Close All Tabs Presents Snap Judgment: Runaway Car

0:00from KQED. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. The culinary event, one big table on October 3rd, features celebrated Bay Area chefs, dancing and more, all to help end hunger. Tickets at sfmfoodbank.org slash one big table. Support for KQED comes from Genentech, the original biotech company. For 50 years, Genentech has pioneered more than 40 scientific breakthroughs across various diseases, bringing greater hope to patients everywhere. Learn more at gene.com. That's g-e-n-e dot com. Do you have an internet trend, tech subculture, or online auditing you've been wondering about? Well, now you can ask Closal tabs to investigate. To submit a question, go to kqed.org slash Closal tabs and scroll to the bottom of the page. Or check out the link in our show notes.

1:00Okay, let's get to the episode. Hi, tabbies! So the Closal tabs team is on break this week, trying our best to log off for once. But we do have a really fascinating story for you today from our friends at KQED's Snap Judgment. And this one's about technology going rogue. We've covered Weimos and other autonomous vehicles on the show before. But even if your car doesn't drive itself, you may have noticed that nowadays, all cars are becoming more computerized. In some cases, it can seem like they have a mind of their own. That's what happened in Fargo, North Dakota. When a teenager picked up his family car from the mechanic, during his drive home, SUV started speeding by itself, with the teenage driver stuck behind the wheel. Closal tabs will be back with a new episode next week. But until then, here's Snap Judgments run away car from their episode room.

2:06We begin in the cold. With the brand new Snap Judgment series all systems down, when everything is falling apart, what do you do? We're headed out to a land called Fargo. Actually, West Fargo. A place where winter is coming, the roads get slick, and every now and then, something strange comes roaring out of the snow. Snap Judgments is not just another Fargo story. This one is true. The events took place in West Fargo, North Dakota in 2024, but names have not been changed. The voices are not altered. This is how it went down. Snap producer, Bo Walls, brings us the tale. Snap Judgment. Katherine Dutcher and her 18-year-old son Sam were out running errands on a Tuesday evening in September. She needed to pick up dinner, so Katherine asked Sam if she could drop him off at the auto repair shop

3:10to get the family call. We had gotten a call earlier that day that they wanted us to pick up the Honda and take it home. Their pilot had been acting quirky, but the mechanic told Katherine that it was good to go. They had driven multiple hours and a considerable amount, and it was fine, and nothing was found with it, that it probably was okay. And it was less than 10 minutes to get to her house from there. We figured it was a very short drive and that it should be just fine. What could happen in 10 minutes? Sam got behind the wheel, adjusted the seat and mirrors, and pushed the power button. The engine started no problem. All systems normal. He pulled off the lot and started the 10-minute drive home. It was still relatively bright out. The sun was starting to go down, but it wasn't dark at all.

4:15I drive probably half a mile and there's some farmland on my right side, left side there's houses. About a mile from his parents' house driving on a two-lane road in Cass County, the speed limit switched from 40 to 55. Sam accelerated, then he's off the gas. I backed off, too. It's 55, it kept going so. Then I took my foot off completely, and then it kept going. When I realized this wasn't slowing down, I was just focused on getting it stopped. This Honda pilot wasn't interested in stopping. It was speeding up. Initially, I tried holding the brake and then holding it and hitting the e-brake. Then I tried pumping the brakes. Then I tried putting it into neutral, and nothing happened.

5:17Then after that, I just tried. Park, reverse, and at that point I realized this thing's not going to stop. The car's computerized system ignored everything he did. It was calling the shots. Finally, he hit the power button and held it in. The car just kept going faster. I'm watching the road, thinking I don't know what to do, I can't. Get it stopped. The only thing I had to control over was steering. Now moving at 80 miles per hour, Sam didn't want to take his eyes off the road to dial 911 on his phone. So he tried to place the call through voice commands. My phone said that number is not in your contacts. So I called my mom. She was in the heartiest drive through what I called her.

6:19So I said, hey, it's happening again. When he said that it was happening, he said that it was exactly what he was talking about. The car had accelerated on its own once before. That's why they had taken it in. I thought it was maybe getting stopped because it stopped very quickly the first time. You know, when we talked through where you can get it to stop. And then I explained to her that the brakes are working. We have a life 360 app on our phone. So I was able to look and see like where he was at and how fast he was going at that point in time. At that point, she knew it was only going 80. I know I can control a car at that speed. The car was racing east on a rural road that didn't have traffic lights in the northern Fargo area, approaching the Minnesota state line. Sam wasn't just afraid of crashing into another car or carening off the road.

