Reports of AG accident claim man was walking on/along highway at night

From twitter comes an unverified report – I’m assuming it’s coming via Tom Lawrence from the twitter feed for the Democrat Blog SD Standard – claiming to speak with family members of the deceased in Saturday night’s accident involving the Attorney General:

If this is the case, it seems to be what many have assumed, a tremendously horrible accident where someone was walking on or alongside the road in the pitch black of night, with the accident occurring at around 10:30pm.

Knowing that stretch of highway, there are dips and rises, and if a person was in the wrong place at the wrong time on the road as someone came over a slight hill in the highway, the results could be an unforeseen tragedy.

An official report is said to be released yet today.

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Update – there’s more on this story at the Argus Leader.

Victor said he and his cousin planned to fix Boever’s white Ford pickup Sunday morning, but at some point in the evening, Boever decided not to wait and began walking to his truck.

That’s when he was killed while walking along Highway 14 west of Highmore. Nick Nemec, Victor’s brother, is a former Democratic state legislator and party delegate who ran unsuccessfully for the Public Utilities Commission in 2012.

Read that here.

44 thoughts on “Reports of AG accident claim man was walking on/along highway at night”

  1. This needs to be said… there is wild speculation all over social media about this accident. Some suggesting the AG was under the influence. Some suggesting a cover up. This site suggesting it was a horrible accident with someone walking at night.

    Because there was a fatality and you have a public official involved, law enforcement is going to make sure they get this right. I am very confident that they will put together a report that is accurate. After that, we can debate on what should happen. The point is this – we don’t know what happened. WE don’t know if the victim was in the road or on the shoulder of the road. We don’t know if either the driver or the victim had been drinking. We don’t know if the driver was distracted or how fast he was going. We do know that this was on the edge of Highmore just coming out of town – there are no hills in the highway here coming out of Highmore heading west so that too is speculation.

    Let’s wait for the full report and then we can debate what should happen. As of now, yes it was a tragic accident. But we don’t know if one of the parties was more responsible than the other.

    1. There are no hill-hills, but slight rises and dips in the road in places, where there are no passing zones. But I do agree that we need the official report.

  2. Praying for Jason as, regardless of fault, this will be a difficult time. Praying for the family of the person killed as well.

  3. I drove by the scene at 11AM yesterday. The highway was open and there was an obvious investigation in progress. Road wasn’t closed

    1. they must have been taking a coffee break when we went through there at 9:06 AM (according to my cell phone data) and returned when you went by.

  4. no, highway 14 was NOT shut down for 22 hours because that’s how we drove home from Pierre Sunday morning. We had not heard anything at all about it and saw nothing along the way.

    1. The facts are Ravnsborg was on his way home from a Republican fundraiser at a Redfield bar.as tweeted by Ravnsborg himself. The facts are the family didn’t know about the death until later the following day after Noem gave her speech. The facts are the state is giving out even less information than they would for any other fatal accident.

      1. The FACTs are there is nothing else to report. Its called an investigation so until they investigate and come to a conclusion, there is nothing else to report.

  5. Claims he thought he hit a deer. Yes, it was dark but he had to either be distracted or speeding to not know what he hit. Will be interesting to see if he was on the shoulder of the road at impact. The fact that he hit a man and then went home is quite remarkable. I’m as Republican as anyone, but this doesn’t look good for the AG. And this is why politicians should have a driver. Every time.

    1. Right? How do you not stop and look around, check your car for damage? A person is not going to scurry off like a wounded deer. And deer don’t wear clothes. Extremely fishy.

    2. The first thing the dispatcher will ask is if the deer is dead and out of the roadway. If you can’t confirm that, they will send an officer to check. The body would have been found that evening. Something doesn’t add up.

        1. Cops have things called spotlights. I’ve hit a deer and called the cops and they shone a light around to see if they could find the animal.

          1. all we have heard is that he called 911 from the scene.
            If something bounces off your car and is thrown into the ditch and it’s too dark to see, you might wonder what you hit.,

            1. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I don’t know a lot of South Dakotans who mistake a deer and a person unless they weren’t paying attention to the road.

  6. I’m assuming the crash investigators will call on a lot of folks posting here for expert help in the accident reconstruction process.

  7. He’ll need to resign. You can’t be the chief prosecutor having hit a guy. Even if he wasn’t speeding or on his phone, a guy is dead and he didn’t notice it was a human. Unless they can prove the guy was passed out in the middle of the road, the AG needs to go. Even then, can you not tell driving 45 through town that you hit a person?

