When I was at @PlanoPoliceDepartment in the 1980s, the northwest area inside the city limits was an attractive area for teenage misbehavior. Plano was expanding rapidly, especially to the west and northwest. New roads and subdivisions were being built in anticipation of new residential developments, but before the houses went up and people moved in, those areas became active for a lot of teen drinking and other nighttime shenanigans.
Spring Creek Parkway in its western stretch back then was a favorite place for drag racing. We patrolled it occasionally at night, but there were more important patrol functions than empty roadways. One night for the drag races, a teenager from Plano Senior High School took his Dad’s Corvette out to run it. Dad and Mom were divorced and Dad had made a business trip to California, leaving the boy home alone. He had strict orders not to touch the Corvette, but what the hell.
The usual group of kids were out that night for the drag races. I expect beer and other intoxicants were involved. Who knows. But the main attraction was going to be the drag race between this prize Corvette snuck out of Dad’s garage and the other hot cars owned by some of the kids or their parents.
Spring Creek Parkway was straight and mostly level. A quarter-mile track was measured off and the races began. There were kids at the starting line and kids at the finish line. One of the races began with the cars shooting off the starting line like normal, but as the Corvette sped to the end of the quarter mile, the kid serving as flagman failed to get out of the way.
The Corvette slammed full speed into the flagman, killing him instantly.
The police were called, the accident investigation team responded, and the necessary work was done. But finding the owner of the Corvette proved a challenge. Finally, one of the accident investigators managed to track him down in a hotel in California. The conversation went something like this:
Officer: “Mr. Corvette Owner, I am Officer Traffic Investigator with the Plano Police Department. I calling to advise you your son was involved in a fatality accident earlier tonight driving a Corvette registered to you.”
After a slight pause, the father asked, “Is my Corvette okay?”
That’s right, the father’s foremost concern and first question was the welfare of his beloved Corvette. I expect you saw that coming. Not his son’s condition, much less the fact that some other kid was dead. Was the Corvette okay?
I guess there’s nothing particularly unusual about that story. I’m sure many of the readers of my little anecdotes can tell almost identical stories. I imagine almost every cop with any length of service has seen situations in which people consider a possession more valuable or important than another person’s life. But I still have to wonder how those people’s priorities got so screwed up.