CODE 1144

About the Book

How could you take photographs of that and keep from being sickened; has been the question often asked Lawrance Smith who, for over a decade, has photograph auto accidents in San Joaquin County, for the California Highway Patrol. He responds in a lenient voice; “you just become callous and focus your attention on your job. In this line of work, often you become an island and isolate yourself.” However, it was not always auto accidents Lawrance photographed. His photography career started with the Tracy Press, a local tri-weekly newspaper where Publisher Sam Matthews started Lawrance developing film and printing photos on the weekend. Soon Lawrance was covering local community and spot news events. He had the first color spot-news photo in the papers history; it was of a fire. Lawrance admits, it was the action and intrigue of crime scenes that interested him the most. Becoming a constant fixture with the local fire departments and highway patrol, before long officer Jim Crowder of the Tracy Police Department befriended Lawrance. Upon Crowder’s advice, Lawrance returned to collage and earned his Police Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) certificate. With his new gained knowledge of evidence gathering and preservation along with his photography skills Lawrance became proficient as a forensic photographer. Ironically, a drunk driver struck down the photographer for the highway patrol. Lawrance was recommended to fill the position and he found himself covering one of the largest areas of roadways and highways in the valley for both the Tracy and Stockton office of the highway patrol. “On an average, I shot one accident a day and every third accident was a fatality. It was a twenty-four hour, seven day a week job,” Lawrance, said. It is from this extensive collection of photographs Lawrance compiled in this book. “They are not for entertainment, but for educational purposes,” Lawrance goes on to say. When asked, what accident he remembers most, Lawrance replies; “there are three that haunts me to this day.” The first is an accident where a friend hit an elderly couple who turned in front of her; she could not avoid hitting them broadside, rolling their car. As the paramedics attended to the elderly husband, the wife laid on the hot asphalt, arms held outward, lamenting for help. She died a short time later. The second; a young man proud of his newly acquired sports car, was speeding, lost control, and rolled several times before coming to rest upright trapping his passenger. Shortly after arriving on scene, the car burst into flames as the trapped passenger began to regain consciousness. Screaming for help as the flames licked at his tormented body, it was obvious there was nothing the fire or paramedics could do to save the man. It was there and then, Lawrance said, he came so close to using his weapon; shooting the man in mercy, to end a horrifying and agonizing death. The third accident, involved a family whose car skidded off an overpass, plummeting to the street below. Both parents were intoxicated and trapped in the wreckage, but alive. Their two young daughters were thrown clear of the accident; they were not in child seats, or at least wearing their safety belts. There were paths of blood splatter, flesh and soft tissue marks on the pavement every few feet where their limp little bodies skipped across the roadway. At the end of one path laid the first child’s shattered and lifeless body. The second child was a few yards away and she cried out for her dolly in a “soft, unforgettable, hollow moans. As I attempted to photograph the scene, I notice her dolly was a few feet away from her; both she and her dolly had a leg torn off. This was the last accident I photographed.”

About the Author

How could you take photographs of that and keep from being sickened; has been the question often asked Lawrance Smith who, for over a decade, has photograph auto accidents in San Joaquin County, for the California Highway Patrol. He responds in a lenient voice; “you just become callous and focus your attention on your job. In this line of work, often you become an island and isolate yourself.” However, it was not always auto accidents Lawrance photographed. His photography career started with the Tracy Press, a local tri-weekly newspaper where Publisher Sam Matthews started Lawrance developing film and printing photos on the weekend. Soon Lawrance was covering local community and spot news events. He had the first color spot-news photo in the papers history; it was of a fire. Lawrance admits, it was the action and intrigue of crime scenes that interested him the most. Becoming a constant fixture with the local fire departments and highway patrol, before long officer Jim Crowder of the Tracy Police Department befriended Lawrance. Upon Crowder’s advice, Lawrance returned to collage and earned his Police Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) certificate. With his new gained knowledge of evidence gathering and preservation along with his photography skills Lawrance became proficient as a forensic photographer. Ironically, a drunk driver struck down the photographer for the highway patrol. Lawrance was recommended to fill the position and he found himself covering one of the largest areas of roadways and highways in the valley for both the Tracy and Stockton office of the highway patrol. “On an average, I shot one accident a day and every third accident was a fatality. It was a twenty-four hour, seven day a week job,” Lawrance, said. It is from this extensive collection of photographs Lawrance compiled in this book. “They are not for entertainment, but for educational purposes,” Lawrance goes on to say. When asked, what accident he remembers most, Lawrance replies; “there are three that haunts me to this day.” The first is an accident where a friend hit an elderly couple who turned in front of her; she could not avoid hitting them broadside, rolling their car. As the paramedics attended to the elderly husband, the wife laid on the hot asphalt, arms held outward, lamenting for help. She died a short time later. The second; a young man proud of his newly acquired sports car, was speeding, lost control, and rolled several times before coming to rest upright trapping his passenger. Shortly after arriving on scene, the car burst into flames as the trapped passenger began to regain consciousness. Screaming for help as the flames licked at his tormented body, it was obvious there was nothing the fire or paramedics could do to save the man. It was there and then, Lawrance said, he came so close to using his weapon; shooting the man in mercy, to end a horrifying and agonizing death. The third accident, involved a family whose car skidded off an overpass, plummeting to the street below. Both parents were intoxicated and trapped in the wreckage, but alive. Their two young daughters were thrown clear of the accident; they were not in child seats, or at least wearing their safety belts. There were paths of blood splatter, flesh and soft tissue marks on the pavement every few feet where their limp little bodies skipped across the roadway. At the end of one path laid the first child’s shattered and lifeless body. The second child was a few yards away and she cried out for her dolly in a “soft, unforgettable, hollow moans. As I attempted to photograph the scene, I notice her dolly was a few feet away from her; both she and her dolly had a leg torn off. This was the last accident I photographed.”