EAU CLAIRE, WI (WTAQ) - The Eau Claire County sheriff said criminal charges are not expected against a 16-year-old girl who let a 14-year-old boy drive her family’s car in a fatal crash on Tuesday night.
But Ron Cramer said it’s possible that the girl could get a couple of non-criminal citations.
Three teens from the Eleva-Strum area were killed in the crash – McKenna Johnson, Marco Perez, and driver Austin Gable. Two other passengers were hurt.
The 16-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy remain hospitalized. And Cramer says his deputies are waiting for clearance from medical personnel before they interview the two.
The sheriff said the 16-year-old girl’s family gave her permission to drive the car – and Cramer says she might have broken state laws by letting an unlicensed person drive the car, and having more than one passenger in violation of the graduated driver licensing law for teens.
He said those are the only two things investigators are looking at. The sheriff says he expects most of the legal activity to come from civil lawsuits.
Meanwhile, the town of Washington Fire Department held stress debriefing Thursday night for emergency personnel who responded to the crash.
It happened on a hilly road where drivers have been known to make cars airborne by speeding over hillcrests.
Cramer says that if “hill jumping” was a cause of the crash, he and the sheriff in neighboring Trempealeau County will start a campaign to warn students and parents about the dangers of that behavior.
