When it comes to fatal crashes, the pain is immediate. Here’s why finding the truth is not

After fatal crashes like the one that took the lives of two young passengers last week, some might cry for swift justice.

But investigating fatal crashes is not a speedy process, said Sgt. Bill Mahoney, supervisor of accident investigation at the Kansas City Police Department.

“It’s a pretty lengthy process,” Mahoney said. “Two months is not unusual on a case like this. We’re still in the initial phases of gathering up the information.”

It’s not until later that they will see where that evidence leads them on determining what happened and whether criminal charges are appropriate.

Mahoney declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation into Sept. 17 multiple-vehicle crash that killed 16-year-old Emely Samantha “Sami” Raudales of Shawnee, and 3-year-old Ryan Hampel of Independence.

Both children were passengers in separate vehicles involved in a crash that occurred on the exit ramp from northbound Interstate 435 to 23rd Street Trafficway.

The crash appears to have been caused by a driver who failed to slow for a red light and slammed into the rear of a Toyota SUV, police said. A witness told police that the truck had been swerving in and out of traffic before it took the exit ramp.

Police took the driver of the black Dodge pickup in for questioning. The driver consented to having his blood drawn so that it could be tested to determine whether he was driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, police said. He was released pending further investigation.

Mahoney wouldn’t discuss further details of the investigation, including whether the driver was given a breathalyzer test and whether alcohol has been ruled out as a possible impairment.

“I can tell you that we spoke with him and held him long enough for us to gather the information that we needed out there at the scene,” Mahoney said. “What we need to do now is get the facts of the crash down and then figure out what exactly happened so that we can present it to the prosecutors so that they can make a decision on the appropriateness of charges.”

Kansas City police have teams of crash reconstructionists that document the scene as they found it, including marking evidence and taking photos.

“Basically it’s like starting at the end of a movie and watching it back to the beginning,” Mahoney said.

While at the scene, investigators look for roadway evidence like tire marks, gouges, scratches and biological evidence. The amount of roadway evidence varies at each crash scene.

Inspectors use equipment similar to surveying equipment to map the crash scene, getting exact measurements of the roadway and the location of the evidence. Sometimes that mapping work is done days later.

Once roadway evidence has been collected, the vehicles are towed to a secured area of a tow lot for investigators to examine in the following days. During those examinations, officers document the damage as well as examine seat belts and the interior of the vehicle. They download information from the vehicles’ computer to see what type of information is available. The type of information available varies depending on the type and age of the vehicle.

How fast were vehicles going prior to and during the crash? Did the driver accelerate? Brake? Were seat belts being used?

While police interview witnesses at the crash scene, it’s common for additional witnesses to come forward in the following days once they realize how serious it was, Mahoney said. A lot of the information gathering is completed in the first week. Police try to get the preliminary crash report completed within 10 days.

“For us, that is just the starting point of the investigation,” Mahoney said. “It will have a little more than a brief synopsis of what happened.”

The next six to eight weeks are spent taking the information that was gathered and putting it into computer software to create the detailed crash reconstruction report. During this time, testing is done on the biological evidence and physical evidence on the scene.

“There’s no wasted time,” Mahoney said. “We do turn out these reports as quickly as we can, but the emphasis is on reaching the correct conclusions.”

Once the report is completed, the case with all related information is forwarded to the prosecutor’s office to determine whether charges are appropriate.

“There is so much that goes into these investigations that can’t be produced overnight,” Mahoney said. “It takes time to prove it.”

Unlike fatal shooting cases, where the cause of death and what caused it are not hard to explain, vehicular reconstruction cases are more complex, said Dan Portnoy, trial team leader in the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office general crimes unit.

In vehicular crimes, prosecutors in Missouri look at three main factors when determining whether charges are appropriate:

▪  Was the person committing a felony or fleeing from the commission of a felony and caused a crash that killed someone?

▪  Was the person driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and caused a crash that killed somebody?

▪  Did the driver recklessly cause or was criminally negligent in the death of another person?

What can be proven determines whether prosecutors charge the driver with felony murder, driving while intoxicated or involuntary manslaughter.

“Rushing to a charge isn’t generally a good idea,” Portnoy said. “If you make the wrong decision, then down the road you’re going to have an acquittal, which is the worst possible outcome for the victims. It re-traumatizes them.”

The penalties for killing someone while driving while intoxicated varies depending on the circumstances. For example, if you’re convicted of killing a passenger in your vehicle, you could face three to 10 years in prison. If you kill someone other than a passenger in your vehicle or if your blood alcohol content is above .18 percent, you could face five to 15 years in prison, Portnoy said.

Prosecutors can prove intoxication cases without blood results, but that depends on the talent of police officers at the scene documenting and detecting impairment.

“The trend nationwide is that juries expect scientific evidence,” Portnoy said. “If we think there’s a possibility we are going to have a good blood result, a cautious prosecutor is going to wait and make sure the blood confirms what we think we know from the officer’s observation.”

When prosecutors considering involuntary manslaughter charges, they look at whether the driver was acting recklessly or was criminally negligent.

“A person acts recklessly when there is a substantial and unjustifiable risk he will cause death and he consciously disregards that risk and such disregard is a gross deviation from what a reasonable person would do in the circumstances,” Portnoy said. That would be first-degree involuntary manslaughter, punishable by three to 10 years in prison.

Criminal negligence is the failure to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death would occur or result would follow, he said. That charge would be second-degree involuntary manslaughter, which is punishable by up to one year in county jail or up to four years in prison.

These cases hinge on the driver’s behavior. So prosecutors look at witness statements on whether the driver was speeding, failing to maintain a proper lane, weaving in and out or other traffic violations. They are also looking for indications of road rage.

Not all fatal crashes warrant criminal charges.

“We prove all the time that people didn’t do anything wrong — that’s part of the process,” Mahoney said. “It’s not an infrequent occurrence.”

Often, the person who caused the crash has died, so the work by police focuses on proving the surviving victims did nothing wrong. That’s especially true in pedestrian fatalities on highways, Mahoney said.

“We are aware that sometimes people are frustrated that it doesn’t move along faster,” Mahoney said. “It’s not for lack of caring. We are just actually very meticulous.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2017 at 12:21 PM with the headline "When it comes to fatal crashes, the pain is immediate. Here’s why finding the truth is not."