Benjamin Smith takes his blessings where he can find them. His eldest daughter, Paris Kiper, celebrated her 22nd birthday in the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator. But she’s breathing on her own now and Smith said she’s showing signs of improvement.
Last Thursday, his youngest daughter Giselle, 17, was taken from him in a car crash that also claimed the life of another teen, 17-year-old Semaj Morris. Kiper was the lone survivor.
Smith, who lost his wife to colon cancer earlier this year, said this loss is even harder to take because he believes it wasn’t necessary. The teens were killed after their 2022 Toyota Camry was hit by a speeding 2013 Mercedes GLK driven by 31-year-old Joneaka Smooth. She failed to make a right turn, crossed two southbound lanes, hit an elevated grassy median and went airborne, striking the Camry.
Smooth was fleeing police. She and two other women had been identified as shoplifting suspects inside a local mall and had escaped in the red Mercedes SUV.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to the mall before they began what a spokesperson said was a brief eastbound pursuit that was terminated less than a minute later and before the crash occurred some 2.5 miles from the Jefferson-Orleans parish line at the St. Bernard Avenue exit of Interstate 610.
“All deputies turned off their overhead lights and progressed to the St. Bernard Ave. exit to turn around and head back to Jefferson Parish,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release. “The termination of the pursuit was documented by both radio transmission and in-vehicle cameras.”
Those deputies were the first law enforcement personnel at the scene of the wreck, and they apprehended one suspect nearby as two others escaped on foot.
Smith isn’t buying it.
“Honestly, I don’t think that the ladies would have pursued like they did if they didn’t have the police behind them, so yeah, I don’t believe that,” Smith told WGNO-TV in New Orleans.
The grieving father wonders why deputies didn’t just take down Smooth’s license plate and tracked her to her home.
“They were shoplifters. They didn’t rob a bank,” Smith said. “I don’t feel that they needed to be pursued like that, and then for a few hundred dollars, I lost a 17-year-old daughter. I have another one that, she can’t even talk yet, and then there’s another young lady who’s also deceased.”
Rafael Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, said departments only continue chases when a violent crime has been committed. Shoplifters aren’t worth the risk, he said.
“That’s probably why the Jefferson Parish supervisor ordered the pursuit to stop,” he said.
Goyeneche acknowledged Jefferson Parish deputies had the right to chase beyond the parish line.
“The Sheriff’s deputies had every right to cross that Parish jurisdiction line in pursuit of a crime, but what takes precedent of any law enforcement agency, is that agency’s policies for engagement in pursuits,” Goyeneche said.
The JPSO’s internal affairs is likely to investigate if its deputies followed the Orleans Parish rules. They also want to determine whether the pursuing deputies knew what the suspects were wanted for, Goyeneche said.
Smooth’s bond was set at $565,000. She turned herself in after fleeing from the crash site and is charged with two counts of manslaughter, one count negligent injuring, one count of hit & run driving and one count of resisting an officer by flight, according to court documents. Her criminal record dates back to 2017.
A 37-year-old woman, named as a potential accomplice, was arrested by Jefferson Parish police and booked on a shoplifting warrant. The other woman in the vehicle remains on the loose.
Smith said he will likely retain attorney once Piper, his surviving daughter, recovers.
“I feel like I need to go as high as I can to get some kind of punishment for that because I don’t feel that should have happened,” said Smith.
