STOLEN BMW VANISHES INTO A CLOUD OF SMOKE DURING 100+ MPH POLICE PURSUIT

At first, Deputy Dean Dokken could barely see the car he was supposed to stop.

An off-duty Lincoln County deputy had spotted a black BMW traveling along County Highway K in rural Wisconsin and alerted dispatch.

There was an important reason police wanted the vehicle stopped.

THE BMW HAD BEEN REPORTED STOLEN EARLIER THAT DAY.

Behind the wheel was 27-year-old David J. Burdick.

Dokken was nearby when dispatch provided the vehicle's location. He turned his marked patrol vehicle around and headed north on County Highway K.

Seconds later, the BMW appeared ahead.

Dokken activated his emergency lights and siren.

Burdick did not pull over.

Instead, according to the official investigation, he accelerated.

The deputy accelerated after him.

Soon the patrol car was traveling at more than 100 mph on a road posted at 55 mph — and somehow, the BMW was still pulling away.

A STOLEN BMW SPOTTED BY AN OFF-DUTY DEPUTY

The incident unfolded during the afternoon of June 2, 2021, in Lincoln County, Wisconsin.

An off-duty Lincoln County Sheriff's Office deputy spotted the black BMW on County Trunk Highway K, near the Lincoln-Marathon County line.

The deputy recognized the vehicle as one that had been reported stolen from an address in Lincoln County earlier that same day.

Rather than immediately attempting to intervene, the off-duty deputy reported what he was seeing to dispatch and followed from a safe distance.

That decision allowed an on-duty deputy to move into position.

Deputy Dean Dokken happened to be nearby, handling a non-emergency matter on County Highway Q, just east of its southern intersection with Highway K.

Dispatch gave him the information.

Dokken turned around.

Then he entered Highway K northbound.

The BMW passed through the area ahead of him.

The situation had now changed from locating a stolen vehicle to attempting an actual traffic stop.

But the driver apparently had no intention of stopping.

THE BMW IMMEDIATELY PULLS AWAY

Dokken activated his emergency lights and siren.

Burdick accelerated rapidly.

The dashcam footage gives viewers an unusual perspective on what happened next.

There are moments when the BMW appears surprisingly distant despite the patrol vehicle accelerating aggressively behind it.

According to the Lincoln County District Attorney's review of the Wisconsin Department of Justice investigation, Dokken reached speeds in excess of 100 mph.

The posted speed limit was 55 mph.

Yet even at those speeds, the deputy could not catch the BMW.

Burdick continued opening the gap.

The official report says Burdick passed civilian motorists at high speed, including drivers who had already moved aside after noticing the deputy's emergency lights and siren.

That detail matters.

This was no longer simply a suspect attempting to avoid an arrest.

Other people were sharing the road.

At speeds approaching or exceeding 100 mph, every additional vehicle becomes another potential point of catastrophe.

THE FASTER BURDICK DROVE, THE LESS TIME ANYONE HAD TO REACT.

THE CHASE LEAVES COUNTY HIGHWAY K

Burdick eventually turned left from Highway K onto Joe Snow Road.

Dokken followed.

The BMW again accelerated away from the intersection.

The deputy continued the pursuit.

The official review says Burdick still showed no indication that he intended to yield to the patrol car's lights or siren.

This part of the chase is important because the environment changes.

A relatively straight rural highway can already be dangerous at extreme speed.

Smaller roads introduce additional hazards.

Trees can sit closer to the roadway.

Sight lines can become shorter.

Intersections appear more quickly.

Road geometry can become less forgiving.

And at more than 100 mph, even a slight miscalculation can become irreversible.

THEN THE BMW SEEMS TO DISAPPEAR

This is the moment that gives the video its title.

The deputy is still moving down the roadway when suddenly the scene ahead changes.

The BMW is no longer simply a car disappearing into the distance.

A huge cloud begins spreading across the road.

Debris appears everywhere.

For a moment, the deputy cannot clearly see what happened.

The roadway ahead is almost completely obscured.

Pieces of the vehicle and other debris cover the pavement.

The cloud is so thick that the crash itself is difficult to immediately understand from the dashcam perspective.

