Flagler deputy fired for failing to stop wrong-way driver in fatal crash

Flagler County sheriff’s Deputy Robert Finn was driving on an Interstate 95 exit ramp in Palm Coast early the morning of April 16, heading to a call for assistance, when a vehicle speeding the wrong way forced him to swerve to avoid a collision.

Finn paused to see if the vehicle continued driving against traffic once it merged onto the interstate, and told a team of agency investigators he thought he saw the driver correct course.

He was wrong. While Finn continued heading to a possible drug overdose three miles away, Wendell Parker, the driver of the Chevy Cobalt that had nearly hit Finn, continued the wrong way on I-95 and slammed head-on into another vehicle minutes later.

The crash killed Parker and critically injured a Flagler Beach woman who was driving the car that he struck.

On Monday, Finn, a patrol deputy for seven years, was served with a "notice of intent to terminate" for failing to stop Parker’s car moments before the fatal wreck, according to a Sheriff’s Office news release. The action followed a three-week internal investigation. Finn has 10 days to appeal.

“This is a tragic case where Deputy Finn witnessed a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction and failed to take immediate action,” Sheriff's Office Undersheriff Jack Bisland said in the agency statement. “While we will never know with certainty if Deputy Finn could have changed the sequence of events and prevented this crash by attempting to stop the vehicle, we do know that as a law enforcement officer it was his duty to take immediate action and he failed to do so.”

The crash occurred at 2:15 a.m. April 16 on I-95 South near the Palm Coast Parkway exit. Parker, 32, of Miami Gardens, was northbound in the inside southbound lane when his 2006 Cobalt slammed head-on into a 2005 Hyundai Tucson driven by Cynthia Soto of Flagler Beach. Parker died at the scene, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report.

Soto, 35, had to get 20 screws in her right knee, a plate in her left forearm and suffered possible nerve damage, according to the internal investigation report.

A witness told other deputies at the scene he saw Parker’s car fly by a Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle with its lights and sirens on just moments before the crash.

It proved to be Finn’s cruiser. Sheriff’s Office officials determined Finn “failed to take appropriate action” that might have prevented the crash.

The deputy at the time was responding to a medical call on Carlson Court at a home with a history of drug problems. He believed it was a possible overdose and said he didn’t hear calls over that radio that another deputy had already arrived to the home and cleared it as non-emergency.

He told investigators he slowed on the exit ramp after Parker passed him and thought he saw the vehicle head south in the correct direction on I-95, which is why he didn’t turn around and attempt a traffic stop. He continued to Carlson Court even after calls began coming in about the fiery crash on I-95, saying he wasn’t cleared from responding to the medical call.

The deputy later responded to the crash scene and even took a statement from the witness who had seen his car there moments prior to the wreck.

“Due to me believing the vehicle was traveling the correct way with traffic and had corrected itself, yes, I believe I needed to be at the call at Carlson Court,” Finn said during a June 27 interview, according to the internal investigation report.

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