Cars and Cowboys

Cars and Cowboys – July 4, 2026

An article this week indicated that a sheriff’s deputy was involved in a serious crash while pursuing a suspect on a motorcycle over the weekend, but the deputy was not injured, the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office said. Deputies pursued the man, who Bucher said was traveling at speeds of more than 100 mph.

Several miles into the chase, Deputy Peyton Scott crashed his patrol vehicle on Lot Ten Road in Palermo, Bucher said, adding that the car sustained heavy damage, but the deputy was “absolutely lucky” to walk away from the crash unhurt.

Another article about the Sheriff’s department dated January 23, 2026 – “A review of records by The Palladium-Times at the time found that the county’s insurance carrier had issued checks for car accidents involving police vehicles 34 times from 2022 through August 2025. Half of the crashes involved collisions with deer and eight with vehicles. The other accidents included crashes with snowbanks, earth embankments, a tree in the road and a goose.”

Some research on Police High Speed Chases showed the following:

“An estimated 11,500 people have been killed in high-speed chases since 1979. About half were innocent bystanders, and that total does not include the many others who survived but suffered injuries, including brain damage and paralysis.”

Now before I get to the points of all this let’s look at some other article headlines from the last couple of years:

• Sheriff’s Deputy killed in Volney crash was responding to a car accident – Sep 27, 2024
• No one ticketed in Volney car crash that killed Sheriff’s deputy – Oct 17, 2024
• Man injured in fatal crash with Sheriff’s deputy files lawsuit – May 30, 2025
• County Lawmakers at odds over sheriff’s office car accidents – Aug 13, 2025

Here’s the points I would like to make:

• The July 23, 2026 article stated – “The man on the motorcycle ultimately got away, Bucher said. Bucher declined to identify the man, but said deputies know who he is and are looking for him. He said he was confident the man would be arrested.
  • If they knew who he was, why get involved in a chase of 100 mph?
  • Was he wanted for murder, rape, vehicular manslaughter, etc?
• Did he decide to instigate an unsafe high-speed chase on his own?
  • If not, who decided it was a good idea?
  • Why the decision?
• Does the Sheriff’s department have a policy for high-speed chases?
  • Was that policy followed?
  • Has the county DA or County Attorney reviewed that policy? If not, why not?
• Was this deputy trained in high-speed pursuits?

The bottom line is that these questions should be answered at next month’s County Legislature Safety Committee Meeting. The County Legislators need to be aware of incidents like this so they can use their oversight to ensure the Sheriff, who I still call a Cowboy, is taking care of his business in a way that does not cause us to mourn the death of another police officer or innocent bystander. They also need to be aware of any liability the Sheriff is putting on the county by not properly training and supervising those under his command.

The legislators should also be made aware of the results of the April 24, 2024 crash which took the life of a deputy and injured someone else.

The officers in this department need to be able to count on the Sheriff to look out for their welfare, which sometimes means he must enforce the rules and not just let them do things the way they want.

More videos coming out about past traffic stops need to be addressed at the Safety committee as well, so they know the status of the AG’s investigation and what needs to be done to correct any issues.

Thank you for your time.

Jim Cannon

Fulton, NY