South Dakota AG had 2 close calls with police before crash

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg's errant driving in 2020 twice caused police officers to hit their brakes to avoid collisions, records released by the state’s Highway Patrol showed Monday, but he just received warnings until he struck and killed a pedestrian on the shoulder of a highway.

The Highway Patrol's scrutiny of the attorney general's driving record is coming to light ahead of the state House meeting next week. Lawmakers will consider a majority report from a Republican-controlled impeachment investigation committee that recommended he not be impeached. However, Gov. Kristi Noem is pushing for Ravnsborg's ouster, and the Highway Patrol is offering a public briefing for lawmakers on Wednesday.

The Highway Patrol records showed that a week before the Republican attorney general hit a man, Joseph Boever, walking on the shoulder of state Highway 14, he had been pulled over on the same highway for illegally pulling in front of a police car at an intersection in the city of Huron, roughly 70 miles from where the fatal accident happened. Ravnsborg displayed his badge identifying himself as the state's top law enforcement officer and later told Huron police Officer Tanner Dornacher that he thought the intersection had a four-way stop sign.

Dornacher gave Ravnsborg a verbal warning. But he also noted in a written account roughly seven weeks later that Ravnsborg seemed unsure about the highway's driving lanes, stopping his vehicle in a “weird” spot inside one of the lanes. Before driving away, Ravnsborg asked Dornacher if the highway had two lanes and whether he could drive in either of them. Dornacher told him he could.

As the attorney general has recounted the fatal crash to the public and criminal investigators, he has been unable to explain how his car came to hit Boever on...