It is hard to understand from that local news video what the DA thought may have happened. They more or less were saying he crossed into the incoming traffic to pass someone, and this forced someone in the oncoming lane to swerve into the other lane?
From what I can glean, they painted it as he passed 4 cars and was in the lane of oncoming traffic forcing the gold pickup truck to slam on his brakes and swerve which caused the car behind the truck to slam on their brakes and swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid the pickup truck. The car behind the pickup truck then slammed head on into the older gentleman who died.
What seems most likely to me is:
-Lacy illegally passed 4 cars by driving in the lane of oncoming traffic. He did have time to get back over into the proper lane and did so with enough time.
-The gold pickup truck was going fairly slow but then tapped the brakes a bit seeing Lacy in his lane passing the cars in order to give plenty of time for Lacy to get back over
-The car following the gold pickup truck was driving much faster than the pickup truck and was following too close. Betting the driver wasn’t paying close enough attention either and when the truck tapped his brakes, she had to slam hers on and swerved into oncoming traffic and hit the other car head on.
I think it was ultimately the woman’s fault.
But, maybe this is controversial, but I can kind of see how the police would get there. If you’ve ever been driving on a two lane road and had some impatient kid go flying by a bunch of cars illegally into oncoming traffic and puckered your butt a bit just praying nobody dies, I think you could see how easy it would be to envision some young kid in a flashy car doing that causing a chain reaction where the oncoming vehicle had to slam their brakes on and someone ends up dead as cars start swerving around.
Some of the data his lawyer is providing I’m not sure is as meaningful as he makes it seem without more info. He kept emphasizing that Lacy was 72 yards behind when the accident happened and he hammers how fast the gold truck and the car were driving, but how fast was Lacy going? Thr stopping distance of a 2023 Charger at 60 mph is about 35 yards under ideal circumstances. If another vehicle is coming at you at 25 mph, that 72 yards would be eaten up really quickly, especially if Lacy wasn’t slamming on his brakes trying to get to a complete stop.
Don’t get me wrong, again, it seems clear from the data and what the truck driver said that the woman was driving too close and because of that had to swerve when he braked and she went into oncoming traffic and killed a man. But I also think it’s likely that Lacy contributed to the accident with his reckless driving causing the truck driver to need to brake out of nervousness/caution.
The charges though were going way too far. Jalen Carter was WAY more responsible for the death of 2 people and got a wrist slap.