Ayden’s Law Campaign aims to allow sheriffs to use radar
BILOXI, Miss. (WXXV)- What started as one family’s loss is now a call for change.
The 2027 Ayden’s Law Campaign is building support across South Mississippi as leaders take a stand for safer roads.
WXXV News 25’s Asia Ellis reports.
On May 15, 2025, Ayden Stockstill was killed in a fatal crash on Texas Flat Road in Hancock County, a tragedy that led his grandfather, Richard Bouchard, to start the Ayden’s Law Campaign. The campaign pushes for county sheriffs to have access to radar to help make roads safer across Mississippi. “Our ultimate goal is for there to be fewer Ayden’s and fewer families that have to go through this needless tragedy. Statistics show we can reduce fatalities by 30 percent if they allow the sheriffs to use radar. That’s the main thing they’re afraid of the complaints from the rural population. It’s horrific, 700 people a year dying on Mississippi roads. Our family knows what it’s like to go through it and several families down here on the Coast. Young accomplished men and their lives were taken because of our unsafe roads.”
July is Ayden’s birth Monday. His grandfather honored his memory by thanking the Harrison County Board of Supervisors with a cookie cake for supporting Ayden’s Law, even as more than 100 similar radar-for-sheriffs bills have failed since 2010. Harrison County Sheriff Matt Haley said, “Rural is not rural anymore, we get a lot of complaints about speeders, and I have to rely on highway patrol as it stands. With a county this size it shouldn’t be that way. We should be able to run radar in school zones, in different areas where we have problems with speeders. I think every sheriff before me tried to get a bill passed for radar and it’s unfortunate that it keeps getting pushed down the line.”
As the campaign continues, Richard will take his message to more counties across South Mississippi to rally more support for the 2027 legislative session.