7:20His big concern was that if a law enforcement officer were to see him, they would think that he was fleeing them. Because on that road, I do know that there's a chair of that drive back and forth. And at that point, I told him that I was going to get off the phone and I would call 911 and notify them. So I quickly hung up and called 911 and informed them what was going on. Well, this is going to sound absolutely crazy. But we've been having problems with my car. We took it to the shop because we had an incident where the accelerator stopped and it went and stopped. We managed to get it stopped. They had had the car for like a week. They said it's just fine. Well, my son is driving the car currently because I'm in the motor car. And he is going down to 2017. He can't get the car to slow down or stop and he's going away. He's 80 miles an hour. They probably thought I was crazy. He's worried they're going to be trying to pull him over because he can't stop. He's really cannot.

8:21Okay, no, I understand. It was just so surreal that I think initially it was like even though we knew it was happening, it felt like it was such a weird dream that I really didn't feel anything much at all. They don't know I better let them know this. Okay, it looks like we did let an office with my partner here left an office or in the area. No already. So I'm going to advise you to not call your son back in case we hear try to get a hold of them or the officer tries to call him directly to give him directions. I'm called me back. She wasn't supposed to but she did. I call them very briefly just to explain they're calling you. They're going to tell you what to do. You need to answer them. And basically said I loved him and I hung up because I didn't want to interfere with their call. But I also wanted him to know that it's very important that you do answer them.

9:21Saying goodbye is kind of scary in the sense of I didn't know what was happening next. At least about 98 Avenue crossing the street. Turn for east. Around 98 Avenue. I'll talk about him later. The pilot was now on 90th Avenue, the straightest road in the area. It was pretty quiet for the most part. There were a few cars but it's not a bigger roadway. It was just beat trucks pretty much down the road. Some of them some eyes. But it was only two lanes and soon Sam started to overtake cars and trucks that were going much slower than him. It's really narrow, only wide enough for two cars. People realize something's not right. A lot of it there was a good chunk of oncoming traffic.

10:26So I was passing on the shoulder not nicely by any means. But it was enough room to get around the vehicle. That was scary because going around on a shoulder where it's pretty much loose gravel. The tire starts spinning in the interaction. The only thing to is right off of the shoulder were 20 foot ditches. It was terrifying because those ditches were steep. So I would have just rolled, not pleasant. The pilot was now going over 90 miles per hour. And every maneuver put Sam at risk of losing control. There's a turn there that wasn't nice to make it that speed. I was really close to spinning out there. It was difficult to keep the wheels straight at that speed. I was really tensed up. My hands were locked on that wheel, not really letting go of it.

11:30As long as I kept controlling the vehicle and then spin out. Catherine Dutcher had given her son's cell phone number to the 911 operator, who transmitted it from the dispatch center. 10-4 just advising I also attempted to call Sam. I'm on the phone with him. 10-4. Within moments, Sam was on the phone with a clay county deputy. He asked me, hey, did you try hitting the power button? Did you try the e-brake? 10-4 of the e-brake doesn't work either. Did you try neutral? Which the answer to all those was yes. I'm Adam Dry and she has been neutral driving and I've been called so. It's pushed by the stop. But it's not allowing it to do more turn it off. After he went through those steps, I think he might have been a little stumped on what to do next. 30-70 here. Adam Dry, did that e-brake?

12:30Can it work? Correct. He did the duty thing. He said it's closing down. But two miles an hour, that did. And he just changed the neutral. He's the power off. 30-70. I could hear the resonance of the radio. And that buzz that the radio makes. I didn't like that. That they were going back and forth. 37, how much can I say I've lost? That's 34 miles now. I knew it was very serious. It's to the point where it's not just one or two officers. It's multiple and they are trying to figure out what they want to do about it. And really, I didn't think they exactly knew. What to do in this situation. Because the stuff doesn't happen very often. My only thought was if no one can get this card to stop, if he can't do emergency breaks,

13:30if he can't turn it off, if he can't jam it, how in the world are they going to get this card to stop? I had hoped that it would be a replay of that very first brief situation where it was able to just be stopped quickly. So I think on some level, like my denial kicked in, and it's like, well, you know, this will probably be okay to figure out what to do. As Sam blew through the intersection at Highway 75, the officers on the radio moved on to the next option. They told me directly, here's what we're going to do. We're going to put spike strips out and you're going to drive over it to pop the tires. And I'm not going to push the stick down. We've picked tires up, so that should fall down and make sure it hits on my head. When those tires pop, you lose traction.

