A 44-year-old Umatilla woman is dead after a driver fleeing an attempted police stop in a pickup truck reported stolen blew through a red light and slammed into her Jeep early Monday morning. The crash happened at 4:21 a.m. at the intersection of State Road 19, also known as Central Avenue, and Guerrant Street in Lake County.
According to a report from WFTV, the Umatilla Police Department tried to pull over a 2018 Nissan Frontier after getting reports that the vehicle had been stolen, but the driver refused to stop and fled south on State Road 19. Moments later, an adult male driving the Nissan ran the red light at Guerrant Street while traveling southbound in the outside lane, the station reported.
The front of the Nissan struck the left side of a 2019 Jeep Cherokee that was heading eastbound through the intersection, according to the same report. The 44-year-old woman behind the wheel of the Jeep was pronounced dead at the scene. Florida Highway Patrol troopers said the crash remains an active criminal investigation, with charges pending against the driver of the stolen truck.
A Policy Shift Behind a Rising Death Toll
The Umatilla crash echoes a pattern documented statewide. A Miami Herald investigation found that FHP’s policy encourages troopers to chase anyone who flees from a traffic stop, and that the agency’s pursuit numbers have climbed sharply since the rules changed.
After the policy change, enacted in December 2023, the number of FHP pursuits tripled, and almost five times more people were killed, per the investigation. The agency reported just seven pursuit deaths in the three years before the change, but the Herald found 17 deaths in 2024 alone, the first year under the new policy. The newspaper’s review also found that 10 of the 34 people killed in FHP pursuits during that span were not involved in the chase at all — bystanders caught in the crossfire of a decision someone else made to run.
The Herald’s investigation also detailed a separate case involving a suspect named Laiken Lynn Randolph, who was fleeing from law enforcement in a pickup truck authorities said was stolen — a scenario strikingly similar to what unfolded in Umatilla.
An Older Lake County Case With a Different Ending
Not every attempted stop in Lake County has ended in a chase. In a 2008 case on County Road 42, a sheriff’s deputy called off an attempted traffic stop after the driver sped away and kept accelerating, according to a report from Ocala.com. That driver still crashed minutes later in a two-car collision that killed one person and sent two others to the hospital by helicopter, illustrating that even a discontinued pursuit can end in tragedy.
In Monday’s crash, Florida Highway Patrol troopers have not released the names of either driver involved. The investigation into the exact circumstances of the chase and the pending charges remains ongoing.
