Play stupid games, get charged as an adult.
Via AM News:
Two juveniles were detained, questioned and then charged Sunday afternoon for allegedly throwing a rock into the windshield of a Boyle County sheriff’s deputy’s SUV, causing him to wreck.
Boyle County Sheriff Derek Robbins confirmed at 4 p.m. that the two juveniles were still being held by deputies and had not yet been sent to a jail.
“We were able to track down some leads through video and just putting bits and pieces from different videos together,” he said.
“We went to speak with them and the vehicle was there,” Robbins said.
The teenagers have been charged with first-degree assault of a police officer; felony leaving the scene of a wreck and failing to render aid; and criminal mischief. Their names are not being released at this time due to their ages.
“They are very close to being 18,” Robbins said. “I don’t know if they will be charged as adults. That will ultimately be up to the prosecution. I don’t have any say in that.”
Robbins said the partnership between the Boyle Sheriff’s Office and the Danville Police Department “without a doubt” paid off in closing the case so quickly.
“Anytime something big like this happens, they are the absolute first ones there as we are for them. That’s just the way it is,” he said. “Whatever piddly little differences we have, when something like this happens it’s not even relevant. I couldn’t say enough good things about our partnership … those guys are tremendous.”
Robbins said based on what he knows from watching interviews with the teens, “I don’t have any doubt that they didn’t have any intent of causing a potentially deadly situation like that. But their actions created a situation where (Deputy Phillip Dean) very easily could have lost his life.”
Dean was responding to 911 calls about someone throwing rocks while driving along Ky. 34 in north Boyle County before 5 a.m. Sunday. One thrown rock had already damaged a semi-truck.
“He was probably about a half a mile away from the scene … when an approaching vehicle threw a large rock,” Robbins said.
The rock probably weighs between 6 and 10 pounds, Robbins explained, and was likely traveling in excess of 100 miles per hour upon initial impact, because of the opposing speeds of the two vehicles.
“That heavy a rock, a windshield is not going to — that was just a formality; it was just in the way,” Robbins said. “The rock itself was big enough that if it had hit him in the right spot, it could have killed him. Not to mention the wreck after he flipped from getting hit. So he’s lucky from a lot of different perspectives.”
The wreck occurred in the area of Stony Point Road on Ky. 34, where the westbound lane briefly widens to two lanes. The first emergency tone went out at about 4:50 a.m., said Mike Wilder, Boyle County Emergency Manage director.
Dean did not have to be admitted to the hospital and was already home recovering Sunday morning, Wilder said.