Sunday, November 19, 2017

Parsing an Incident Report

The Madison Police Department posts online what they call "A Selection of Noteworthy Incident Reports":

Incidents listed are selected by the Officer In Charge of each shift that may have significant public interest. Incidents listed are not inclusive of all incidents. 
This is the report for Case #2017-393080. It begins routinely:
Incident Type  Traffic Incident
Incident Date  10/30/2017 - 2:59 PM
Nothing too exciting so far. Just traffic.
Address  500 block S. Midvale Blvd.
Here's the Google street view:

A residential neighborhood, but a popular, divided street. 30 mph speed limit. Starting to see commuter traffic that time of day, from University Avenue at Hilldale to the Beltline or Verona Road.
Apartments across the street, getting a little denser.
Oh, wait. Is that Midvale Elementary School?
Suspect(s)  Male . . . 14-16 years old, 6', 170 pounds, wearing blue jeans, light colored coat or sweatshirt.
Victim(s)  Male, age 15, Madison
Everyone's pretty young.
Details
A teen racing a stolen SUV crashed on Midvale Blvd. yesterday afternoon. He and a passenger fled the crash site, leaving two friends behind, one of them injured.
Stolen car.
Witnesses told police the Toyota RAV4 and another small SUV were racing southbound on Midvale at around 70 mph when the driver of the RAV4 tried to pass a slower moving vehicle. He lost control and smashed the RAV4 into a parked car. The parked car was catapulted 40 yards into a tree, with the RAV4 coming to rest 50 yards farther south.
70 mph in a 30 zone. 20 if children are present. Parked car pushed 40 yards.
A witness went to render aid, and watched as the driver and a passenger fled on foot. He said they got into the other SUV which had been involved in the race.

Left behind was an uninjured passenger and a 15-year-old young man who had suffered a leg injury.

The Toyota had been stolen a week ago after its 23-year-old owner left it parked outside of her Big Sky Dr. apartment building. It and the parked car it hit were both totaled.

Police are looking to identify the driver of the stolen SUV. The uninjured passenger, who stayed with his hurt friend, claimed not to know the driver's name.
Not just a fender bender. Drive and walk defensively out there.

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