Woman dies in crash after fleeing from police in Kansas City, Kansas: highway patrol
A Kansas City, Kansas, woman is dead following a crash after what was initially logged as a police pursuit last week, according to Kansas Highway Patrol; a log that Kansas City, Kansas Police are disputing.
At 12:33 a.m. Thursday, the driver of a 2007 Nissan Altima was headed west on Metropolitan Avenue. When she reached the intersection of South 32nd Street, she struck a slope in the road, “vaulted, lost control, and ran off the road to the left,” according to a crash log from Kansas Highway Patrol. The vehicle then struck the rock wall of a home.
The driver, Sade Shane Parker, 29, of Kansas City, Kansas, died as a result of the crash, according to the log.
The log says the crash occurred during a police pursuit; however, a spokeswoman with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department disputes that.
Nancy Chartrand, with KCKPD told The Star on Monday morning that an officer attempted to conduct a traffic stop but never gave chase.
The officer was at the intersection of South 18th Street and Metropolitan Avenue when he says Parker ran a stop sign, Chartrand said. The officer then turned on his emergency lights. By the time he reached South 22nd Street and Metropolitan, the driver still had not pulled over, but instead “sped off at a high rate of speed,” Chartrand said.
Because it is against KCKPD policy to pursue a vehicle over a traffic infraction, the officer turned off his lights at the intersection of South 22nd Street and Metropolitan Avenue and stopped following Parker, Chartrand said.
After remaining at South 22nd Street and Metropolitan Avenue for several minutes, the officer later continued driving down Metropolitan where someone flagged him down near South 33d Street to inform him of a crash, Chartrand said.
“This was not a pursuit. This was a case of a driver fleeing as an officer attempted to make a routine traffic stop,” she said, later adding: “I am not certain as to why KHP coded this in its log as a pursuit. I know many times calls come in as one things and later are determined to be another.”
Trooper Tiffany Baylark, a spokeswoman with Kansas Highway Patrol, told The Star on Monday morning that the crash log was preliminary, but it was not her understanding at that point that a mistake was made on the crash log.
She said further information on the incident won’t be available until the full report is ready. Reports must be finalized withing 14 days of a crash.
Editor’s note: This story and headline were updated Monday morning to reflect comments from the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department.
This story was originally published December 18, 2022 at 8:54 PM.
