Almost a week after South Dakota’s attorney general was charged with three misdemeanors for fatally hitting a pedestrian on a highway last year, the South Dakota governor asked him to resign and released investigative interviews detailing the incident. , and state lawmakers started impeachment proceedings against him.
Jason Ravnsborg, 44, was accused of operating a motor vehicle while using a mobile device, violation of driving on the lane and careless driving resulting from the September 12 accident. Ravnsborg was not on his cell phone at the time of the impact, but he was out of range of travel, state prosecutors said, when he struck the 55-year-old victim, Joseph Boever, on US Highway 14, about a kilometer west of Highmore , South Dakota. The accident did not meet the conditions for manslaughter, they said.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem asked Ravnsborg to step down after the charges on Tuesday.
“Now that the investigation has ended and the charges have been made, I believe the attorney general should resign,” she said in a statement.
Noem also released two interviews on Tuesday that lasted more than three hours, which police conducted with Ravnsborg in the days and weeks after the fatal incident. The governor said she reviewed the material and encouraged “others to review it too”.
During the interviews, Ravnsborg repeated that he did not know what he had hit on the dark road, but he assumed it was a deer “because what else would there be”. He said he called 911 and looked around a ditch with a cell phone flashlight, but did not discover Boever’s body until he returned the next day to examine the wreckage.
Investigators pressured Ravnsborg about using his cell phone while driving on Highway 14 that night. They also informed the attorney general that a broken pair of Boever glasses ended up inside his car, passing through the windshield, according to interviews released by Noem.
“His face was on your windshield, Jason. Think about it,” said one of the investigators.
An anguished Ravnsborg replied that “it hurts me to hear so much.”
The investigators also questioned how Ravnsborg could have forgotten Boever and his flashlight, which they said was still on the morrow.
“It’s really hard to lose when you’re there,” said one.
In response, Ravnsborg said, “Obviously, I am not as observant as I should be.”
An investigation concluded a month after the accident initially determined that Ravnsborg was distracted when he hit Boever with his 2011 Ford Taurus. But last week, state prosecutors said that at the time of the impact, Ravnsborg was not a distracted driver based on the analysis of two cell phones I had with me.
In a statement, the Ravnsborg spokesman said the attorney general “has no intention of resigning”.
“At no time did this issue hinder his ability to do the office’s work. Instead, he dealt with some of the biggest settlements and legislative issues the state has ever faced,” the statement said. “As a lawyer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, AG Ravnsborg has fought for the rule of law and personal freedoms and hopes to have the same right and courtesy.”
While the state released videos of the interviews, state lawmakers were also initiating impeachment proceedings against the attorney general. The resolution, tabled on Tuesday and presented to the South Dakota State Capitol Chamber on Wednesday, includes two articles of impeachment and accusations that Ravnsborg was removed from office “for his crimes or misdemeanors in office that caused the death of Joseph Boever “.
Representative Will Mortenson, who tabled the resolution, said it was “the most difficult decision I have ever made”.
“My heart breaks for all the parties involved in this case, but the time has come to do what is right, even if it is difficult and uncomfortable,” he said on social media.
The resolution is now pending its first hearing from the commission. Ravnsborg’s spokesman told ABC News that it has not yet been possible to revise the full document.
Ravnsborg, who was elected in 2018, was not put on administrative leave and continued to work after the accident.
The attorney general has had a series of previous violations of direction, according to state records. He pleaded guilty to speeding six times between 2014 and 2018 and paid fines between $ 19 and $ 79, according to state records.
Karma Allen, Joshua Hoyos, Julia Jacobo, Jennifer Leong and Ivan Pereira, from ABC News, contributed to this report.