Seconds earlier, the deputy was trying to catch a fleeing BMW.

Now he is driving directly into the aftermath of a catastrophic collision.

THE PURSUIT IS OVER ALMOST INSTANTLY.

There is no gradual slowdown.

No controlled stop.

No driver pulling onto the shoulder.

One moment the BMW is fleeing.

The next, it is gone from the roadway.

THE CAR HAD BECOME AIRBORNE

The official investigation later reconstructed what happened.

According to the Lincoln County District Attorney's review, the stolen BMW became airborne and collided with a tree.

That impact ended the pursuit.

The physical evidence visible in the video shows just how violent the crash was.

Debris is scattered across both sides of the road.

The deputy slows dramatically.

The radio traffic changes.

The entire purpose of the response changes.

Police are no longer attempting to stop a fleeing driver.

They are approaching a serious crash.

The transformation happens in seconds.

That is one of the most striking aspects of the footage.

At high speed, a pursuit can go from controlled driving to catastrophic impact faster than an officer can fully process what has happened.

There is very little transition between the two.

DEPUTY DOKKEN REACHES THE CRASH SCENE

Once the patrol vehicle reaches the debris field, Dokken has to determine where the BMW went.

The wreck is no longer positioned normally on the road.

The deputy has to look beyond the pavement toward the trees and surrounding property.

Additional responders begin arriving.

The video becomes less about pursuit and more about emergency response.

Burdick suffered fatal injuries.

WSAU later reported that the 27-year-old died after the stolen car crashed at the intersection area of Joe Snow Road and Highway Q.

The chase that had lasted only minutes was now a fatal incident.

And because the death occurred during a police pursuit, another investigation would follow.

WISCONSIN DOJ TAKES OVER THE INVESTIGATION

The Lincoln County Sheriff requested an independent investigation immediately after the crash.

Wisconsin's Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) handled that review.

The state's public archive identifies the case as the Town of Scott – David J. Burdick officer-involved critical incident, dated June 2, 2021.

Investigators reviewed much more than the dashcam footage.

According to the district attorney, the investigation included interviews, records, reports, photographs, diagrams, squad-car video and audio.

The district attorney even drove the pursuit route himself to better understand the road layout and conditions.

That broader investigation matters because dashcam shows only one perspective.

It records what the deputy could see.

It does not automatically tell investigators the exact path the BMW took after leaving the roadway.

It does not calculate vehicle dynamics.

It does not explain every piece of physical evidence.

Investigators therefore combine the video with the crash scene and other evidence to reconstruct what happened.

WHY THE DEPUTY COULD NOT CATCH THE BMW

One of the strangest things about the footage is the distance between the patrol vehicle and Burdick's BMW.

A viewer might initially assume the deputy simply wasn't driving particularly fast.

The official report says otherwise.

DOKKEN EXCEEDED 100 MPH.

And he still could not catch Burdick.

That provides some idea of the speed at which the BMW was moving.

It also explains why the final crash could be so destructive.

Speed affects crash energy dramatically.

Doubling a vehicle's speed does not merely double the kinetic energy involved in a collision.

Because kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, the consequences rise much faster.

That is why extremely high-speed crashes can produce enormous debris fields and catastrophic vehicle damage.

The dashcam does not need a speed graphic to communicate that reality.

The cloud and debris do it instead.

THE FINAL SECONDS SHOW HOW LITTLE MARGIN WAS LEFT

There is another reason the crash sequence is so striking.

The deputy does not appear to be directly beside the BMW when it crashes.

He is some distance behind.

That distance gives him time to react to the debris and cloud.

Had the patrol vehicle been only a few seconds closer, the deputy might have entered the crash itself.

He could have struck debris.

He could have collided with the BMW.

He could have left the roadway while trying to avoid the wreckage.

Instead, Dokken is able to slow as the scene becomes visible.

That does not make the situation safe.

It shows how narrowly another crash may have been avoided.

BURDICK'S DRIVING HISTORY WAS NOT WHAT VIEWERS MIGHT EXPECT

The video also presents information from the investigative report concerning Burdick's prior driving history.

It notes a history involving driving without a valid license and driving without a seatbelt.

Those prior matters are minor compared with what happened on June 2.

