My good friend Robert Stacy McCain has a short series entitled “Family Demands Answers”, which reached the fourth such article at the beginning of this month, and as you might guess the series refers to families loudly complaining about their poor future doctors and astrophysicists being killed while doing something boneheadedly stupid. It’s like a “Hold my beer” moment, but with the police involved.
A father is searching for answers after lawyers say a police pursuit of an ATV ended in his son’s death
Sterling Jones, 22, died after his ATV struck an Uber driver in May. Lawyers for Jones’ father say police should not have been pursuing him in the first place.
by Jesse Bunch | Monday, August 10, 2026 | 5:01 AM EDT
The father of a Philadelphia man who was killed in an ATV crash this spring said police officers pursued his son moments before he drove the wrong way down a one-way street, ran a red light, and collided with a sedan.
Sterling Jones, 22, was killed on May 9 after the crash in North Philadelphia, according to police.
Lawyers for Jones’ father, Sterling Lamont Jones Sr., said his son and a group of friends had been riding off-road vehicles near Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue when officers from the police ATV and dirt bike detail spotted the young men popping wheelies and began a pursuit.
They followed Jones up Broad Street to West Thompson Street, the attorneys said. There he briefly sped in the wrong direction down the one-way street and ran a red light before striking an Uber driver’s Toyota sedan at the intersection as it turned onto 15th Street.
The only answer as to why young Mr Jones is dead is because he was breaking the law, and he was stupid. As reporter Jesse Bunch reported, the riding or ATVs and dirt bikes on the public streets of the City of Brotherly Love is illegal, and the Philadelphia Police Department have increased efforts to stop such activity. “(P)opping wheelies” is unsafe operating to add to that.
But the key word in the article is: “Lawyers”. It’s not that the elder Mr Jones is seeking answers as to why his beloved son is now stone-cold, graveyard dead; he knows why that happened. The answer he really wants is: how much money can he extort from the city for his son’s stupidity.
But the incident raises questions about whether the officers followed a department directive barring vehicular pursuits for all but the most serious offenses — a policy enacted because of the public safety risks posed by such chases, particularly in densely populated areas.
Philadelphia Badlands. Photo via Philadelphia Inquirer Click to enlarge.
So, the Fairhill neighborhood, in the Philadelphia Badlands, a name The Philadelphia Inquirer truly hates.
Sterling Jones Sr., 57, has since hired a team of attorneys to investigate the incident. Late last month, they filed a notice of intent to sue the city, alleging that the officers and the department violated Jones’ constitutional rights when they chased him and caused his fatal injuries.
Is there a constitutional right to not be pursued by law enforcement when you have been breaking the law? Was the younger Mr Jones death caused by law enforcement chasing him, or by his decision to flee?
Sterling Jones Sr. said that while he was planning to sue, no amount of money could make up for the loss of his son.
Yet he will be suing for money, won’t he? The lawyers will be demanding it, because they have to be paid.
The young man was a graduate of Hunting Park Christian Academy and had been working for two years as a delivery driver for the U.S. Postal Service before his death. He had bought the ATV with money from that job, his father said.
Shouldn’t a delivery driver for the Postal Service have been aware that dirt bikes and ATVs were not allowed to be used on the city’s public streets?
“He wasn’t a criminal. He had a license,” he said.
Except, or course, if the younger Mr Jones was driving an ATV and “popping wheelies” along Broad Street, of all places, he really was a criminal. A small-time one, it could be argued, but a criminal nevertheless. And he then tried to flee from the police: under Title 75 §3733, that is a second degree misdemeanor, which can be upgraded to a third degree felony under (2)(iii) if the action “endangers a law enforcement officer or member of the general public due to the driver engaging in a high-speed chase.” I’d say that running a red light and then striking another driver’s vehicle constitutes endangering a member of the general public.
He said he hired lawyers with the aim of ensuring that the officers who pursued his son would be reprimanded and removed from the beat.
“They killed my only son,” he said. “I just want justice.”
Sometimes justice is served, served by the criminal himself due to his own stupidity. Death might be an excessive penalty for running from the police, but it is a not infrequent penalty for being boneheadedly stupid.
I think I can help to enlighten this man in his “search for answers.” Obey. The. Law.
So easy even a caveman can do it.
He “hired” lawyers?
Sure he did. Ambulance chasing lawyers with dollar signs in their eyes recruited him is more likely.
The sad thing is the “Progressive” Philly government will settle and the taxpayers will give this dude and his lawyers millions.
That type of behavior is becoming more common in my neck of the woods. Feral (mostly black) youths riding mini bikes, dirt bikes and ATVs on the public roads, usually late at night, racing around, doing wheelies and donuts and just acting stupid in general.
I get that riding those things is a lot of fun. I’m a biker myself and I learned to ride on dirt bikes when I was 13 or so. But we did it in authorized areas on dirt tracks or public riding trails.
Not only is it legal and won’t get you chased by the police, but dirt hurts a LOT less than asphalt when you make a mistake and end up hitting the ground and skidding 40 feet.
And there are no Uber drivers to run into.
Curt wrote:
Young Mr Jones had his fatal accident at 9:23 PM, hardly late at night. The police spotted him doing his stupid stuff on Broad Street, the main non-interstate highway through foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia. There’s always traffic on Broad Street.
Actually, the city cleaned up Broad Street since the early 2000s, when it used to be part of the Combat Zone, but the clean-up only extends a block or two deep.