South Dakota Atty General: "I could have sworn that was a deer..."

South Dakota elected a traffic scofflaw as Attorney General. Sounds about right...

South Dakota’s attorney general reported hitting a deer with his car over the weekend, but state investigators said Monday that he actually killed a man whose body was not found until the next day.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) said at a Sunday news conference that Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was involved in a fatal crash around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday near Highmore, but didn’t release details of the incident.

The victim was identified as 55-year-old Joseph Boever of Highmore. Boever’s relatives grew suspicious and frustrated after it allegedly took almost 22 hours to identify his body, his cousin Nick Nemec told the Associated Press. Nemec said Boever was likely walking along the road at the time of the crash.

“A deer doesn’t look like a human,” Nemec’s brother Victor told the Journal.

Ravnsborg was driving from a Republican fundraiser in Redfield, South Dakota, to his home in Pierre when he hit Boever, spokesperson Tim Bormann told multiple outlets, adding that the attorney general was uninjured in the crash.

“I am shocked and filled with sorrow following the events of last night,” Ravnsborg said in a statement Sunday, according to The Argus Leader. “As Governor Noem stated, I am fully cooperating with the investigation and fully intend to continue to do so moving forward. At this time I offer my deepest sympathy and condolences to the family.”

At the time of his Sunday statement, Ravnsborg did not mention that he reported hitting a deer instead of a man.

Ravnsborg was elected attorney general in 2018 and has a history of speeding and other traffic violations. According to a background check analyzed by the Leader, Ravnsborg had six speeding tickets between 2014 and 2018. He pleaded guilty to all of them and paid fines ranging from $19 to $79. He was also allegedly cited on a seat belt violation in 2017 and on driving without a proper exhaust and muffler system in 2015 ― he paid fines in those cases, too.

Seems like he was driving drunk, hit a guy, and knew enough not to do a hit and run. So he phoned it in as hitting a deer. What's suspicious to me that he returned to the scene of the crime -- 50 minutes from his house -- only to discover he had in fact hit someone.

He denied he was drinking. I'm sure he wouldn't lie.

The guy looks like a Dayton clone:

The reflection off the "Blue Lives Matter" stripe does a great job of higlighting his double chin.

Definitely not a thin, blue chin.

The victim’s glasses being in the car (meaning his head had gone through the windshield) pretty much seals the deal.

Do you know what sort of force you would have to hit a windsheild with to have your glasses in the front seat?

I have lived in dear country for a long time, and if you actually hit a deer with enough force to go through your windshield you better be driving something huge and strong. A deer will take out a sedan or pickup like it was nothing.

This guy died under similar circumstances. His killer got 50 years. You want to claim that there's equal justice under the law, then explain how this guy is still free.

The victim's flashlight was still on when his body was found the next day. Said the AG: "I'm obviously not as observant as I should be."

The dude's police interviews have been released if anybody feels like subjecting themselves to them.

@Paladin will be along shortly to tell us how this man’s death is a tragedy but ultimately it is good that the right tried to overturn a democratic election.

I was wondering after listening to the first half of the other tape whether he passed out or the phone would have records of his times showing he was browsing or reading something. You could tell from his story he was not looking at the road when he hit something. The police were obviously fishing for information about his cell activity. he is done.

The things I want to know is how negligent the officers responding to the scene were. It is not like he did not call the police to the scene and was not there when they arrived. According to him the sheriff gave him his personal car to drive home because his car was not safe for the road. I have gotten white privilege before, but that means the sheriff will bring you to an open safe place for you to call for transportation, or they have the tow truck driver help you out.

Si instead of looking for an animal that needs to be put down, or an injured or dead human body the police were gabbing with the dude and making googly eyes and loaning him their fucking personal car while the dead body was hanging out in a ditch. If they had found the body they could have confiscated the phones before he had any chance to destroy evidence, and we are somewhat lucky he was too stupid to do any of that, even after he discovered the body the next day and called the police back to the scene. He knew he was driving while using his phone, and was dumb enough not to get rid of the evidence, but the cops were fucking around while potentially a guy was dying slowly and painfully in a ditch.

