Driver T-Bones Family With Kids Then Makes a Run for It

The first thing I remember saying was, “Get out of the truck.” I had my weapon drawn, other deputies were shouting commands around me, and the truck was sitting there after a chase that had already put far too many people in danger. The driver wasn't listening. He kept moving, bleeding, and trying to figure out what was happening around him. At that point, I didn't know his entire story. I didn't know where he had been or how many people had already been hurt. I only knew that we had finally stopped him, and I needed his hands where I could see them. What I didn't understand yet was that the scene in front of me was only the last few minutes of a chain of decisions that had started almost an hour earlier.

The call had come in as a hit-and-run at a gas station in Lake County. By the time we were involved, the situation had already escalated into a pursuit. Witnesses told investigators that the driver, later identified as Reno, had struck one vehicle at the gas station, driven away, and then returned before hitting another vehicle. Somehow, he continued driving. When we finally caught up with him, he was already bleeding and driving erratically. The radio traffic was moving so quickly that I was getting information in pieces: southbound, running red lights, speed increasing, traffic ahead, officers attempting to stop him. Then came the number that made everybody pay closer attention. Ninety miles per hour.

I remember thinking that at that speed, there was no such thing as a harmless mistake anymore. A missed turn could become a fatal collision. A driver looking away for two seconds could take someone else's life. And there were ordinary people on those roads who had no idea that a vehicle was coming toward them with a driver who had already refused to stop. We followed as the truck continued southbound, and the commands kept coming over the radio. When we finally got close enough to make contact, I could see that something was wrong with the truck. There was leakage, and the driver appeared to be injured. But an injured suspect can still be dangerous, so we couldn't simply walk up and assume the danger was over. I remember shouting, “Show me your hands,” again and again. He kept moving, and we kept ordering him to stop.

When he finally started coming out, everything became chaotic. I had my gun pointed toward him while another deputy gave commands. We didn't know whether anyone else was inside the vehicle. We didn't know exactly how badly he was injured. We didn't know whether he had a weapon within reach. All we knew was that the chase had ended and we had to make sure it stayed ended. Once he was out, we moved him away from the truck and began checking on him. He was upset and kept asking why people were treating him that way. One of the deputies looked at him and said something I remember clearly: “How many people's lives did you just put in danger, man?” The man apologized. For a second, the anger seemed to leave the scene, replaced by the reality of what had just happened.

Then we started seeing the consequences.

Fire and rescue were coming in. Officers were checking the vehicles involved. We were trying to determine how many people had been hurt and whether anyone was still trapped. At one point I heard that there could be other people in the vehicles, and that was when the chase stopped being about the driver entirely. We weren't just dealing with a suspect anymore. We were dealing with everyone who had been caught in his path. I remember asking about the people involved and hearing that several were being taken for medical attention. Later, the numbers would become seven people hospitalized, including two children. Two kids had been in the back seat of the vehicle he struck at a red light. One of them would remain hospitalized.

That detail stayed with me more than anything else.

Because when you're chasing a vehicle, you naturally focus on the vehicle. You watch the speed. You watch the road. You watch the driver. You listen to the radio. But after it stops, you start looking at the people who were around it. That's when the real cost becomes visible. Someone's car is destroyed. Someone is sitting on the pavement waiting for an ambulance. Someone is asking whether their family member is okay. Someone is being taken away in a stretcher. And somewhere in all of that, there are two children who had been sitting in the back seat when another vehicle suddenly slammed into theirs.

The driver, Reno, was eventually taken into custody and later charged with aggravated DUI, aggravated fleeing and eluding, and multiple traffic offenses. Prosecutors sought to have him held without release pending trial, and additional charges were expected as the investigation continued. But standing there that day, I wasn't thinking about the eventual charges. I was thinking about the moment before the chase. The moment before the red lights. The moment before the gas station. Because that's where the question kept taking me.

At what point should this have ended?

Should it have ended when he first hit the vehicle at the gas station? Should it have ended when he drove away? Should it have ended when he came back and hit another vehicle? Should it have ended when officers first tried to stop him? Or was there a moment even earlier when someone might have recognized that he shouldn't have been driving at all? By the time we caught him, there was no clean solution left. We were trying to contain something that had already become dangerous.

I think that's what the body-camera footage doesn't show. It shows the shouting. It shows the truck. It shows the commands to show his hands. It shows the moment we finally got him out. But it doesn't show the people who had been hit before we arrived. It doesn't show the children sitting in the back seat of that other vehicle. It doesn't show their families waiting for information. And it doesn't show the almost invisible series of decisions that happened before the sirens ever started.

That's the part of this job that stays with me. We often arrive at the end of a story and are expected to fix whatever is left. Sometimes we can. Sometimes we can save someone. Sometimes we can stop the next collision. But there are moments when the damage has already happened before the first officer reaches the scene. All we can do then is prevent it from becoming even worse.

I still remember standing there after we had the driver under control, hearing the radios, watching the rescue crews move toward the injured people, and realizing that this wasn't really a story about a police chase. The chase was simply the part everyone would see. The real story was everything that happened before it: the vehicles that were hit, the decision to keep driving, the people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and two children who were suddenly lying in a hospital because someone else's decisions had reached them.

Seven people ended up in hospitals that day.

Two of them were children.

And whenever I think back to that scene, I don't remember the speedometer first. I remember the question that came afterward: At what point should this have ended? Because sometimes the most important part of a dangerous incident isn't the moment police finally stop it. It's the moment before that, when there is still a chance for someone to stop the chain of decisions before innocent people become part of the story.