Osage Beach officer’s death highlights rising fatalities on the road

OSAGE BEACH, Mo. (KMIZ)

An Osage Beach police officer killed in a car crash over the weekend was the 32nd U.S. police officer killed in a car crash this year while working, which marks a 45 percent increase from this time last year. 

Phylicia Carson was killed in a traffic accident on Route A near Richland while pursuing a high-speed suspect over the weekend. A suspect, 23-year-old Christopher Wehmeyer, faces an aggravated fleeing a stop charge for allegedly running from Carson and other Osage Beach police officers trying to pull him over for speeding. The visitation and funeral will be held Thursday at the Lodge of Four Seasons in Osage Beach. Carson is the third Missouri officer killed in a vehicle pursuit within the last decade. 

ABC 17 News reviewed the 32 deaths of U.S. law enforcement agents on the Officer Down Memorial Page. The review found that eight of them came during a vehicle pursuit. Of those deaths:

• Four of them allegedly happened when the fleeing suspect hit the officer
• Two of them allegedly happened when the officers went off the road themselves, including Carson
• One happened when another pursuing officer hit them
•  One of them happened when an uninvolved car hit a state trooper

The ODMP shows there were 22 deaths at this point in 2023 from crashes.

The review found 12 law enforcement officials died when a different car hit them while working on the side of the road or as part of a traffic detail. Another nine died in crashes during routine traffic. Three officers died when they crashed in response to a different call.

“Generally speaking you hope not to get in one,” University of Missouri-Kansas City Department of Criminalogy Chair, Seth Fallick said. “The reason for that is that they're quite risky and we want law enforcement to be risk-averse.” 

High-speed police chases are not only dangerous for the officers. they also put surrounding vehicles in harm's way. Data from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) estimates that 52,600 people were injured between 2017 and 2021 in police pursuits. At least fifteen of those were officers.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked PERF to conduct a study on managing the risk of vehicular pursuits. The study, published last September, recommended that police only engage in a vehicular pursuit if: “(1) a violent crime has been committed and (2) the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.”

“Unless they’re going to engage in some criminal behavior or they’re a threat, I think you just let them go and catch up with them later,” Fallick said when asked about the study. “We have to remember that, you know, vehicles,  particularly in like inclement weather and, you know,  varying availability of daylight to sort of help with our vision or hinder our vision.” 

The state recently passed its own potential solution called Valentine’s Law, named after Detective Antionioe Valentine who was killed in 2021 after a suspect fleeing his narcotics unit crashed head-on into his vehicle. The law increases the penalty for suspects fleeing an officer from a misdemeanor to a felony. however, if it reduces tragic accidents is yet to be seen. 

"We know that a lot of folks are not calculating their decision-making based on punishment and so it certainly hits them in the aftermath,  but they're not thinking about it in the moment," Fallick explained. "Their adrenaline's going and they're trying to get away from what they perceive to be, a police presence or a police aggression. they're not saying to themselves, well, I used to only get nine months and now I'm I qualify for two years. That's not part of their decision-making whatsoever. Beyond that, I'd have to look into the law."

Fallik says that other solutions include drones or using helicopters while officers follow at a distance which is especially useful in cities where the risk of officers or innocent bystanders getting injured is much higher.