Police officer in horror crash that killed teen cheerleader charged with manslaughter
A Minnesota State Patrol trooper has been charged with manslaughter after he allegedly T-boned another car while speeding.
Minnesota State Patrol trooper Shane Roper, 32, was driving his squad car when he struck the vehicle 18-year-old cheerleader Olivia Flores was riding in.
The car crash happened back in May and as well as Flores’ death, five other people were injured - some of them being serious.
On July 9, Roper was charged with manslaughter and his record of ‘inattentive driving or excessive speed’ has come to light.
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The crash happened at the intersection of Apache Mall Dr. And 12th St. SW in Rochester, Minnesota.
A total of three vehicles were involved in the crash and observations from the scene indicated the Roper's car t-boned a Ford Focus.
Flores was riding as a passenger in this car and the other two people in the car were taken to hospital after the crash with broken bone injuries.
While doing traffic enforcement, Roper's car was waiting stationary on the exit ramp from 6th St. SW onto highway 52 before taking off at rapid speed.
He reportedly exited the ramp at 98 mph to catch another motorist for a minor traffic violation before the crash.
The Olmsted County Attorney’s Office press release about the matter included the full charges against Roper.
They included: “Second Degree Manslaughter along with Criminal Vehicular Homicide related to Ms. Flores as well as several charges of Criminal Vehicular Operation related to the other victims."
The family are expectedly devastated especially as Flores was set to celebrate her graduation.
The family’s attorneys highlighted the family's grief and spoke at a press conference following the charges against Roper. They also questioned why he could continue doing his jobs despite his many previous driving infractions.
The family’s attorney Dan McIntosh said: “It doesn’t make sense from an outsider observer how he could continue to be put in a squad car without more controls on him, without more oversight of what he is doing."
The family’s second attorney Tom Braun also said: “The Flores family is very concerned about the institutional operations of the state patrol.
“Their hope and their desire is to keep everyone accountable in terms of how we got to this point today, where we have a trooper on the road who shouldn’t have been on the road.”
Looking at the Roper’s previous incidents, the court documents stated Roper had engaged in high-speed driving without emergency lights, in one instance getting to speeds of 135mph in a 55mph zone, while other times it was over 99mph.
In some cases, he had turned off his emergency lights while maintaining extreme speeds.
UNILAD has contacted the Minnesota State Patrol for comment.
Gerrard Kaonga