The cement barricade was bolted to the ground as part of roadwork to block the 57th Street entrance onto Loop 363. The impact moved the blocks about 10 inches.
Neil Joseph Kiser was ejected from the vehicle. Officers found him on the ground near the truck. When Temple Fire and Rescue personnel arrived on the scene he was dead.
An officer first noticed Kiser’s silver Ford F-150 pickup just before 2:50 a.m. at the intersection of 31st Street and Central Avenue where the driver ran through the flashing red light heading north on 31st, then ran through the red light at the intersection with Adams Avenue.
The officer said he noted several other traffic violations by the time he was close enough to attempt a stop, Sgt. Brad Hunt, Temple Police Department public information officer, said in a press release.
The officer followed the truck past Temple High School, reaching speeds of 60 mph in a 30 mph zone.
Thirty-first Street makes a 90-degree turn onto Nugent Avenue where Kiser once again disobeyed stop signs at Nugent and General Bruce Drive, police said.
Scanner chatter indicated the officer and another who had joined the chase slowed down but were still behind the truck when it entered a construction zone on Loop 363, Hunt said.
Police called off the pursuit when Kiser ran a red light on the Loop at Interstate-35 near the IHOP restaurant because the truck was headed into a heavy construction zone, Hunt said.
“The area that he was approaching has a lot of roadwork going on. It was not only dangerous to police and the man, but for residents,” Hunt said at the scene of the accident.
Police did see the truck head east on the loop.
“They could barely see his taillights as he exited on the 57th Street exit,” Hunt said. “At that stage the police were about a quarter to half mile from the truck.”
Officers lost sight of the truck and called for other officers to be on the lookout for the pickup on nearby roads and intersections.
A short time later, an officer in the area found the truck well off the roadway in an unlit area near the intersection of the Loop off ramp and South 57th Street, near St. Luke’s Catholic Church.
Hunt said the officer saw smoke coming from a small fuel leak from the truck. He was able to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher.
“A large-scale intense search was carried out to ensure that he was the only occupant of the vehicle,” Hunt said.
The accident reconstruction team worked until the early hours of the morning piecing together what had happened. Their initial findings indicate the truck was traveling at a high rate of speed as it entered the intersection and attempted to turn right to go south on South 57th Street. The driver apparently lost control of the truck and struck the concrete barricade on the opposite side of the intersection.
Justice of the Peace David Barfield pronounced Kiser dead at 4:45 a.m. and sent the body for an autopsy to the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas.
