Kansas prosecutor declines charges against driver whose truck hit soccer field, killing two

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Thursday that no criminal charges will be filed against a 34-year-old woman whose pickup truck sped onto a soccer field at a youth tournament in Wichita, Kansas, killing two people. The decision closes the criminal case over the 17 October crash at the Stryker Sports Complex, which also injured ten others.

The dead were Cole Adrian, six, and Nicholas Schafer, 35, both of McPherson, Kansas, police said. The injured ranged in age from five to 68 and were treated at area hospitals. Investigators believe the woman, a mother who was napping in her Chevrolet 1500 while her child played, had not put the truck in park and likely pressed the accelerator with her foot while asleep. They conducted multiple interviews and ran a test in the same parking spot with a similar vehicle. Bennett's 28-page report listed possible crimes that can apply when one person causes another's death but concluded none fit under Kansas law. “I cannot prove she consciously disregarded a tremendous risk to people on that field,” Bennett said, acknowledging the public might find the decision strange.

The Blaze, on the right, leads with the outcome and the victims, quoting Bennett's flat statement, “This is not a crime, and I cannot charge this driver with a crime,” and sourcing it to KAKE-TV. In the portion available, it stresses the toll, a boy and a man killed, and gives little of the investigative detail. The Guardian US, on the left, frames the case around the unusual circumstances, a napping driver, and supplies more on how prosecutors reached their view: the sleeping-foot theory, the reenactment, the lengthy report and Bennett's remark, “If I could charge somebody, why wouldn't I?” Both agree on the decision, the DA's role and the victims. Alternative and independent outlets had not reported the story at the time of writing.