CMPD briefing video on fatal rush hour police chase left out critical details
A Charlotte police sergeant told officers to stop chasing a vehicle in 2022 but they continued, minutes before the vehicle crashed into another car and fatally wounded a woman. Yet Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department leaders omitted that crucial detail and others from a “critical incident briefing” video the department released last week.
Charlotte attorney Paul Dickinson, who represents the family of Brittany Webb, the woman killed in the crash, said the summary video showcases CMPD’s “failure to accept responsibility and accountability for what happened.”
When asked for this story about the omission of key details from the summary video and whether any policy changes had taken place since the crash, a CMPD public information officer reiterated that the video is meant to “provide context” for those watching the body camera footage.
Bryan Gabriel Franklin Jr., the driver who crashed into Webb and her two companions, was later sentenced to 13 years in prison for second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. A civil lawsuit is pending against CMPD because Webb’s family think the officers who chased him should be held accountable, too.
CMPD last week also published 44 videos related to the crash from officer body cameras and nearby live traffic cameras. The CMPD summary video garnered 4,468 views across X and YouTube, while the individual clips received between 25 and 390 views apiece as of Monday evening.
The Charlotte Observer combed through the five hours of footage, taking note of what was excluded from CMPD’s official account of the crash.
Vehicle pursuit leads to high-speed collision
Many of the clips come from the body cameras of Officers Adam Earl and Matthew-Ryan Lerlo, who spotted a black Jeep Grand Cherokee with what they believed was an obscured license plate and tried to stop the car on Jan. 3, 2022.
Though Earl and Lerlo repeatedly flashed their blue lights and blared their sirens, the Jeep’s driver, Franklin, did not pull over. The officers pursued Franklin as he left I-85 and headed onto Julia Avenue in north Charlotte, where he reached a dead end and slowed to a stop.
Both officers brandished their guns as they ordered Franklin to “Stop the car! Get out of the car!,” but the Jeep sped away. A third officer pushed over a trash can into the Jeep’s path, but Franklin swerved around it with Earl and Lerlo’s patrol car hot on his tail.
The officers kept up their pursuit as Franklin headed onto Statesville Road, where he veered into the wrong side of traffic and collided head-on with a Honda sedan. Franklin was driving at an estimated speed of 75 miles per hour, according to a police radio transmission seconds before the crash.
The high-speed collision totaled the Honda and left two of its passengers, Webb and Aaron Norward, in critical condition. Webb was placed on life support and died two-and-a-half weeks after the crash, and Norward was in a coma for a month.
Not long after the accident, the recently-released body camera footage shows, CMPD Sergeant Michael Frazer approached an officer at the scene.
“I just want to make sure I was heard on the radio,” Frazer said. When the officer expressed confusion, Frazer added, “about we don’t need to 43,” referencing police radio code 10-43, which means a chase.
“I heard that part,” the officer replied. “It wasn’t us.”
Frazer then asked which patrol officers ignored his orders, and the officer named Earl and Lerlo.
A different video clip shows Earl and Lerlo approaching Frazer. “Didn’t y’all hear me say we don’t need to 43 or chase this vehicle?” Frazer asked. Earl told the sergeant there “was no 43.”
“Last time we lit him up was Statesville and Julia,” Earl said, referring to his patrol car’s blue lights. “Then he took off [into] oncoming traffic.”
CMPD has a policy around chases, outlined in the department’s directives. Officers must have “reasonable suspicion” that a vehicle’s driver or passenger has “committed or is attempting to commit a crime dangerous to life,” and officers must be able to explain the “potential harm to the public” if the suspect is not stopped.
“They never should have pursued him [off Julia Avenue],” Dickinson said. “They forced this situation out into the busy rush hour traffic. … If those things had not happened, Franklin, more likely than not, would not have been leaving at such a high rate of speed on Statesville.”
Another clip released last Tuesday includes an officer’s incredulous reaction as he arrived on the scene of the collision. He called Earl and Lerlo “dumb” for their actions, and joked to his partner that he’d tell the men to “start getting your [expletive] IA statements together,” referring to CMPD’s internal affairs bureau.
Webb’s family, Norward and Whitney McKinney, who was driving the Honda, sued CMPD, Franklin, Earl, Lerlo and the city of Charlotte in January 2024 in Mecklenburg Superior Court. Their suit alleges Earl and Lerlo violated the CMPD pursuit policy.
In the department’s summary video, CMPD Lt. Crystal Fletcher, who oversees public affairs, said that the civil case is “still ongoing, therefore we are only able to share the factual details to avoid compromising the legal process.”
WCNC-TV petitioned a judge for the body camera footage’s release to the public in August 2022. A judge granted the request once Franklin’s criminal case had concluded.
CMPD summary video lacks key details
The summary video also omits details about why Earl and Lerlo were pursuing Franklin’s car, labeling it as a “traffic stop.”
North Carolina law prohibits drivers from placing “any frame or transparent, clear, or color-tinted cover” on their license plate that makes the plate illegible. But Dickinson pointed out that in the body camera footage, Earl and Lerlo were able to read Franklin’s license plate tag over the police radio in spite of the plate’s cover.
“They should not have been pursuing in the first place,” Dickinson said. “They’ve read this license plate, they know the vehicle, they can follow up on it later. It’s not like this person was going to get away.”
The footage released last Tuesday also revealed that Franklin did not know why Earl and Lerlo were pursuing him. In one clip, an officer escorted a handcuffed Franklin to a police car. “Why y’all following me?” Franklin asked. “Huh? Why you following me?”
The officer told Franklin to shut up several times, peppering his words with expletives.
In another video, captured moments later, a different officer approached a distressed Franklin, who was seated in the back seat of a police car.
When the officer asked why Franklin didn’t stop his car, he cried out, “Because they keep following me, arresting me, I’m scared of the police! I don’t have nothing on me — nothing! I have no reason to run!”
The summary video said that Franklin had been arrested at least 16 times prior to the car crash.
The video does not mention any consequences Earl and Lerlo may have faced, and it omits references to the third police officer, who knocked over the trash can, altogether.
Charlotte records provide some information
A public records request by The Charlotte Observer to the city revealed that Earl and Lerlo were suspended for fifteen days in late March of 2022, two months after the fatal collision. Lerlo was also suspended for a total of four days in late May and mid-June of 2023. Public records do not specify what prompted a suspension.
Both men recently received a raise. Earl’s salary increased by nearly 5% in March, and Lerlo’s increased by 10% in April.
Dickinson declined to comment on whether he has had conversations with the city about a potential settlement. He said Webb’s family is seeking “accountability for what happened,” and that “no amount of money” will make up for their loss.
