One of Lancaster County’s top law enforcement officers is under investigation and a Lincoln mother is in a state of distress after the county’s chief deputy sheriff struck a 9-year-old cyclist while driving his Dodge Ram pickup truck in northwest Lincoln on Wednesday night, according to police.
Ben Houchin, who has worked for the sheriff's office since 1993 and was named the chief deputy in 2020, told Lincoln Police investigators he looked down for a "split second" to change his radio station at around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, when he crashed into Janiece Moton, who had been riding her bike in her northwest Lincoln neighborhood, according to the crash report filed in the incident.
Lincoln Fire and Rescue crews took the 9-year-old by ambulance to Bryan West Campus with serious, but not life-threatening, injuries, Lincoln Police Chief Teresa Ewins said Friday.
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By Friday, Janiece had been transferred to Children’s Hospital in Omaha and diagnosed with multiple skull fractures, a brain bleed, a fractured shoulder, an injured knee and road rash on various parts of her body, according to her mother, Tiarrah Moton, who said the crash had left the family in shock and shaken her own confidence in local law enforcement.
“It’s been a lot of, ‘Is this real? Is this a dream-type situation?” Moton said Friday. “It’s been a lot of — even just me, myself — just crying. I’m the type of mom that likes to fix everything. And I know I can’t. I can’t fix it.
“I can hug her, but that’s not going to make it better.”
In the crash report filed in the incident, Lincoln Police Investigator Nicholas Vest said Houchin was driving his Ram 1500 east on West Jennifer Street when he glanced down at his radio as he proceeded through the road's intersection with Northwest Eighth Street on Wednesday, crashing into the girl, who was riding her bike south on Eighth Street.
The chief deputy told investigators the girl came out of nowhere and that he never saw her approaching the roadway, Vest said in the report. There are no stop signs on either side of the three-way intersection.
Houchin, who was off duty and driving his personal truck, told investigators he was driving around 20 mph in the moments before he struck Janiece, who was not wearing a helmet, according to the crash report.
The posted speed limit on West Jennifer is 25 mph.
Police don't suspect drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash, Ewins said. Investigators did not test Houchin for either drugs or alcohol, according to the crash report.
For Tiarrah Moton, the Police Department’s failure to give Houchin a field sobriety test — along with comments she heard from officers at the scene, who seemed to be “trying to make excuses for” Houchin — have called into question law enforcement’s response to the collision.
The mother of five said, at first, she didn’t care that Houchin was a sheriff’s deputy. But by Friday afternoon, when she said she hadn’t heard an investigative update from the Police Department and hadn’t heard an apology from anyone at the sheriff’s office, her attitude had changed from understanding to angry.
“I have not spoken with anybody,” she said. “I was told that they were going to contact me by the next evening, which would have been Thursday. I have heard nothing. I haven’t got a call saying, ‘Hey, how’s your daughter? Here’s some new updates.’”
“They promised a few phone calls that have still — today, two days later — have not been made,” she added. “They have not kept those promises.”
Houchin, who lives a few blocks from the crash scene, did not return a phone call seeking comment Friday.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Sheriff Terry Wagner said he was saddened to hear of the crash and wished Janiece Moton “a quick and speedy recovery.”
Police have not cited the chief deputy for his role in the crash. The Police Department is investigating the crash and the sheriff's office has launched an internal investigation into Houchin to determine whether he violated any agency policies.
Wagner said the investigation’s early returns suggested Houchin did not violate any policies. The sheriff said he stopped at the scene, rendered aid and had cooperated with police.
And even as the sheriff acknowledged that Houchin had turned his attention to car’s stereo in the moments before the crash, Wagner said in the statement that “there were no driver actions that contributed to the crash.”
“As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the distress this has caused for the child’s parents and family,” Wagner said. “I know that this event has also been difficult for Chief Deputy Houchin, who also has young children of his own.”
That distress has been among the hardest parts for Tiarrah Moton, who said the pain from her daughter’s injuries had removed the seemingly permanent smile from the 9-year-old’s face.
The bubbly, cheerful Huntington Elementary School student is normally “the definition of a diva,” her mother said — was constantly singing, dancing and entertaining her classmates and family before Wednesday’s crash.
But she’s spent the past two days in pain — leaving her mother grieving for who her daughter is supposed to be.
“I hate not being able to see the smile, the laughs, the singing,” Tiarrah Moton said. “That’s all she does, is sing and dance and smile.
“It sucks not being able to see it.”