14:32And most of the time, we'll spin out, like even if just one blew at that speed. But first, someone would need to get ahead of Sam to lay down the strips with metal spikes. I was trying to get the stick built there, but I don't think I'm going to get dirt on. What I was told on the phone was, we can't do that, we can't get far enough ahead of you. No breaks on this ride, Snap us how long? And Sam peek his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. Find out when Snap jet turns. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. The culinary event, one big table on October 3rd features celebrated Bay Area chefs dancing and more, all to help end hunger. Tickets at sfmfoodbank.org slash one big table.

15:35Welcome back to Vroom from Snap Judgment's All Systems Down before the break. Sam Dutcher picked up his family's Honda pilot from the repair shop. Who's supposed to drive at home, but then the car started accelerating on its own. But breaks were not working, the car would not shut off. And now, with police racing to catch up, Sam is trapped behind the wheel of a vehicle that keeps gaining speed. Snap Judgment. It's going to be a 2022 Honda pilot, white and color going about 80 miles per hour. The complainant's son is going through the one driving, reaching speeds of 90 to 100 miles per hour, cannot slow down her stop the vehicle. Shortly after 5pm, Minnesota State Trooper Zach Groover was on his way to turn in a receipt for an oil change. She'd gotten earlier that day on his department, issued Dodge Charger. When he heard the dispatcher relay the call on the radio.

16:36We're right on the border of Fargo and Morehead, so North Dakota, Minnesota. So I was about 20 miles into Minnesota. It was kind of just a, hey, we've got to run away car. And it's coming into Minnesota. Can you see if Zach or anybody would be in the area, hopefully he helped us on the county line if we get there? Hey, I'm about 20 miles in front of this thing. And probably about seven or eight miles to the east of kind of the next major intersection that that car's coming at. So I figured I can go a little bit faster than 80 miles an hour with my lights and sirens on. And we'll see if I can get up there and get the spike strips set down. He wasn't going to bother to ask anyone if he should get involved. Our policy states that we have to be requested. But then, you know, something, something like this is kind of a, it poses a very major traffic safety issue. When you've got a car that can't stop going through intersections at 80 miles an hour.

17:38So it really does kind of become a life and death death thing because if, you know, you get T-bone at 80 miles an hour, it's not going to be good. 30 miles an hour. 180 and 30 north. Vehicles, state names, 8, 99 for 100. Groover hit the gas and came up highway nine. But couldn't quite get to the intersection ahead of Sam. He saw the lights of Cass County police cars in pursuit of the pilot zoomed by as he approached from the south. I hadn't seen Sam go by. I just saw the red and blue's go by. So at that point, it was kind of just a race to who was going to get to the intersection faster. The officers were driving larger cars, Chevy Tahos. They were doing about 80 miles an hour. That's not going to really work. And then that's kind of when the, it's switched in my head. Like, okay, we're going to get, try to get in front of them. Got a driver behind you.

18:38I think I wanted to play that case. Or to try to, as I said, turn front, to get to sleep. That was fun. Groover's charger had a 300 horsepower engine and could go a lot faster than the Tahos. So we came up behind them and floored it. Once we got up to the road that they were on, I believe it took me about a minute to catch up to the Cass County deputy. Every time I get a second camera off, I just want to keep it in front. My top speed on that road was around 130. 2.96 miles, definitely coming up on your left to pass. And then I went around him and that was kind of the moment where it's like, there's no car here. Where's this car? When he passed the other officers in the left lane, the pilot was nowhere to be found. Sam was going so fast that he had pulled away from the police cars in pursuit. Groover went as fast as the charger would let him.

19:38You know, just kind of going pedal to the metal and I could see tail lights up ahead. And then finally, when I was able to, I hit my front radar. And once I was able to get a speed on him, he was doing 113. And it was kind of like a, oh, okay. He's not doing 80 miles an hour. 37,000 on the phone with him. I saw in my mirrors the red and blue flashing lights. Knowing they were there, definitely brought a little bit of peace of mind. Because it means that they have caught up to me. You 90 to get a front of a man. I'm right behind him. We're in the hills. I don't want to pass. We're doing 113. He was quite a ways ahead of me. So I really wasn't directly behind him for very long. I remember him going around me on the side of the lights on. At that point, I passed him just before we got into the town of Hitterdall. 90 to the front of a man. Just get hit. Hit it off.

