The images were startling, and they revealed too well the ending of the saddest of stories. But they also reminded me of how close we are to lives on the edge, and why we should care.

This past Thursday morning hundreds of local residents sat motionless in their cars along Greenville Boulevard, trying to figure out why traffic wasn't moving. On nearby York Road, 14th Street, Red Banks Road, parents trying to get children to school were worried about being late.

What was happening? Stop light malfunction, auto accident, routine traffic stop? Some other of the usual annoyances that disrupt our lives?

But it was something else. Earlier that morning, police would later report, a 34-year-old man with a history of mental illness attempted to evade officers trying to serve commitment papers. He eluded them at the home of his parents off Greenville Boulevard and then led them on an automobile chase through nearby neighborhoods.

During the chase the man's car hit one officer's car, then nearly hit another officer. The chase ended on Greenville Boulevard shortly afterward near the 14th Street intersection when the man's car ran into another vehicle – just as pursuing officers were firing their weapons at the man.

The chase was over. The man, Kerry Turner, was dead, police said. As a Reflector report on police and court records would show, Turner had spent much of this life in a struggle with substance abuse, bipolar disorder and the law.

At 16 he was convicted of driving after drinking. Over the next decade and beyond he was in and out of the courts on charges ranging from being disruptive to assault to marijuana possession to resisting arrest, these records show – a litany of conflict.

But looking closer, a friend told The Daily Reflector, he was a good person. He cared about people though he didn't trust them, his friend told a reporter. He enjoyed riding his bike and was good with computers. It was a description that might fit many of those who sat in traffic Thursday morning, impatiently waiting to get to school or to get on with their lives.

As the image across the top of Friday's front page would show, Turner's truck was not far away from those stalled motorists. Clearly visible were the bullet holes through the driver's side windshield. But as follow-up stories continue to piece together the details of this most difficult incident, it's likely the memory of that windshield will fade, like the image of a bright light after we close our eyes.

But on that same page was a file picture of Turner provided by the county detention center. His eyes stared out, intense – chilling, someone else who knew him said – as if he were calling out for a kind of help we no longer could give him.

For me, at least, that image will linger.

Al Clark is executive editor of The Daily Reflector. Tell him what you think at 252-329-9560 or at aclark@coxnc.com.