KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Dashcam video shows that a University of Missouri-Kansas City student seemed confused when she was stopped for wrong-way driving but was let go without a road sobriety test before her car went into the Missouri River.
North Kansas City police released the video Tuesday after completing an investigation into the Jan. 15 traffic stop of 20-year-old Toni Anderson. The officer can be heard asking the woman if she had been drinking or taking any medication on the video. At one point the officer told her, “Huh? Not funny” after she apparently giggled.
The stop, which happened on the last night she was seen, ended with the officer telling Anderson to go park and collect herself. Anderson, who had just left her job as a server at a strip club, wasn’t asked to exit her car.
The Wichita, Kansas, woman’s body was found two months later in her submerged vehicle near a Parkville, Missouri, boat ramp. A medical examiner said her hypothermia and drowning death was accidental and involved drug intoxication, according to an autopsy report also released Tuesday.
Police Maj. Kevin Freeman said the officer’s actions were “reasonable given the information provided to him at the time of the stop,” although he acknowledged questions had been raised about why she wasn’t arrested.
“We weren’t there, so it is hard to pass judgment, especially when we weren’t involved,” Freeman said. “There are sensory clues you get at a stop that we can’t see from viewing an audio tape.”
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