20:38Before he could think about getting far enough ahead of Sam to drop the stopsticks, Groover realized they were coming up on the intersection with Highway 32 in the town of Hitterdall. I had the very busy intersection. Might be worth the shooting in front of him on the just block. It turned from like we're going to get in front of him to put sticks down to. I need to get up there and block this intersection. So he doesn't T-bone a car coming through at 113. 37 on there. Click on the 90th Avenue North. That just reached East Walls. 90 miles an hour. No breaks. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what was going to happen next. But what I did know was up until the end of the road. Or until I lost control, it was going to continue driving. By now the sun had set. Visibility was getting worse. It's a further complicate thing. Sam was headed for an intersection where the oncoming cross traffic didn't have a stop sign.

21:41It's an uncontrolled intersection going north and south. After you go through that intersection is a set of railroad tracks that's pretty frequently blocked by trains. Central Copy just is driving. They're going through stop signs east and 119. 90th Avenue. Sam barreling east could potentially T-bone another vehicle at high speed. I mean, my thought wasn't what safest for me. It's what safest for other drivers. I was honestly more worried about hurting other people than myself. I would have thrown the vehicle outside of the road before I would have let it hit anyone. Groover slowed down at the intersection with his lights flashing to stop the cross traffic on the highway. I felt like I had a pretty good distance on him and was like, okay, we can get here, get this intersection blocked and then he just kind of came out of nowhere.

22:41Kind of take deep breath because of those cars on the side of the road. I don't have a lot of room. He was doing at least 112 miles an hour through that intersection. Very scary because it's supposed to be at the if you make one mistake, things will go wrong. Yeah, that was kind of a old crap moment just watching him go flying by. I've ever had to sort of around a car stop sign and he had to do a pretty good jerk around me so he didn't rear end me thankfully. So kind of had a bit of a win there. I felt relieved that I got past there, but I also didn't know what was ahead. Sam's pilot flew by Groover in a blur, but now the officer had to catch up and pass Sam again. He was a ways in front of me, but I don't think it took me too horribly long to get caught back up to him.

23:43Kind of a minute or so. I was able to just put the pedal to the floor and go. My max speed was 141 miles an hour. Groover was still on the radio with the Clay County deputies, one who was on the phone with Sam and another who was also driving their next closest car in pursuit. I remember right at the 90s now, those are key and technical county development. As the officers spoke, they crossed from Clay County into Becker County and realized that they had about three or four miles before the paved road would end. I'm from the 1724 to see where I went to get in the Becker County Becker, 24-tea. Teas on, got a 207, he's the head of all, the T-Area section. The pavement came to a T and then on the other side of the T was a gravel road. And once that gravel road ended, it turns into a dirt field, but it was slightly offset from the gravel.

24:50I kept glancing over the GPS map. That road ended. I knew this road's going to a T. What's going to happen? Doing 113 on the gravel would have been scary enough and I don't think he would have been able to negotiate that little curve. It was a steep slope at the end I would just crash into. It was becoming a race against the clock and three to four miles wasn't a lot of ground to cover, going speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. After watching him go through, hit it all, we're going to have to be a ways ahead of him to be able to get out and get those stops six down. Good night, you got about four miles and that's going to see. So if you can get in front of it, slow down doing that otherwise we're just going to have to see what happens. I knew I wasn't going to have time to stop my squad, get out of my squad, run to the trunk, get my stop sticks down and get them thrown out on the ground.

25:51I think we're not going to be able to get six. He's going too fast. So it was kind of, it shifted from putting stop sticks down to how else can we get this car stopped? 18 year old Sam Dutcher knew the road ahead of him was coming to an end and the cops would not be able to drop the spike strips to slow him down. And his car was still gaining speed. It was slowly accelerating. I think it topped off at 125. Not a nice speed to drive it. It was almost like a roller coaster. That's the closest I can compare it to controlling it. I got it difficult because I was starting to get tired. It was just that my brain was rushing, just pumping adrenaline. I started questioning how much longer can I keep doing this?