    1. What are you talking about, we don’t know the facts. You can’t ask for someone to resign until we know the entire story, remember innocent until proven guilty (this country seems to forget that). Wow sounds like a typical democrat jumping to conclusions, you probably also have a grudge against the AG as well.

      1. Bill- you’re a hack, take a deep knee bend paired with a few breathes.

        My guess, is that this person’s post was projecting on what “should” likely happen given the events that we all do know about from various reports, from DCI/BCI, DPS, the Governor, and other legitimate reporting.

  8. There are two families involved here. I think the speculation is premature. There will be plenty of time for forming opinions when we have more facts.

    May the soul of Joe Boever, by the Mercy of God, Rest in Peace.

        1. Looks like the AG was about 2ft outside of the white line and clearly on the shoulder when the impact occured. Oofta. I would say distracted at the very least.

            1. Those tracks could have been from the car that was already in the ditch. We don’t yet know whose tracks those are. It is being reported that the victim’s car had gone into the ditch that night and hit a hay bale. The victim got a ride home. Then he walked back out on the highway again after being dropped off at home. Argus Leader and KELO both reported this.

          1. The video also states that Boevers’s truck was in a ditch up the road, maybe that is the truck’s tire mark. Again people jumping to conclusions without knowing everything.

            1. Not likely. I’ve been apart of many fatality scene reconstructions. I can tell you what every one of those paint marks is. Point of impact was on the shoulder. Braking didn’t start until after the collision which suggests he was distracted.

              1. And we are to take your word because you say so, sorry I will wait for an official who isn’t hiding behind anonymous. Your opinion does not count here.

  9. I hope all of you posting are considered innocent until proven guilty if you ever find yourself in a similar situation; it would be nice if the AG got the same consideration every American is supposed to get, but I guess that is too much to expect.

    1. I didn’t realize any of us were on a jury. I continuously see this idiocy posted where “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY” is used as a means to silence public discussion of available evidence. That’s not what it means and it would be cool if dummies would stop misusing the phrase.

      1. Well, presuming the worst about a person without evidence is a reckless disregard for a person’s reputation which is a form of calumny, an offense against the truth.

        This is a very serious matter which involves two families who don’t need to have gossip.

      2. It would be cool if jerks like yourself didn’t act like they are legal experts; I know that the folks on here wouldn’t be on a jury because presumably the defense attorney would do some checking before the voir dire and would already know of the presumption of guilt that is being thrown around here.

        Innocent until proven guilty doesn’t need to be simply used in a trial setting, it can be used in the court of public opinion by decent people, but I guess you don’t fit into that category.

        I continuously see this idiocy of people jumping to conclusions; usually liberals.

        1. While we are not in a legitimate court, the Attorney General is on trial in the Court of Public Opinion where each person is judge and jury. Moreover, he’s a politician at this point. This is a political problem for him.

          Additionally, if people don’t want others speculating, make the investigation as transparent as possible.

          The Governor is currently off doing campaign fundraises in New Hampshire, recently in Ohio, and is padding her warchest for her official announcement that she’s running for President in the near future.

          She could be making this as transparent as possible, without having any concerns about cover-ups.

  10. Have any of you came up on a pedestrian walking on or on the side of the highway in the dark? I have 3 times near my hometown. I am very lucky that I did not hit one of them. You can BARELY see them. Throw rain or fog and a little dark clothing on an asphalt road into it and it would be near impossible to see them.

    So, you are driving along. It’s late, around 10:30 P.M. you have been working for a solid 15 hours let’s say. It’s foggy or raining out (I’ve heard mixed reports), and hit something, something large…but you didn’t see it. A DEER?!! It had to have been a deer! What do you do? Of course you call it in and report hitting a deer, you are the Attorney General after all. Your vehicle isn’t impaired so you continue onward to your destination.

    OR are you going to pull over, turn around and get out of your vehicle and endanger yourself/others by doing this? Especially if it’s foggy or raining? Late at night? You might, but I doubt it.

    Let the report come out and then the detectives commenting negatively about Jason can speak up.

  11. He says he did what you said you wouldn’t do. The car was not drivable. So the impact had to be pretty hard and either the ped was suicidal (doubtful) or AG was not driving in his lane.

    1. Actually, I didn’t say that. His car was impaired which totally changes the scenario.

      The guy called the accident in, the sheriff came out and neither one of them saw evidence of a deer or anything else. If this is true, what could he have done differently? How do you know it wasn’t suicide? How do you know the AG wasn’t driving in his lane? Show me an article stating this.

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