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Received this charming message through the Seattle Crime Blog contact form last night:

You need to get your facts strait about the Randy Privrasky case. Update your website. The toxicology report came out and PROVED that he was sober during the incident. Before you make an assumption about what has happened know, your fucking facts. If you don't update or change your website's blog, I will find a way to find you and it will cost you. I'm not talking about money either. Go ahead and laugh at this message all you want. Be warned though. Change your fucking information or fucking pay. I will find you if you don't. When I do, I will NOT have second thoughts about anything I choose to do. Like your website says, "It's not always pretty." Change it. You will not be able to ever even type on the computer at the least when I get done with you if you don't change it. Get your shit together or pay.

The author, who called himself "Bill Langer" (and claimed his e-mail address to be sno67blurt@aol.com), was referring to this post written back in March by The Apprentice. In it, my co-blogger contemplated that perhaps Privrasky, not the 25-year veteran deputy chasing him, was responsible for the accident that took his life...and that people blaming the officer would be singing a different tune if this teen's failure to obey the law had killed an innocent bystander. The Apprentice and I both still stand by that claim.

The commenter does make one good point, though: we failed our readers by neglecting to follow up on this story to the extent that we should have. Toxicology reports did come back for Randy Privrasky in mid-May, and according to family members did confirm that he was NOT under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash. From a brief in the Everett Herald:

A Marysville teenager who died after crashing his car during a police chase was not drinking the night of the accident, according to state lab results obtained by the boy's relatives. [...] Ron Privrasky, the boy's father, said he was given a copy of the Snohomish County medical examiner's autopsy report. Among those records were toxicology tests conducted by state experts that show the boy was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he died.

The problem is that The Apprentice never claimed that Privrasky was drunk (only said it was a possibility, which based on all available information was accurate at the time), nor was the alcohol factor the main thrust of his argument.

When it comes to sno67blurt@aol.com's complaints about "assumptions", he fails to see that the post in question was written before any toxicology reports, when there were still many questions surrounding the case. This site isn't an encyclopedia...it's a blog, where we provide our take on issues - the vast majority of them unresolved - that are currently making news.

This individual seems to think that because we had an opinion about an ongoing investigation that differs from his own, he can intimidate us into removing any record that such opinions ever existed. Well, his e-threats failed. SCB will not be take down anything we've published on the Privrasky incident so far (though we have updated the original post with a link to this one making note of the toxicology development).

The beauty of America is that everyone is entitled to their opinions, no matter how upsetting or outlandish they may be. We at Seattle Crime Blog have spent nearly a year calling local cases like we see 'em...and that's not going to change anytime soon.

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*UPDATED WITH LINK TO FOLLOW-UP ON 7/31/08; SEE END OF POST*

On March 23, Randy Privrasky, an 18-year old Marysville-Pilchuck High School student was killed after his car careened into a ravine following a high-speed chase with a Snohomish County sheriff's deputy.

This Everett Herald story was first to suggest that the teen's car may have been vaulted into the ravine following a "PIT" maneuver executed by the deputy involved in the chase, making it the first death as a result of the PIT in Washington's history:

Privrasky apparently was speeding along Westwick Road near Snohomish when a deputy tried to pull him over, said Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz. The teen did not stop.

Less than two miles and two minutes later, the deputy initiated a Pursuit Immobilization Technique, or PIT maneuver, Goetz said. That's where a police car pushes a fleeing vehicle in an attempt to get it to spin out and stall.

A PIT maneuver involves an officer nudging the back corner of a car at speeds between 25 and 45 mph, to make it spin out.  When it does, the car's engine usually dies because of the change in motion.

A sad story, no doubt...no one deserves to have their life cut short at 18. But my real reaction to this story came while listening to KIRO 710's Dori Monson Show earlier this week. 

Monson posed the question to listeners of who should bear the brunt of responsibility for this incident. The overwhelming response? That the officer should be held accountable for the death because of the age of the driver and, as one female caller put it, his overreaction to the "the stupidity of teenagers."

I can't help but think that maybe the police officer used poor judgment in terms of where he executed the maneuver (eyewitness accounts say that had the officer waited a short distance, the road would have been level and the car would not have careened into the ravine).  And if the maneuver was attempted at any speed above 45 mph (which seems like it would be hard to prove at this point), the officer should be reprimanded for not following code. 

But to place the majority of the blame on the officer and not on the potentially drunk 18-year-old (toxicology reports are not back yet, but alcohol was found in near the car) who chose to flee from police at speeds over 80 mph is simply ridiculous.

The argument that the teen was "just being a teenager" and making poor decisions does not hold water with me. In this country, at 18 years old, you are seen as mature enough to be considered an "adult." That means you have been designated as someone responsible enough to make your own decisions. The teen involved chose to make a poor decision, and paid for it with his life. 

If the chase had continued and the Privrasky's actions had taken an innocent life, the reaction to this case would no doubt be different from the mood currently pervading his former high school:

In mourning, students hung posters around the school with Privrasky's smiling face and the letters "RIP." They left flowers and candles in the cafeteria and taped a sheet of paper over the computer monitor he usually used. The paper said, "Please don't sit here. In loving memory of Randy."

To honor their friend and help pay funeral costs, students plan to make T-shirts with Privrasky's artwork. He had a flair for writing friends' names in a style that resembled spray-painted graffiti.

I feel for the family of this young man, I truly do.  But our society has become one that, in the words of Harry S. Truman, "passes the buck." This young man chose to risk his life over what would have been a traffic stop and possibly a DUI charge. His story is a sad one, but so is the fact that nobody in this case wants to place responsibility on the real offender (who, whether we're willing to admit it or not, is ultimately Randy Privrasky, not the officer who took whatever means necessary to bring this teen's joyride to an end).

UPDATE: According to a toxicology report received by family members in mid-May, Randy Privrasky was NOT under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of his death. See our post, "Threatening email prompts follow-up on Marysville teen's death," 7/31/08