26:52Sam was deep into this nightmare. One slight jerk of the steering wheel, one little pothole on the road, and anything could happen. Sir, too many, sir. How many can you roll up the end line? My thought was there's no way I'm making it through this. I'm going to die. I pray saying, please let me make this through this. He tried to stay focused on the road and not imagine the worst. I don't feel there was really room to think about what could happen. I just needed to focus on what is going on and staying in control because if I start focusing on other things, there's a good chance at the speed you are losing control and dying. I was just in a state of mind of this is what's going on.

27:54I need to deal with this right now. Nothing else right now really matters. Back at home, his mother Catherine was trying to get updates from the 911 operator. I'm going to say mom, I called her on my kids a little bit ago. Okay, here it is, the reckless driver. Oh, wait, it's got to accelerator sucks. Oh, okay. It was scary knowing that I couldn't be there. I called just to follow up and like, do you guys know where the officers are at? Have they found them? Have they been able to do anything? What are they doing? It was more of a sense of me wanting to know what happened. There on the phone with him now, we have officers from all over and medical all coming to him, okay? Okay, my husband and I are driving off there too. Yes, and I can understand it's going to be extremely stressful. But they are talking with him directly, okay, so they're trying to help him get this taken care of in the safest way possible

28:59and we've got officers and troopers and all sorts of people going towards him. Okay? Okay. Okay. And when they said that, I think that was the first time I really panicked and thought, oh my god, I think my kids are going to die. The whole idea of that they had all these people going towards and made me feel like they were anticipating the worst and planning for it. We've got Pito, but they are getting there as fast as they can. Okay, no. All right? Okay. Okay, we're all keeping up fingers crossed for him. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. I felt pretty sick to my stomach. It felt like time was so slow. I had to just sit and wait and trust that they were doing everything that they could do. We are 300 streets sitting back and counting 97 in North. Out on the road, it was time for a desperate last-ditch effort to prevent a tragedy.

30:04At 113 miles an hour, we had about 53 seconds before we hit the tee. We were not far. We were running out of time. We were running out of road and running out of options. The first option was to do a pursuit intervention technique, a pit where officers chasing vehicles will nudge the other car from behind to make it spin out. But Groover doubted it could be done on such a narrow road at speeds in excess of 113 miles per hour. We don't train at those speeds. So it was kind of just a... We don't really know what's going to happen. And obviously, you know, we don't want to try to do a pit on him and then have him go into the ditch sideways and roll a bunch of times. Because that's... I would say that's just as dangerous as him going off the tee at 113 and seeing what happens. Yeah, any other ideas I gave him a six down before we hit that tee?

31:05Did you know it in front of it and trying that route? We were kind of just radioing things. So it was kind of a... you know, we're all talking through each other. Copy state units go to LTCH once everybody's on the same channel. We were bouncing ideas off of each other just to kind of try to see what we could get done. Number four, what do you think about this question? Then Groover had an idea. Just getting in front of him and kind of matches speed, let him kind of just make soft contact and just ride the brakes down to till we got stopped. Do 90s at your plane. You don't have much room left before a tee. So if you can do it at school for it. There was kind of a little bit of a thought of obviously I'm driving a kind of a mid-size car and he's in a larger SUV. So, you know, if he starts pushing me, we go sideways into the ditch. This probably isn't going to end the best. Do 90s, I'm going to go on a next test. Now I'll try to get in front of you and have a little on your brake power.

32:06Groover doing about 130 miles per hour got ahead and passed sand. I noticed it going in front of me. I didn't know what he was doing. I was in front of Sam. I started slowing down and it hadn't been relayed to Sam yet to run into the back of me. 3070s still on the corner. I didn't know what was going on because they never told me, hey, this is what we want you to do. In my mindset at the time he just pulled in front of me. Oh, shoot, I don't want to hit him. So I'll go around him. He actually gets up next to me and it was kind of at that moment where it's like a, uh-oh.

33:06You know, if he gets in front of me, I don't know if I'm going to get back in front of him. 37, having to go on the back of this car. Do 90, you want to be a, uh, you can contact the DOD wall. We were kind of neck and neck both speeding up. Is this the way of that line of the phone? That's in the car. Got to get the draft from the phone here. The deputy on the phone with Sam told him what the plan was. He told me so I want you to hit the car that's going to pull up in front of you. You want me to, what? I repeated that to him. So you want me to hit the car that's pulling in front of me. That's not something I really care to do. But I thought it was just not end well. It's going to a long day. The person to hit him in the back. Once I got in front of him and started slowing down,

34:09something started to slow the car down as well. It was weird because collision on Mac breaking started kicking on, I think. It felt like we were probably slowed down to 80. The vehicle was making itself engine brake. Why did every other safety feature on this vehicle fail? But that one worked. It was kind of a, okay, hey, this is going really well. And we were slowing down, slowing down, slowing down. And he wasn't hitting me. And I was kind of thinking, hey, this might actually work. I think the forward collision isn't letting him hit me. We're slowing down. That worked. I was starting to think, hey, it's not going to hit the vehicle. That's nice. I was watching him in my driver's side mirror. And I'm like, okay, he's, you know, he's coming up, but he's not hitting me.

