The Sad Story of Victor Harris

I read with quite a bit of interest yesterday the Supreme Court’s ruling in Scott v. Harris, where SCOTUS ruled that police may use deadly force to stop a speeding motorist who ignores warnings and poses a danger to the public. This ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by Victor Harris, a 19-year-old Georgia man who was left as a quadriplegic after a police car rammed the back of his car and sent it off of the road in order to end a high speed chase. The teenager had sped away from police and led them on a high-speed chase down narrow two-lane roads.

With regard to the ruling, I agree with the Supreme Court’s decision. The video of this car chase is horrifying. I don’t consider driving recklessly on a crowded road to be any different than waving a gun around in a crowded room, and I support the effort of law enforcement to end the situation and save innocent bystanders from harm.

That having been said, I am baffled and mystified, and honestly saddened, at the actions of Victor Harris in this situation. How did he come to the decision to try to drive away from this situation, in the end becoming a quadriplegic? I have read that he was driving on a suspended license and feared that his car would be impounded, and that this was the reason for trying to evade the police. Wouldn’t it have been far preferable to stop, as is typical in a situation like this, instead of embarking upon a high speed chase, in which he ended up not only losing his car which he was trying to save, but essentially losing his life (as I feel being a quadriplegic would be). Honestly, why run? – once the police had ID’d his car, there wasn’t any hope of escaping the charges anyways. I’m a little bit morbidly fascinated and curious by what went through his mind when Harris decided to do this. To further compound this, Harris was driving without a seat belt on during the chase, almost certainly complicating, if not outright causing, his injuries.

I have looked for information about Victor Harris online extensively in the last day or so. He would be 25 today and I understand that he lived in assisted living in GA, and was not present for the trial. I’m just intensely curious about what he was/is like, trying to get some insight into how a person could possibly decide to do what he did that night, at such a high cost to himself.