BILLINGS — Billings police said Tuesday a Friday fatal crash beganwhen the suspect driver had threatened a woman trapped in his vehicle in a parking lot about five blocks away.
Police said that the victim discreetly made a 911 call while being threatened by the suspect, Ricky Buckhanan, while she was trapped in his vehicle in the parking lot of the Rocky Mountain Community Church near the intersection of Broadwater Avenue and 29th Street.
"Officers were dispatched to an open 911 call," Billings police Lt. Matt Lennick said Tuesday afternoon. "They could hear an active disturbance, so they started dispatching officers to that area."
Lennick said that as soon as an officer arrived on scene, Buckhanan fled, driving through grass and in between trees, before turning east onto Broadwater and accelerating at high speeds.
Another officer witnessed Buckhanan's reckless driving and turned around to try and stay in sight of him. For a short time, the officer believed that the victim might still be trapped in the car with Buckhanan.
Within seconds, the officer could see a cloud of smoke and dust a few blocks ahead at the intersection of Broadwater and 24th Street West, where the crash had already happened. Buckhanan had struck another vehicle in the intersection, which in turn struck a third vehicle.
"He hadn't even made it a block yet and the suspect had already made it into the intersection there and struck the other vehicles," Lennick said.
The crash left the two occupants of the first vehicle, Shane Rogers and his mother, Shirley Rogers, dead at the scene. The four occupants of the third vehicle were transported to the hospital with what police called non-life-threatening injuries.
Lennick showed MTN the dashcam video of the accident, but the police department is not yet releasing it publicly. In the video, the crash is hard to see because of how far behind the officer was from the intersection. The crash happened just eight minutes after the initial disturbance call was made.
Lennick said officers were within the department's restrictive pursuit policy to follow the suspect. He added that if there had been more time, it could've turned into a high-speed chase.
"Because of the nature of the call, we had an obligation to at least continue to try and figure out what was going on," Lennick said. "It could've developed into something on our end as far as a pursuit goes, but in this instance, it just developed faster than that determination could be made."
Buckhanan appeared in court Tuesday and his bond has been set at $1 million on eight felony charges. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Lennick said it's a tragedy police try to avoid and one that has been hard for his department to process.
"We never like to see where a completely innocent individual is caught in the middle of somebody else's decision to commit violent or commit crime," Lennick said. "There are no words to express the sympathy we have."
