Miami-Dade Police Chase Turns Deadly
According to a report from Miami’s WSVN news, a recent police chase in Miami ended with one pedestrian dead, three police officers injured and substantial property damage. The chase concluded in a fiery crash when a stolen car with the four criminal suspects collided with an off-duty police vehicle and then flipped over onto its roof before coming to rest. The incident began with a carjacking that took place on a Saturday night involving four heavily-armed men who were spotted leaving the scene of the car-jacking in the red Hyundai they had stolen. The next day, police recognized the stolen red Hyundai and chased it down. According to police, the vehicle carrying the four heavily-armed suspects then struck and killed a woman who was exiting a nearby funeral home. The chase ended when the fleeing car ran a red light and smashed into a vehicle driven by an off-duty police officer, slammed into a fence, flipped over, hit several parked cars and eventually ended up on its roof.
Officials said the three officers suffered minor injuries when they broke the vehicle’s glass windows after the stolen car eventually came to a rest upside-down to pull the suspects out of the car. All three police officers were treated for minor injuries and released shortly after the incident and are all expected to recover without incident. The four suspects, three of whom were reported to be juveniles, were taken into custody by police and then transported to an area hospital, where all four were reported to have suffered minor injuries and were discharged shortly after being taken to the hospital.
The pedestrian who was killed was attending a funeral of a co-worker in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood. Eyewitnesses were reported as saying that the stolen Hyundai was going so fast that it sent her body ten feet into the air when she was hit. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Aftermath of High-Speed Police Chases
The aftermath of high-speed police chases, like the recent incident in Miami that killed a pedestrian, can be dangerous for anyone in the surrounding vicinity of the chase. Often both the person fleeing police as well as the police themselves can pose a substantial danger to those who have the unfortunate luck to be nearby when a police chase is occurring. Just as was the case in the recent incident in Miami involving a stolen vehicle, police chases often cause a great deal of harm to the public, and in many cases, they lead to dangerous car accidents in which innocent bystanders are seriously injured or even killed.
The estate of the pedestrian who was killed in the recent police chase would have claims against the driver who was eventually apprehended as well as possibly also against the police. Given that the suspects were traveling at a high rate of speed and blew through a red light, the suspects were clearly not exercising the due care they are required to under Florida law in connection with the police chase that ended in their eventual capture. However, what many do not realize is that often police themselves can be named in a civil lawsuit relating to injuries suffered by an innocent third party; this can occur if the police were speeding, failing to stop at red lights, pulling illegal traffic maneuvers, and even traveling on grass and over sidewalks in the course of a police chase.
Nevertheless, the bar to sue the police is much higher than it is when it comes to suing ordinary citizens like the suspects who killed the pedestrian coming out of a funeral home during the recent Miami police chase. In addition, there also are often specific pre-suit procedures and damages caps that apply in the case of lawsuits against governmental bodies and actors like state and local police officers. Still, if an individual is injured or killed through no fault of his or her own in a high-speed police chase like the recent Miami police chase detailed in greater detail above, that individual and/or his or her estate or survivors have rights under Florida law to pursue compensation for those injuries or that death.
Contact the Experienced Personal Injury Attorneys at Schwed, Adams & McGinley, P.A
At Schwed, Adams & McGinley, P.A. our experienced personal injury attorneys have more than 150 years of combined legal practice representing victims of pedestrian accidents, truck accidents and other types of motor vehicle accidents in Florida. Over those years, we have represented a wide variety of victims of motor vehicle, truck and pedestrian accidents who were injured in all sorts of different scenarios, including those who may have been innocent bystanders injured or killed as a result of a police chase. Therefore, If you or a member of your family have been injured in a collision caused by the negligence of either a suspect fleeing police or a police officer in connection with a police chase, then contact the experienced personal injury attorneys at Schwed, Adams & McGinley, P.A today at 877-694-6079 or contact@schwedlawfirm.com for a free consultation.