SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem plans to provide an update Tuesday on an investigation into a fatal crash in which the state’s attorney general struck and killed a man with his car.
Little information has been released from authorities in the month since Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg hit a man walking on a rural highway the night of Sept. 12. The attorney general told authorities he thought he had struck a deer in the collision and only realized he had killed a man after returning to the crash site the next morning.
The attorney general was driving home to Pierre from a Republican fundraiser some 110 miles (180 kilometers) away in Redfield when the crash happened. Ravnsborg said he immediately called 911.
Ravnsborg has continued to work as attorney general, but his office has not had direct involvement in the investigation. He is a Republican, serving his first term in office after winning election in 2018.
A crash reconstruction expert from Wyoming and the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation assisted the South Dakota Highway Patrol in the investigation. Such accidents would ordinarily be investigated by the South Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which answers to the attorney general’s office. The other agencies took on the investigation to avoid a conflict of interest.
Noem has promised a transparent investigation. The family of the man killed, 55-year-old Joseph Boever, has questioned Ravnsborg’s account of the crash.
A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety declined to say whether the possibility of criminal charges would be discussed at the news conference.
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