During a police chase in Tampa, Florida, officers came upon a stolen car. The cops did not realize they were chasing three Tampa teens aged fifteen and sixteen at the time of the high-speed chase. The three teenage girls had stolen a Honda Accord before leading cops on an extended chase until the vehicle was wrecked into a filthy pond after it was flipped over.
After the police department released the officers’ dash camera footage, the parents became even more furious. The video evidence showed that the responding police officers did not make much of an effort to save the lives of the people in the sinking stolen vehicle even though they were at risk of drowning.
“We are in the process of reviewing everything,” the teens’ lawyer, Will Anderson, said. “In my opinion, this has been a rush to judgment. In my opinion, this has been a smear campaign.”
Nonetheless, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri stood by his deputies and stated that they followed the law to the letter. He wanted people to know that he thought what they did was correct even though three teenagers perished as a result of their inaction.
“I’m not going to stand by and let these people cast a false narrative,” he stated. “They’re reaching, and they want to be spin masters.”
According to the Sheriff, the pond was “thick with sludge” and making it difficult for the cops to get in.
An attorney representing two of the deceased teens, Michele Whitfield, believe that the officers’ dashboard camera footage was not favorable and that “there are more questions that need to be answered.”
“I just feel like, at this point, the Sheriff is giving an appearance of transparency,” she said. “There are still some documents that I am waiting for.
The dashboard camera footage from the incident clearly depicts the policemen failing to rescue the three teenagers trapped inside of the Honda as it sinks into the pond. Instead of trying to help, they mill about and chat with each other calmly.
“It’s going all the way down. It’s almost fully submerged,” one deputy said. “I hear them yelling, I think!”
“They’re done. They’re done. They are sig seven, dude,” another officer added, referring to the radio code for “dead person.”
The sheriff insists that the officers did everything possible to save the teenage girls who were dying. “Just because it’s not on cam doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Sheriff Gualtieri stated.
