(Reuters) – South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg said he only realized he had struck and killed a man on Saturday night as he drove home from a Republican party event after he returned to the scene the next day, and earlier thought he had hit a large animal.
Ravnsborg, in a statement on Monday, said he realized he had hit a man when he returned to the site of the crash on Sunday morning and found the victim, identified by authorities as 55-year-old Joseph Boever, while looking for the animal he thought he had struck.
The state’s top law enforcement official told the Hyde County Sheriff’s Office that he had been involved in a car-deer crash, according to a statement on Monday by the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, and that a person’s body was discovered on Sunday.
In his statement https://www.newscenter1.tv/content/uploads/2020/09/stmt.pdf, Ravnsborg said he “immediately” called 911 after the accident and that the sheriff arrived to the scene shortly after.
The attorney general, who said he had not consumed any alcohol at the event he attended, added that he had surveyed the scene using his cellphone flashlight because it was dark, but could not see anything.
“At no time did either of us suspect that I had been involved in an accident with a person,” Ravnsborg said, referring also to the sheriff.
Boever’s relatives told local media https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/update-dps-not-sharing-key-info-about-attorney-general-crash-investigation/article_d30c1f03-6e69-577d-9b0c-08106a963b60.html he was apparently returning to his truck when he was hit, after he drove the vehicle into a ditch earlier in the day and had to leave it there.
Because Ravnsborg’s vehicle, a 2011 Ford Taurus, was too damaged to be driven, the sheriff lent him his personal vehicle after they drove to the policeman’s home, and Ravnsborg returned it on Sunday morning, according to Ravnsborg’s statement.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said at a news conference on Monday that the South Dakota Highway Patrol was leading an investigation into the accident.
Ravnsborg said he was “deeply saddened” by the events and that he was cooperating fully with the investigation.
(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Bernadette Baum)
