear picture of what the police do on the street.”

Novak said in high-speed pursuits, some departments require a supervisor to monitor the officers in the field and tell them when to stop the chase. “It’s just human nature that when you’re knee-deep in an adrenaline-filled circumstance, you may not always make the best decisions,” he said.

South Carolina law allows an officer to “exceed the maximum speed limit if he does not endanger life or property.”

“We abide by state law, which says an officer has the right to exceed the posted speed,” said Maj. Florence McCants with the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy. “Each agency has their own discretion how they perceive that and if they want to restrict that.”

Case’s speed violated a Columbia Police Department rule that only allows officers to travel at 20 mph above the speed limit, according to Police Chief Skip Holbrook.

Bolin’s actions did not violate USC policy, university spokesman Wes Hickman said. However, the university began a review of its emergency vehicle response policy shortly after that crash. The review was still underway as of Dec. 22, according to Jeff Stensland, another USC spokesman.

This story was originally published December 31, 2015 at 6:34 PM.