A police chase over expired registration and a small amount of marijuana turned fatal in South Lubbock last week, and the man behind the wheel is now facing the consequences of decisions he openly admitted were his own to make. Court documents filed in the case of Gene Paul Davis, 65, paint a detailed and troubling picture of what happened in the moments before pedestrian Francis Romanofski, 70, lost his life at an intersection he had every legal right to cross.
What started as a routine traffic stop on West Loop 289 quickly spiraled into a pursuit that wound through neighborhoods, involved a DPS helicopter, and ended with a man dead and a driver in handcuffs. The details that emerged in court records raise serious questions about judgment, consequences, and what it truly means to choose speed over safety.
Romanofski was doing nothing wrong. He was crossing the street legally when Davis’s vehicle struck him. He was taken to the hospital and later died from his injuries. A routine Thursday became anything but for him and his family, and the reasons Davis gave for running make the tragedy all the more difficult to process…