IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Officers failed to guard an Iowa drunken driving suspect before he escaped from a State Patrol car while handcuffed and was struck by a van and killed, video and reports obtained by The Associated Press show.
Matthew Lentzkow’s death has brought attention to how Iowa State Patrol vehicles lack cages to transport suspects. Lentzkow’s father said the lack of a cage – and the trooper’s decision to not place his son in the nearby vehicle of a sheriff’s deputy that had one – was one of several factors that contributed to the death.
“I’m hoping that nobody else has to bury their kids because of silly mistakes,” Gary Lentzkow said in his first media interview about the death of his son, who he recalled as a missionary worker in Mexico and Romania, talented welder and one-time professional bull rider. “He shouldn’t have been drinking and driving but that’s not a death penalty.”
Trooper Matthew Papin stopped and arrested Lentzkow, who was heavily intoxicated and driving erratically on Interstate 80 about 35 miles east of Des Moines.
Two Jasper County deputies who assisted with the Nov. 1 stop offered to place Lentzkow in the cage of their vehicle after he tried to flee once and was tackled and handcuffed. Papin declined the offer, buckling Lentzkow in the front passenger seat of his car with Lentzkow’s hands cuffed behind his back, deputies’ reports show.