That contrast is worth noting without overstating its significance.

Past traffic violations do not explain why someone will later flee police.

Nor do they prove what someone intended during a future encounter.

What matters most in this case is what investigators determined about the actual pursuit:

Burdick was driving a stolen vehicle.

A deputy attempted to stop him.

He refused to yield.

He accelerated away.

The pursuit reached extreme speeds.

Then the BMW left the road and crashed.

THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY CLEARS THE DEPUTY

After reviewing the DCI investigation, Lincoln County District Attorney Galen Bayne-Allison concluded that Deputy Dokken would not face criminal charges.

The written opinion states that Burdick's death resulted from his operation of the vehicle at high speed and his decision to flee.

The district attorney concluded that Dokken's actions did not cause Burdick's death.

WSAU reported the decision in November 2021, noting that Dokken had been with the force for roughly a year when the pursuit occurred.

This provides an important final chapter to the dashcam footage.

The video ends at the crash scene.

The legal review did not.

Investigators spent months examining whether the deputy's conduct during the pursuit created criminal liability.

Ultimately, prosecutors determined it did not.

THE “ROOKIE COP” TITLE ONLY TELLS PART OF THE STORY

The video title describes Dokken as a rookie cop.

Contemporary reporting indicates he had only about a year with the agency at the time.

That makes the footage particularly striking.

A relatively new deputy is suddenly involved in a pursuit exceeding 100 mph.

He is trying to follow a stolen BMW that continues pulling away.

He watches the vehicle turn onto another road.

Then, moments later, it effectively disappears into a huge cloud.

There is debris across the pavement.

A vehicle has left the roadway.

The driver is critically injured.

And the deputy must immediately transition from pursuit driving to responding to a fatal crash.

Training can prepare officers for pursuits.

Policies can establish rules.

Experience can improve judgment.

But no training can make a 100-mph crash feel routine.

ONE MOMENT THE CAR IS THERE — THE NEXT IT IS GONE

The strongest part of the video lasts only seconds.

The BMW is ahead.

The deputy follows.

Then visibility collapses.

A cloud fills the road.

Debris appears.

And the vehicle the deputy had been chasing is suddenly nowhere on the pavement.

That moment communicates the danger of extreme-speed pursuits more effectively than almost any statistic.

At those speeds, there may be no long warning that control is about to be lost.

A tire can leave the pavement.

A driver can misjudge a turn.

A vehicle can strike uneven terrain.

And within seconds, a car traveling down a rural road can become a field of wreckage.

The official investigation concluded that Burdick's BMW became airborne before striking the tree.

For the deputy behind him, there was no time to know that in advance.

All he initially saw was the cloud.

A STOLEN CAR, A SHORT PURSUIT AND AN IRREVERSIBLE OUTCOME

The incident began earlier that day with a vehicle being reported stolen.

An off-duty deputy happened to spot it.

Dispatch notified an on-duty officer.

Dokken moved into position.

Emergency lights came on.

Burdick accelerated.

Speeds climbed beyond 100 mph.

The BMW turned onto Joe Snow Road.

And then the pursuit ended violently.

David Burdick was 27 years old.

He did not survive the crash.

The deputy survived and was later cleared of criminal wrongdoing following an independent state investigation.

The final outcome makes the opening minutes of the footage feel very different when watched a second time.

At first, the BMW is simply a small black vehicle disappearing over the road ahead.

The deputy is trying to close the distance.

There is a sense that perhaps police will eventually catch up.

Perhaps the driver will slow.

Perhaps another unit will intercept him.

Perhaps he will surrender.

None of those things happen.

Instead, the car disappears in the most literal possible way.

ONE SECOND IT IS FLEEING DOWN THE ROAD.

SECONDS LATER, THE ROAD IS COVERED IN DEBRIS AND SMOKE.

The chase did not end because police caught the BMW.

It ended because there was no longer a moving vehicle to chase.

The deputy was already traveling above 100 mph — and the stolen BMW was still pulling away. Then, without warning, the car vanished into a massive cloud and the road filled with debris. Watch the full dashcam footage to see how quickly the pursuit turned fatal.

▶ WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FgtLrijESI