35:13He was really close. I ever seen the back of his car. We're slowing down. And I think I was down to about 20 miles an hour. And I lost his headlight in the driver's side mirror. It felt like time slowed down. And then smack. If I pulled him, pulled him. When he hit me, I think that I was doing about 20 miles an hour. And once he hit me, I just dined a minute at the brakes. I stopped. After he hit me, we came to a pretty immediate stop. My squad was enough to just keep his car from moving still. I was just seeing their frozen kind of in shock. When they came to my passenger side door, opened it up, saying, yeah, the car. The wheels were still spaying when I got out. It was still running, trying to go.

36:13Are we good? I've never been rear-ended before. I know my head smacked the headrest and it was a pretty good jolt. That hit hard. That was like, it was slowing down, slowing down, and then it wasn't. Yeah, I'm glad you guys went in the area. That's a good thing we had in charge, or I don't know. I mean, he was doing this. When I caught up to him, he was 114. He's 734. Did you see it? But the vehicle stopped. Going for a car stop. All medics seem clear. We're good. I got out of the car then. I went and sand the grass and just sat there and just kind of zoned out for. I don't know how long. My brain kind of just broke. I was kind of interested in a century overload. He was cool calm and collected.

37:14He was kind of just standing in the ditch. Gerberal say I was calm. I wouldn't say I was calm. I'd say I shut down, but I'm part of it. Also, I am on the spectrum, so don't really show. Emotions as much. I mean, I was in the mindset of, I want to go home. I want to go to bed. I want my day to be over. He called me himself when they got the vehicle stopped and he got out. He was like, mom, I'm on the car. I'm okay. And then I just wanted to see him to know it was actually like real. I mean, it was amazing, but it also felt like it wasn't real. I was like, how could you like run into the back of a lawn first

38:16but car at the speed that you're going to get stopped and not even be injured? Like it didn't make any real sense till I actually saw him. I was like, God, like, you don't think you got for that killing. Thank you for keeping safe. It felt like a miracle very much so. It's kind of a sigh of relief. Knowing that we were able to get it stopped and not have to watch him, you know, go off of a tee at 113 miles an hour. You don't really realize kind of what you did until after the fact and it's kind of like, okay, this is like, this is pretty cool. So when you got home that night, did you tell your wife what happened? Absolutely not. The thing that I was even more floored about that I found out that next week during this whole thing was that his wife was like seriously pregnant at the time

39:19ready to give birth to his very first son and to think about that he put his life on the line to say my son knowing that he had his first one on the way. Like that was even more like amazing to me. I remember him walking up to me, sticking out his head like he was going to shake my hand and I'm like seriously could I hug you? I mean you saved my kids life. I don't really feel like a handshake because like doing justice. A huge thank you to Sam Dutcher and his mother Catherine Johnson Dutcher along with Minnesota State Trooper Zach Groover for sharing their story with the snap. Sam is currently a student at the North Dakota State College of Science

40:20where he's studying to become an auto mechanic. Very special thanks to Lieutenant Mike Lee of the Minnesota State Patrol as well. The original score for that piece was by Rinsol Goreo was edited by Anna Sussman was produced by Bull Walsh. That was KQED's snap judgment, a podcast that mixes real stories with original music to create cinematic dramatic audio. Thanks again to their team for sharing the story with us. While we're on break, our tags are staying closed. But we'll be back with a fresh episode next week. See you then. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. The culinary event, one big table on October 3rd features celebrated Bay Area chefs,

41:21dancing and more, all to help end hunger. Take it said, sfmfoodbank.org slash one big table. A dark night, a quiet house, but inside danger was lurking. Oh, not really. We have Xfinity Shield, so we're not worried. What if protecting your home and devices could be drama free? Xfinity, imagine that. Restrictions apply not available in all areas.