Terry Stambaugh of Harrison didn't have to die near dusk on July 27 as he drove peacefully to check on his family's getaway home near Branson.
I predict the 61-year-old respected businessman I knew well, who was deeply involved in bettering his community, would still be alive this morning had there not been that high-speed police chase which began in Missouri and ended in a grinding head-on crash just across the Arkansas line.
That's when the suspect pursued by Taney County, Mo., deputies, driving south in the northbound lane of U.S. 65, smashed headlong into Stambaugh's northbound Toyota.
Jason Allen Adcock, 31, of Ridgedale, Mo., earlier had rammed his truck into a squad car in his attempt to flee from police investigating a domestic-violence call. He sped off wildly with deputies in hot pursuit.
At some point, Adcock chose to veer into the northbound lane where Stambaugh had been minding his own business. Stambaugh had been a policeman in his previous life back in California. And in those fateful moments beforehand, I believe the last thing Terry ever suspected was that he'd arrived at his final seconds on this earth.
Yet in the unavoidable flash of their collision, both men were indeed gone as the pursuing deputies pulled up with blue lights flashing around both shredded vehicles.
That brings me back to my original sentence. Had the deputies chosen not to engage in a high-speed chase to apprehend Adcock, had they instead said let him go for now, we know his vehicle, where he lives and you can bet we'll catch him, there would have been no fatal crash on that Monday evening.
The matter of unnecessary high-speed police chases has been hashed and rehashed for decades across the United States and in other countries. Terry Stambaugh hasn't been the only victim of these incidents, not by a far cry. And that includes officers who readily engage in this risky practice.
In its analysis of police pursuits, USA Today reported 5,066 bystanders and passengers across the nation were killed by the practice between 1979 and 2013. They characterized that stunning number by saying it amounted to more than one death a day, largely from drivers fleeing arrest. That didn't include the thousands of others injured "as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions."
The newspaper's investigation, "A death a day from police chases," said tens of thousands of suspects believed to have committed traffic offenses or misdemeanors each year choose to speed away from police rather than stop. And in many cases where police policies on such pursuits haven't been implemented, the officers willingly give chase, often at speeds reaching 100 miles an hour.
And, all too often, as in the case of Terry Stambaugh, innocent people wind up as victims of the pursuits.
The study spoke of others such as the New Jersey man who was killed by a driver being chased for running a red light. There also was the grandmother who was struck and killed by a suspected shoplifter whom police chased for four miles before that crash. And a federal worker in Washington, D.C., killed by a driver who police chased because his headlights were off.
"Far more police vehicle chases occur each year than police shootings," the Justice Department said. According to the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said the story, chase-related deaths in 2013 were higher (322) than in 1990 (317). And 139 officers lost their lives during the period examined.
The problem of unnecessary high-speed police chases drew the attention of the U.S. Justice Department in 1990, according to the story. That agency wanted local law enforcement to re-examine policies and make changes that could make things safer for all involved. But the fatalities and injuries from chasing some wild-eyed panicking driver at high speeds on public roadways only increased in the next 23 years.
Sounds to me like the sheriff's department in Taney County might benefit from such a review, considering Stambaugh's unnecessary death.
As for Adcock's self-inflicted demise, it sounds to me as if the chase could have given the man an immediate reason to end it all and take an innocent stranger with him. We can never know his frenzied thoughts as he crossed suicidally into the northbound lane at high speed with deputies hot on his tail.
The newspaper put the larger problem this way: "While cities such as Milwaukee and Orlando allow chases only of suspected violent felons, many departments let officers chase anyone if they decide the risk of letting someone go free outweighs the risk of a pursuit."
Well, deputies chasing Jason Allen Adcock at high speeds on July 27 obviously believed the risk to motorists was worth it. Yet I assure you Terry's family and friends and all those who knew and appreciated his many contributions in Harrison would strongly disagree.
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 08/18/2015