It was Mason Stewart’s 16th birthday, and he had recently obtained his driver’s license when he pulled out of a Dollar Tree parking lot with his mother as a Texas police officer came speeding down the street and slammed into the side of their car, killing both mother and son last week.
Witnesses described a loud crash followed by the Missouri City patrol SUV catching on fire. They also say the police officer did not have his sirens or emergency lights on prior to the crash.
Witnesses also say there was a man sitting in the back seat of the patrol car who was not discovered until at least two hours later and who could have easily been killed by the fire.
Now the Missouri City Police Department is in damage control mode, refusing to reveal the name of the officer, whether the man in the back of the car was in custody or whether the officer had his sirens and emergency lights while responding to a call of an armed robbery in progress.
However, grainy surveillance videos obtained by ABC 13 show that the officer did not have his emergency lights on as he sped down Cartwright Road, which has a 40-mph speed limit.
“The police hit a car at a high rate of speed with no lights on and the people were dead instantly,” a witness told ABC 13. “The lights and sirens came on afterwards.”
Both Mason Stewart and his mother, Angela Stewart, 53, were pronounced dead at the scene. The mother worked for the Houston Independent School District as a counselor, according to ABC 13.
“He killed my wife and son,” Ashley Stewart’s husband said while consoling his two daughters.
“A cop killed him, man,” one of Mason Stewart’s sisters told KPRC-TV. “A little boy on his birthday. And then tried to f-cking cover it up.”
Another sister expressed sadness that her mother and brother will not be able to see her receive her doctorate degree.
“My mother will never see me walk across the stage after working so hard to get my freaking doctorate,” the sister told KPRC-TV. “She will never get to see me. He (Mason) will never walk across the stage.”
The Crash
The incident took place at 8:42 p.m. on June 20 in Missouri City, a municipality of the Houston metropolitan area with a population of about 75,000 people.
The Missouri City police officer, who had only been on the job less than a year, received a call about an armed robbery in progress in the 1600 block of Cartwright Road, where a man with a gun robbed another man of $200 at an ATM.
The victim said the suspect sped away in a silver Honda, and the victim began pursuing him while on the phone with 911, according to Missouri City police.
The Missouri City police officer began speeding east on Cartwright Road and was about a block from the scene of the robbery when he T-boned the car driven by the 16-year-old boy with his mother in the passenger’s seat.
Both the officer and the man in the back of the patrol car were transported to local hospitals. The officer has since been released, and the man underwent surgery for nonlife-threatening injuries, according to KHOU-11.
While police have not provided any details as to why the man was in the back of the patrol car, they did tell local media that it is a violation of departmental policy to respond to a call while having somebody in custody.
“At this time, we are unsure why that person was in the police vehicle and how he got in there. It will be part of the investigation moving forward,” Missouri City Police Chief Brandon Harris told KHOU-11.
The officer who caused the crash worked at another law enforcement agency for two years before he was hired by the Missouri City Police Department. He has been placed on paid administrative leave until the Texas Department of Public Safety concludes its investigation.
A man believed to be the same suspect who committed the armed robbery was arrested the following day after committing another armed robbery at an ATM, but his name has not been released, according to KPRC-TV.
Common Practice
While most law enforcement agencies have policies in place that prohibit officers from engaging in high-speed pursuits if it places the public in danger, it remains common practice, according to a months-long investigation conducted by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The newspaper investigation determined that at least 3,336 people have been killed by police pursuits between 2017 and 2022 despite national efforts to reduce these types of incidents.
The investigation also determined that most of these deadly pursuits start off with low-level traffic infractions like broken tail lights or not wearing seatbelts and that most officers are rarely held accountable for killing innocent bystanders during pursuits.
The Chronicle’s investigation also determined that Black people are four times as likely than white people to be killed in these pursuits.
“Police are killing too many people in pursuits for reasons that are entirely unnecessary, and it’s ruining lives.” Christy Lopez, a Georgetown law professor and former deputy chief in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, told the Chronicle.
“Police never have the right to be the judge and executioner.”
