The South Dakota Attorney General who had fatally struck a pedestrian in September and left the scene thinking it was a deer has been charged with careless driving.
State Attorney Michael Moore admitted at a press conference that he was not “feeling good about it” but that he thinks it was the right decision.
Jason Ravnsborg was traveling on US Highway 14 when he hit 55-year-old Joe Bowever and sped away.
He later returned to the scene after contacting Hyde County Sheriff officers and surveyed the area looking for what he had hit earlier in the night.
Finding nothing at the time, the attorney general left for his home until the next morning when he ultimately discovered a human body around the crash scene.
“Recklessness is an extremely high burden for us to establish and in this case, we don’t have it,” Moore said.
Ravnsborg was not drunk at the time of the crash and authorities had no evidence to charge him with manslaughter or vehicular homicide in connection with the incident.
The victim’s cousin said that he was “disappointed but not surprised” as the charges were predictable given the course of the investigation that hinted to minimal offenses.
“Obviously when a person dies, we want to know what happened. But we’re limited by the investigation and by the facts,” Moore said.
“And we can’t compel someone to tell us. I mean, there’s just nowhere else to go.”
