Bryan Noyola-Delacruz ran from a Missouri trooper at 110 mph on I-35 in January. It ended with his car spun out and a trooper’s gun on him, and now he’s headed to state prison for three years, the first 12 months of it with no shot at parole. The Kansas City man admitted one count of aggravated fleeing a stop, the felony Missouri calls Valentine’s Law, according to the Clay County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, whose announcement KCTV5 reported on Sept. 16.
Two years ago the same drive would have ended differently, and almost certainly not on the far side of the Bond Bridge with a patrol car’s fender in his rear quarter panel. Since then Missouri has done two things. The legislature turned running from a traffic stop into a felony with a locked year in it, and the Highway Patrol, which for years did not let troopers spin fleeing cars out, began training every one of them to do exactly that. Clay County is where those two changes meet most often.
From Parvin Road to the far side of the Bond Bridge…