Following the revelation of dash cam footage, the relatives of three teenagers who drowned after driving a stolen car into a river questioned the efforts made by officials to save them.
The three teenagers from Tampa, Florida, who are 15 and 16 years old, are said to have stolen a Honda Accord, which the police pursued until it ended up in a pond. The girls eventually drowned and perished, and according to their relatives, no attempt was made to save them by the responding officers.
“We are currently going over everything,” Will Anderson, the teens’ attorney, stated to ABC News. I think there has been a hasty decision made in this case. This has been a smear effort, in my opinion.”
Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff, defended the deputies’ actions, claiming they performed their duties correctly.
“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.”
Gualtieri claimed that the pond was “thick with sludge” and that it was challenging for the officers to enter.
The lawyer for two of the girls, Michele Whitfield, added that the dash cam footage was dubious and demonstrated the fact that “there are still unanswered questions.”
She told the Tampa Bay Times, “I just feel like the Sheriff is giving an appearance of transparency at this point.” “There are still certain paperwork I need to obtain.
In the clip released from dash cam footage, which didn’t show the entire incident, a few deputies are seen talking about the vehicle after it was driven into the river.
“It’s going all the way down. It’s almost fully submerged,” one deputy said in the clip. I hear them yelling, I think!”
“They’re done. They’re done. They are sig seven, dude,” another added, referring to the radio code for “dead person.”
Despite the footage, the Sheriff’s office insisted that their officers did everything they could to rescue the teens and that “just because it’s not on cam doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“This is absurd; they were carrying out their duties. On the Facebook page of Mad World News, a reader posted, “Perhaps if more parents taught their kids respect and right from wrong, the cops wouldn’t have to chase or arrest them.”
“It’s really sad that the police officers are being blamed for this those girls were Reckless and still in the car and driving too fast their parents should have taught him better at home maybe if there was consequences two things they done they wouldn’t have done this so the parents need to point a finger in their own Direction and take the blame for this it’s not the police officers fault,” another commented.