At least they caught this guy and hopefully it is jail time for killing a person over some web browsing.

those new LED flashlights stay on forever before they drain a battery. Regardless this whole thing would mage a great Columbo episode.
"Just one more question Mister Ravensborg....are you farsighted or nearsighted? I always get those mixed up myself...."

On a 65 mile per hour stretch of road with your headlights on and you are not doing 100+, stevie wonder could have seen the guy on the pavement and avoided him.

Actually to add to this my low end corolla actually might have sensed the obstruction and slowed down for me. It would have, at the very least, sparked a collision warning.

pedestrians do some stupid shit - we lose quite a few every year here in the Augusta area. So hitting somebody? I get that. Covering it up? Not so much. I hope he gets slammed with the maximum penalty allowed by law and then some.

Once again, who the fuck is writing this season of America? Somebody should tell them that when it's too on-the-nose, it just isn't believable.

So do I have the timeline down correctly?

1. Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL (for non US folks the highest law enforcement official in the state) drives away from a fundraiser (and is totally not drunk).

2. Unbeknownst to him this Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL’s cell phone starts loading Far Right Echo Chamber webpages about the election being stolen. HOWEVER the phone is just doing that on its own. The Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL is totally NOT looking at the screen while his phone loads web pages.

4. The Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL strikes an object while not drunk and not reading his phone.

5. The Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL doesn’t actually see what he ran over, so just assumes it is a deer and drives home.

6. The next day the Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL starts having second thoughts so as one does calls his lawyer.

7. The Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL, his lawyer and the State Patrol go see if maybe it just wasn’t a deer so they go check out the scene.

8. They find a man who’s car has broken down and was walking back to it dead in a ditch.

9. The man has a flashlight that is still on.

10. Upon investigation the deer’s/victim’s glasses are found in the passenger compartment of the car of the Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL meaning the deer’s/victim’s HEAD WENT THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD.

10. The Republican ATTORNEY GENERAL is let go.

11. He is charged with a misdemeanor and retains his position.

12. @Paladin tells us that while this is unfortunate at least the socialists aren’t in control so this really is the best of all possible outcomes.

I do not know the exact scene, but we can assume a few things based on the evidence. The guy would have been walking facing traffic on the proper side of the road if his glasses and face print in the windshield were on the passenger side of the car. I do not know if there is a sidewalk on the type of road he was on, but if not that is where you could expect a pedestrian to be walking properly on the road. Dude admits to not breaking or swerving before impacting the victim because he never saw him before impact. He also admits the speed limit was 65 because he saw a sign, and that he was traveling near that speed. So this would seem to be a highway type road because you do not have blind sharp curves on a road with a 65 mph speed limit. So the victim was on the right side of the car's travel lane and would have been visible for a distance on a clear night.

If you listen to the video the police have the driver reading political websites about a minute or two before calling 911. They flat out explain that would be the time he would have had to come to a stop and start calling 911 after the accident. If you listened to the driver's story that he says he never braked, stopped immediately, and called 911 to report it. He openly lies and say he was paying attention to the road when the police are interviewing him. He even says things about calling his dad way before this, but that he was not using his phone. I do not know if this was a sworn statement given he volunteered to speak to the police so that might not be perjury. Maybe it was.

This is manslaughter or negligent homicide. I do not think anyone is claiming he acted with purpose or malice to kill the man. However he was using his cell and driving and killed a man directly because he was not looking at the road and he admits to plowing him without any chance to dodge or avoid. Even if the dude jumped in front of his car at 65 mph, he would not have been able to avoid him because he was looking at his phone. There is no reason for hitting a pedestrian on a clear road without any attempt to brake or swerve. At 65 MPH the guy would have to be an olympic running and jumping champion to make it in front of the guys car from an obscured point on a 65mph stretch of highway without you seeing him coming. Even if that guy was, he never looked up to have a chance to see him.

I can understand hittingh a deer or pedestrian, as I have hit deer that have jumped into the road. But I swerved and hit the brakes and knew something was jumping into the road. I even hit a black dogh one night and was traveling at 65 when I saw the shadow in the road and started breaking because I did not know what was in the road. In that case the dog actually charged at my car which was when I saw the eyes and started my braking skid. I could not save the dog, and I cannot say the guy could have saved the pedestrian either. However, you cannot make the attempt if you never see what you hit because you were browsing politico on your phone. Yes, the police seem to know he was actually browsing politico.

