An 11 year old boy was injured while riding his bike to Conway Middle School. Witnesses to the car accident believe there was a police chase going on at the time of the crash. For years police car chases have been questioned because they often result in severe injuries to innocent members of the public and are usually not necessary. That may be the case here. It appears that the police were chasing a vehicle near Conway Middle School during the time before school starts when lots of kids are on the way to school. The perpetrator was not being chased as part of a violent crime nor was he a wanted dangerous criminal. Here the suspect may have been driving with a suspended license but was hardly a violent threat to the public. Therefore the students on the way to school should not have been subjected to the danger of a high speed car crash.
Under police chase rules instituted by the Orlando Police department they are permitted to undergo a police chase only of someone who may have committed a “violent forcible felony,” (murder, armed robbery and similar dangerous crimes). According to a witness the police officers involved in the chase seemed to be not telling the whole truth when they blamed the crash on a red light runner and failed to mention that the red light may have been run because of an unnecessary police chase during school commute hours near a middle school. If the witness is correct and there was an attempted cover up of the police chase then there needs to be an investigation. The police are not perfect but they should not be allowed to cover up the true facts of a crash especially when the crash may have been caused by a violation of department rules. We have previously blogged about the police not telling the whole truth when they are involved in a crash. If we cannot trust the police to be honest in reporting accidents then how can we expect it of the public?
For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Car and Motorcycle Accidents.
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