Four Florida teens, including a star football player, died in a terrifying police chase after officers performed a maneuver to stop their vehicle. Instead, the car spun violently out of control, flipping over and wrapping itself around a utility pole.
According to Bradford County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Brad Smith, on April 20, police received a report that a Honda CRV had been stolen, and a Honda CRV was heading toward Starke on Route 100. That’s when a deadly chase began.
“We confirmed with the Gainesville Police Department that the vehicle was still reported as stolen. Officers waited until they had three backup vehicles with them before initiating the traffic stop.” said Smith. “They did begin to pull over to the side of the road, but before coming to a complete stop, they accelerated again and the pursuit began from there.”
Unable to catch up to the speeding vehicle, deputies stopped the pursuit at the county line.
” [Florida] At that point, the only vehicle that could actually keep up with them was the Highway Patrol,” Smith said. “Although our vehicles cannot match the speed they were going, we continued to try to have one of our units stay as close to the FHP as possible as a reserve unit until the Alachua County units caught up. .”
Troopers joined the pursuit and observed that “some of the occupants appeared to be wearing ski masks,” the Florida Highway Patrol said.
“The officer intentionally made contact with the Honda, causing it to slow down,” the Highway Patrol said in a statement. “Officers took advantage of the change in speed to perform a precision immobilization maneuver (PIT maneuver) on the fleeing Honda to thwart the threat posed by the fleeing suspect. The Honda then overturned and crashed into a cement pillar. came into contact with.”
Alachua County Fire Rescue responded to the scene and said the vehicle was “entangled around a concrete utility pole.”
It took more than 90 minutes for first responders to rescue the passengers. Two people were pronounced dead at the scene, and the other two were pronounced dead at a hospital.
All victims of the horrific crash in Waldo two weekends ago were between the ages of 14 and 16.
The two were identified as Newberry High School student Jabrill Cheevers and Lawrence McClendon Jr., a sophomore defensive back on the football team whose 18-year-old brother Jermaine Godbolt was shot and killed last month.Main Street Daily News reported.
“It’s worrying to see so many deaths in quick succession, but all we can do as a community is wrap our arms around each other, love each other, ask ourselves what we need to do, and do it.” Newberry Mayor Jordan Marlowe, who teaches in Newberry, told the paper Thursday.
Tributes shared online reminded McClendon of the star football player he was.
“Lawrence was the perfect kid to join our program,” Newberry head football coach Ed Johnson said. “As a football player, he was competitive, talented and had a knack for making big plays. He will be truly missed by everyone in the Panther football family.”
Marlowe said grief counselors and trauma specialists were on campus all week.