You are wrong on a couple of steps.
5. AG calls the police who respond

6. AG lo0oks around with cell phone as flashlight to see if he can find animal he hit, but doesn't.

7. Police arrive, take his statement, and then an officer drives AG to his house, gives the AG his personal car to drive home, AG starts driving home and officer pulls him over to get keys for AGs car to give to the tow truck driver, and AG rides home.

8. The next day the AG is with his friend and are going back to the scene to see what AG hit. The AG is also going to return the officer's car.

9. While at the scene looking around the AG discovers the body no one else saw the night before and calls the cops.

Then you can continue to your step 9 as far as I am aware.

I will actually say the AG seems to be telling the truth about not knowing what he hit, and seems to have followed the law in reporting the accident and reporting the body when he found it. He even seems to have told almost all of the truth as per how the accident happened, except he tries to leave out looking at his phone moments before the impact would have occurred. The police are obviously bumbling idiots who missed the body while waiting for the Tow truck. This is why the AG would not be guilty of felony Leaving the scene of an accident with personal injury. The police arrived and sent him home.

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/19/9696...-misdemeanors-in-crash-that-killed-pedestrian

I was looking up to see why the guy was only charged with misdemeanors. According to this article :

Holy fucking shit is SD fucked up.

So I could not believe some of this, but I looked it up. Vehicular homicide requires intoxication as they claim, but SD does not have a negligent homicide statute. I am not sure why manslaughter was not charged. It would seem reckless driving, which would have carried more time and been a class 1 misdemeanor, was replaced by careless driving by the legislature sometime in the past.

So really there seems to be a giant hole in SD law that as long as you are not drunk and guilty of trying to kill someone in your car, you can run them down and only be charged with minor misdemeanors as long as they cannot prove you were on drugs?

This guy is going to get away with it because the police gave him their personal car to go home, and conveniently no one found the body until the next day when there was no way their drug test would have discovered a trace of alcohol after he attended a party with drinking.

If anyone is still reading this crazy bullshit by this point, the guy actually spent the beginning of his police interview telling them that he never had anything to drink and he had already lined up the guest list and witnesses to claim they had not seen him drink anything at the party. It is almost like the AG knew in order to get the homicide charge they had to prove he had something to drink. It is really just a stroke of pure luck the cops who gave him their personal car never found the body the night of the incident or even bothered to have him blow to show if he was intoxicated.

Even if there's some bizarre quirk in the law that says you can't be convicted of killing someone with a car unless you were drunk, you'd think at a minimum the county could add obstruction of justice.

Obstruction would be a huge reach considering he did comply with every request made of him. About the worst he seemed to do was omit that he was reading websites before he called 911. He really does just hand over everything and the police were called immediately. According to him they told him to go home and even gave him a car to drive. As soon as they asked for his phone he turned it over. They never asked him to take a blood test or tested his sobriety at the scene. Unless they could prove he somehow touched or hid the body until the next day I do not know how they would say he obstructed anything.

This is why there seems to be a huge problem with how the police handled the situation, and the law is just written poorly because it does actually say a person needs to be under the influence of a substance. The state seriously has to write better laws. You cannot have a statute that requires you to be drunk behind the wheel to be guilty of vehicular homicide as long as you did noty intend to kill someone.

This is what happens when you have a bunch of people who do not want laws mucking up their freedumb.

I must be missing something here, but wouldn't "hit and run" play a factor in charging him?

Sounds like a reasonable question to me. Raoul?

In other words, "he was asking for it"?

He is allowed his defense, and there is a possibility the guy was depressed and saw an opportunity with a speeding car. However, that does not excuse the bullshit that went on with the driver. IIRC the guy was speeding, certainly browsing the internet while driving, and the police department did some odd things. Even if the guy threw himself in front of the car it does not excuse the obvious mistakes and cover up of those irregularities after the fact.

The real disturbing part of this is what happened with the police because they did some really stupid things.

I missed this on WF originally, but my regional perspective is that it's a big cf and he murdered the guy. SD governor Noem is a Trump wackaloon and hasn't helped matters.