Bikes Of Indy

Dramatic dash-cam video shows Pensacola cop chasing teen on bike, running him over (w/video link)
By Press-Register staff
February 25, 2010, 2:51PM

An in-dash camera recording made public for the first time this week shows Pensacola, Fla., police officer Jerald Ard chasing 17-year-old Victor Steen as Steen tries to pedal away from the officer on the night of Oct. 3, 2009. An Escambia County judge is holding a coroner's inquest to determine if Ard should face charges in the death of Steen, who wound up being struck and killed by the police car.
PENSACOLA, Fla. –– People assembled for a coroner's inquest this week watched as dash-cam video from a police cruiser was played showing a Pensacola police officer chasing and trying to stop a 17-year-old on a bike until the cruiser strikes the bicycle and the teen is killed.


•Watch the dash-cam video.

The video shows Pensacola police officer Jerald Ard pursuing Victor Steen, driving beside Steen, then behind him before Steen finally it hit by the cruiser after Ard tries to hit him with a Taser to make him stop.

The Pensacola News Journal reports that the 2-day inquest is taking place before Escambia County Judge John Simon, who will submit a recommendation as to whether Ard should be charged with a crime in Steen's death.


In the video, Ard can be heard "Stop the bike, now!" as Steen pedals away. After Steen is struck, Ard gets out of the car and is heard saying: "Dude, are you all right? Are you all right?"

The teen's death has become a hotly debated issue in Pensacola, touching on racial and police brutality issues.


http://blog.al.com/live/2010/02/dramati ... shows.html

Video Link
http://www.pnj.com/section/videonetwork ... 8642876001

Wow. What did the cop expect after tasering the kid? That he'd just keep riding?

You can hear him launch the taser, and you can see the kid go down in the video.

It doesn't appear that the taser hit the kid.
It looks in the video like the kid fucked up and got in front of the car. I would rule this an accident based on the video alone.

Edit: By accident, I mean not intentional. I think the officer lost control of the vehicle. Because he was fumbling with his taser or something. The cop fucked up. I don't think he murdered this kid in cold blood though.

I still think the cop was highly negligent in this case and should be let go at the least. I'm sure he will face a lawsuit from the family.

horrible judgment by the officer. but it looks like an accident to me tho no way did he intentionally run over a kid, the officer should be evaluated and at least pulled from the streets. and the department should stand behind the officer if he has a clean record and perhaps have a set protocol on subduing a suspect on a bike, shooting the suspect with a taser while driving a car is way to hollywood and not logical at all.
I can also see a involuntary manslaughter charge come up. but this is clearly a case of horrible judgment and not police brutality

I am curious to see what others say about this. I am surprised someone agreed with me. This is a sensitive subject for sure. Anyone else?

Note: I watched it without audio. Do you think the audio would have an effect?

It looks like an accident to me -- a really, really unfortunate accident, for all involved.

If you think it looks like an accident then the audio wouldn't probably have any effect. There are some taser sounds that make me think he was fumbling with it while driving. I don't think he tased the kid because a taser knocks a grown man down almost instantly and the accident didn't happen until after the taser stopped.

Accident, but should still have action taken against him in regards to reckless endangerment. Like someone said, the tasering from the car is pretty hollywood and stupid and had he not been attempting that, he'd have had much more control over the vehicle and likely better reaction time to have stopped the car when he saw the dude bite it, IMO.

It definitely seems like he was distracted when he hit the kid. There's no real sounds of an emergency stop until he hits the bush.

I don't think he realized he hit him until the kid was under the car. Not sure what he was doing when he should have been looking, but there's no reason for a kid to die in this situation. It may have been an accident, but it was still negligent. Much like someone hitting a bicyclist because they're busy texting.