JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — An officer involved in a high-speed chase that ended with the death of a kidnapped 5-year-old has no prior discipline and one charged traffic crash.
According to Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer Mike Kittle’s discipline database, since 2016 he has been involved in 11 accidents or incidents in his agency vehicle, but just one of those was “sustained” as a chargeable traffic incident, meaning he was found to be at fault.
According to JSO, Kittle’s vehicle incidents include:
- 5 crashes. One Kittle was charged with, three he was found to be the not-at-fault driver, and one involved him striking a “non-domesticated animal” with his car
- 2 involved “found damage”
- 3 were related to reports of criminal activity (on case of aggravated battery and two of criminal mischief)
- 1 involved during reported during lawful intervention
The March 31 high-speed chase began in North Jacksonville when Kittle spotted a vehicle belonging to 32-year-old Pamela Cabrera, reported to have kidnapped her daughter, Vanity. It ended in a retention pond near 9B and Durbin Creek. According to a police report, Cabrera eluded Kittle for 30 miles, then “failed to negotiate” a turn and drove into the pond.
Cabrera, who has a history of mental illness, managed to escape the sinking vehicle, according to the incident report, but, “made no attempt to try to rescue her daughter, who was trapped in the front seat of the vehicle.”
Below is what Public Information Officer Christian Hancock told reporters at the police briefing after the child died:
“JSO received a phone call of a reported kidnapping in progress on the city's Northside. … As officers were en route to that call, an officer actually came upon the vehicle at a traffic light, approached it at a head-on angle and realized that it was the actual vehicle that we would be looking for. … The reported kidnapping was of a 5-year-old child. The suspect sped off, obviously seeing the officer and a pursuit began at that point, as we were responding to a kidnapping in progress with an armed suspect.
"… [The chase lasted] a very long distance. But for obvious reasons we had to stay behind this vehicle. … we don't have an option in this, not a whole lot of options about us not pursuing something like this. Child victim, and a reported kidnapping, you know. It is what it is. … the suspect was armed at the time of the kidnapping. It was an armed threat, an armed felony.”
