Deputy charged with causing out-of-county crash while driving patrol car

31-year-old Mark K Juen Jr, who resides on Meadow Blessing Ln in Callahan, has only been on-the-job four months as a St Johns County Law enforcement deputy. But, yesterday, Friday afternoon about 12:45 p.m., he learned that just because you are driving a patrol car doesn’t mean you can’t cause and accident. And, if you do, it doesn’t mean you won’t get a ticket.

Juen, who was hired September 4, 2018, was driving a 2015 Ford Taurus, a marked St Johns County Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicle, traveling outside his jurisdiction behind a semi-tractor trailer tanker headed northbound in the outside lane on US-17 in Green Cove Springs.

According to Florida law, tankers are required to slow, then stop, at marked crossings of active railroad train tracks. When 47-year-old Clarence T Wright of Jacksonville, the driver of the 2010 Freightliner semi-tractor trailer, stopped to observe conditions where the train tracks cross the northbound and southbound lanes of US-17 Hy at Hall Park Road; Juen failed to stop, colliding into the rear-end of the stopped tanker.

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Wright was not injured in the crash. Deputy Juen was transported to Baptist Clay Hospital where he received medical treatment for minor injuries and released. Juen was charged by Florida Highway Patrol with careless driving and a seatbelt violation. The dollar value of injuries to the patrol car were not stated in the report. Juen is paid a salary by the St Johns County Sheriff’s Office of $40,804 annually, plus benefits.