Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan said information has been presented to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office for the filing of charges in a fatal crash involving a stolen vehicle on Monday.

The Police Department’s Accident Follow-up Unit presented information on charges of first degree felony murder, felony flee and elude, aggravated burglary, auto theft, and a misdemeanor charge of criminal damage to property.   The Kansas Highway Patrol assisted with the investigation, and Chief Sullivan said the Police Department’s Professional Standards Bureau will also conduct a review to make sure departmental protocols were followed properly.

Chief Sullivan said officers were watching a stolen vehicle on Monday with help from a KHP aircraft.   The vehicle traveled from the Riverwalk Apartments to a Walmart store at 29th and Rock Road.   Officers used spike strips and deflated two of the tires, but the car sped away.  Sullivan said because of public safety concerns and a desire not to escalate the situation, officers decided not to chase the vehicle, but the KHP aircraft continued to track it.  The vehicle stopped at a business on North Webb Road, where two people got out and tried to get away on foot.  A man was arrested at that location, but a woman stole a van from the business parking lot and sped south on Webb Road, then west on 29th.  The van struck a car at 29th and Wilderness, and the driver of the car, 43-year-old Mandy Buckwalter of Wichita, was killed.

The 24-year-old woman from the van was treated at a hospital and then released to the custody of law enforcement officers, and she was booked into the Sedgwick County jail.

Chief Sullivan said the Police Department made every effort to bring a safe conclusion to the incident, using alternative methods of apprehension, but the suspect “made reckless, unreasonable and unpredictable decisions that led to this tragic outcome.”

[ photo from KHP video shows white van near center of picture, traveling west on 29th from Webb Road ]