16-year-old boy drowns in pond while running from police in White Lake

The youths saw police coming and they fled.

Far too often, that’s a path to more trouble. It was fatal for a 16-year-old White Lake boy. His body was found in a pond Sunday night, after he tried to elude police by running into a wooded area.

White Lake officers had responded to an alarm and spotted the boy and another youth at about 2 a.m. Sunday as they climbed down from the Tractor Supply store on M-59 in White Lake, according to police. It’s unknown whether any crime had been committed. One youth was quickly apprehended nearby but the 16-year-old ran into a wooded area behind the store and drowned in the pond, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said.

“It was totally dark and he must’ve run unwittingly into the pond, which was very mucky. He was probably running fast, amped up, and he probably ingested a lot of water into his lungs when he fell in,” Bouchard said.

When the boy failed to return home, family members reported him missing on Sunday afternoon and Oakland County Sheriff’s Office organized a search, ultimately focusing on the pond, Bouchard said. The search team used the department’s water-scanning, sonar-type device to locate the youth’s body at about 10 p.m. on Sunday, submerged in about 5 feet of water, he said.

“It’s a huge tragedy,” pointing up the danger of trying to flee from police, Bouchard said.

“Even good kids make bad choices, and they usually get a second chance. This time, that can’t happen,” he said. The youth died only about a mile from his family’s house, in a wooded neighborhood studded with streams, ponds, wetlands and lakes.

He's listed on the website of a White Lake funeral home as Joseph Paduchowski, a junior at nearby Lakeland High School, “where he was a proud member of the varsity football team,” and an employee at Dave & Amy’s Restaurant in White Lake. Visitation is set for 2-8 p.m. on Friday at Elton Black & Son Funeral Home, 1233 Union Lake Road, White Lake; and a funeral service at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the funeral home.

On the funeral home site, the boy’s mother Kathleen Paduchowski asks that, in lieu of flowers, mourners send donations for the Lakeland Eagles Football Program, via PayPal to kath004@hotmail.com and that “100% of what is received will go to the program.”

The tragic loss of life in White Lake bears an eerie similarity to another sad story, just over a month ago, in the wooded suburb of Plainfield, with about the same population as White Lake, outside Indianapolis.

There, on Nov. 7, according to the Indianapolis-based news site WTHR.com, a 19-year-old man who fled from police after a minor traffic infraction drove into a pond and drowned before pursuing officers, who jumped into the water after the wrecked vehicle, could make a rescue.

Contact Bill Laytner: blaitner@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 16-year-old boy drowns in pond while running from police in White Lake