Police officer's joy ride with coeds ends in crash
8/30/2007MUNCIE, Ind. - A city police officer may lose his job after taking three female college students on a squad car joy ride that ended in an accident.
Jason Lyons, 38, was placed on administrative leave after the early Tuesday morning wreck, which left one of the students with a cut to her head.
The officer met the three Ball State University freshmen at a Village Pantry before 1 a.m., and one of them asked him for a ride back to the dorm, according to statements from Officer Lyons and the students. Officer Lyons then drove down a couple streets before crashing into a light pole.
"There is no debate that he was driving at too high a rate of speed," Muncie Police Chief Joe Winkle said.
He said Officer Lyons drove fast enough to scare the students and rock them from one side of the car's back seat to the other.
"He was basically showing off for three college girls," Chief Winkle said.
One of the students, Stacy Walters, 19, suffered a head laceration. She and the other two were examined at Ball Memorial Hospital and released.