Four Florida teens, including a star football player, were killed in a horrifying police chase after officers used a maneuver designed to get their car to stop — and instead, their car spun violently out of control, flipping over and wrapping around a utility pole.
The deadly pursuit began as the Honda CRV was heading toward the city of Starke on State Road 100 on April 20 after police received reports that it was stolen, Bradford County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Brad Smith said.
“We confirmed with the Gainesville Police Department that they still had that car entered as stolen, and the officer waited until he had three backup units with him before he initiated the traffic stop,” Smith said. “They did start to pull over on the shoulder of the road, but before they came to a complete stop, they accelerated again, and that is when the chase was on.”
Deputies halted in their pursuit at the county line as they could not keep up with the high-speed vehicle.
“The [Florida] Highway Patrol was, at that point, the only vehicle that could actually keep up with them,” Smith said. “Our vehicles cannot match the speed that they were going, but we did continue one of our units to try and stay as close as they could as a backup unit to FHP until Alachua County’s units were able to catch up to them.”
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a trooper joined the pursuit and “identified that some of the occupants appeared to be wearing ski masks.”
“The Trooper made intentional contact with the Honda, causing it to decelerate,” the highway patrol said in a statement. “The Trooper used the break in speed to perform a Precision Immobilization Technique (PIT maneuver) on the fleeing Honda to stop the threat created by the fleeing suspect. The Honda subsequently rolled over before making contact with a cement pole.”
Alachua County Fire Rescue responded to the scene and described the vehicle as being “wrapped around a concrete utility pole.”
It took first responders over 90 minutes to extricate the passengers. Two were pronounced dead on the scene, while two others were pronounced dead in the hospital.
All of the victims in the horrifying crash two weekends ago in Waldo were between the ages of 14 and 16.
Two have been identified as Newberry High School students Jabril Cheevers and Lawrence McClendon Jr., a sophomore defensive back for the football team whose 18-year-old brother, Jermaine Godbolt, was shot and killed last month, the Main Street Daily News reported.
“It’s concerning when you have so many deaths back-to-back, but all we can do as a community is wrap our arms around each other, love each other, ask ourselves what we need to be doing, and then do it,” Newberry Mayor Jordan Marlowe, who teaches at the school, told the paper on Thursday.
Tributes shared online remembered McLendon for being a star football player.
“Lawrence was a great kid to be around and have in our program,” said Ed Johnson, Newberry’s head football coach. “As a football player he was competitive, talented and relentless with 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 had been on campus all week.
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