Motorcycle crash tile
Mike TaylorCHATTANOOGA DISTRICT FATALITIES
Marion County usually ranks in the middle for traffic fatalities in the Tennessee Highway Patrol’s 12-county Chattanooga district. Hamilton, the most populous county, leads the district in fatalities often followed by Bradley, Coffee and McMinn counties.County – 2014 – 2015 – *2016Bledsoe – 0 – 1 – N/ABradley – 9 – 20 – 5Coffee – 12 – 14 – 2Franklin – 7 – 8 – 2Grundy – 4 – 0 – 1Hamilton – 42 – 42 – 13Marion – 11 – 5 – 2McMinn – 13 – 11 – 5Meigs – 5 – 4 – 4Polk – 6 – 6 – 1Rhea – 3 – 9 – 0Sequatchie – 2 – 5 – 2*Year to dateSource: Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security
A Tennessee state trooper will not face charges in the April 23 crash that claimed the life of a Ringgold, Ga., motorcyclist.
Trooper Clyde “Butch” Reeves was driving his patrol car east on Interstate 24 in Marion County when it slammed into a motorcycle driven by 66-year-old Jim Garner, officials said. Garner was killed.
“We reviewed the report from the initial investigation – based on the critical incident response team, the criminal investigation division – and we came to the conclusion that the proximate cause of that crash was the inattention of trooper Reeves to the traffic pattern that was developing ahead of him,” 12th Judicial District Attorney General Mike Taylor said.
“He failed to perceive that the traffic was slowing substantially, and by the time he did perceive it, he couldn’t stop or avoid it,” Taylor said.
There was no evidence that Reeves was impaired or engaged in any distracting or improper activities such as texting or using electronic equipment or a cellphone inside the patrol car, he said.
Taylor said he consulted with the Garner family in his decision.
“It was simply inattention,” Taylor said, “and when you’re traveling at 70 mph-plus, inattention for two seconds puts you two-thirds of a football field down the road. People don’t realize how much ground they’re covering when they’re on the interstate.”
The decision has no impact on potential civil actions, Taylor said.
“We concluded that the facts would support a case of civil negligence against Trooper Reeves but they would not support a criminal prosecution,” Taylor said.
Officials have not released the report or commented further while “this is still an active investigation now within the department,” THP spokesman Lt. John Harmon said Tuesday. Reeves has taken personal leave since the day of the accident.
Reeves is an experienced officer with several years of service. According to a Times Free Press interview in 2009, he went to work with the highway patrol around 1999.
The accident happened at 2:13 p.m. CDT at mile marker 161. Garner was alone on his motorcycle when he was struck from behind.
Taylor has remarked on the frequency of wrecks on I-24 between Jasper and Chattanooga, and the state patrol has taken some notes, as well.
THP recently studied statistics for the six-mile stretch of I-24 running from the Georgia state line to Nickajack Lake “and found a high number of crashes in the area,” Harmon said. Statistics show that between Jan. 1, 2013, and April 27 of this year 357 accidents occurred there that involved property damage and five others involved fatalities, he said.
Those numbers do not include accidents that occurred on the few miles of I-24 on the Georgia side of the state line, according to Harmon.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com on Twitter twitter.com/BenBenton on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.