Officer dies in crashFollow

Yeah, thats pretty messed up. If the guy ran him off of the road thats one thing, but the cop losing control and crashing is a risk he takes in being a cop in the first place.

Using the same logic you could say that a cop getting hit by a car after running into traffic while chasing someone on foot was murdered by who he was chasing.

Meh, the only way it will stick is if the guy is a ****** and sticks with a public pretender for a lawyer anyway. Thats one thing that bothers me about our justice sytem, it seems a lot of the time that charges are way trumped up so even when people plea down they still get a harsher charge then what they realistically should have.

Thats off topic though, this guy should only be being charged with whatever they were originally chasing him for, and the evasion and whatnot.

We had another case here in Michigan last year I think it was.

A guy was driving drunk and caused a fender bender. The two vehicles pulled over to the side of the road just over a hill. The person the drunk hit got out of his car and stood in the middle of the road. Another car came over the hill over the hill and killed him.

They charged the guy who caused the initial accident with murder and the girl who actually ran the guy over got nothing. (Wasn’t her fault anyway)

He now rots in jail for murder for causing a fender bender drunk.

This one totally confuses me.

Felony Murder in NY:
S 125.25 Murder in the second degree.
A person is guilty of murder in the second degree when:
....

3. Acting either alone or with one or more other persons, he commits or attempts to commit robbery, burglary, kidnapping, arson, rape in the first degree, sodomy in the first degree, sexual abuse in the first degree, aggravated sexual abuse, escape in the first degree, or escape in the second degree, and, in the course of and in furtherance of such crime or of mmediate flight therefrom, he, or another participant, if there be any, causes the death of a person other than one of the participants..."

I do not know what the law is in the state applicable, but the test of whether this guy would get 2nd Degree Murder in NY for the same actions depends on the original crime he was being chased for. Thus if it was speeeding it would not be murder, if it was any of those listed above it would be murder. The idea being that if you commit one of the crimes listed in the law you should expect there may be a chance of someone dying as a result of your actions, and if it happens then you have to pay.

Note: that the Escape in 1st and 2nd degree listed above requires that you already be arrested or incarcerated and just fleeing to avoid arrest is escape in the 3rd degree here in NY



I do not know the circumstances of the hit by car case enough to comment. I would like to see a link to a news story if one is available.



Edited, Mon Aug 8 09:55:11 2005 by fhrugby

In conjunction with your clarification of what "escape" means in the legal context, I'm not sure how they can charge this guy with 2nd degree murder. If he wasn't being chased for any of those crimes, it's a no-brainer. And even if it was, there's a couple other ticklish issues:

- "immediate flight therefrom". This would depend on the duration of the chase, but to me "immediate" means right away. If he'd robbed someone and then 30 minutes later a cop spotted him on the street and gave chase, the rule would not apply.

- "causes the death". An accident occuring as a result of a cop chasing the guy is a bit of a stretch. Did he "cause" the death? If it was worded such that any death that occurred as a consequence of the flight, it would be more solid. But to me, you have to take deliberate action to "cause death".


You've got to remember that the purpose of the 2nd degree murder charge is to hold accomplices responsible to some degree for a death. So if you go along on a robbery, and your buddy shoots someone, you're held for murder. If you split up and run different directions, you give up peacefully and he shoots someone, you get charged with 2nd degree murder. If you run over someone while fleeing the scene of a felony, you get charged with 2nd degree murder. The point is to punish everyone involved in a crime for the actions of any one of them if it results in a death. It's the "guilt by association" rule of crime, but in all cases, the death has to be the result of a direct action of one of the participants of the crime. A cop dying because he lost control of his vehicle during a chase is not really the same thing. While you can argue that the cop wouldn't have been taking that risk if the criminals weren't running away, that argument can be easily made and overmade (and abused).

Unless there's something else to this story, I don't see how they can get 2nd degree murder.

Guess I better be extra careful after the next time I take a ride on the ole dirt trail.

That episode of The Shield was gnarly as hell.

If he gets a good lawyer nothing that they throw at him relating to the cop's death will stick, regardless of what law says what.

In other words, he is probably fu[i][/i]cked.

I had a public pretender once when I was a kid who I had to point something out to 5 minutes before going into the courtroom that got me off.

He came in saying that I should plea it down to yadda yadda and I was like "Ummm yeah, but what about this?" God that pissed me off.

I agree he could have killed someone driving like that, I can't argue that point.


What I'm saying is that the cops death was a direct result of ignoring his training. How can you blame someone else for that?

In Ohio, officers are allowed to pursue highspeed until the limits of safety for both the officer, and innocent bystranders has been reached. At that point, they're supposed to break off pursuit. A couple of years back we had an officer wreck himself in his overzealousness to pursue an individual.

They were on the interstate. Suspect going west, officer travelling east. The suspect was going what the officer assumed was about 100 MPH. Officer most likely going about 70 MPH the opposite direction. So, why would the officer take the time to slow down, turn around, and then begin pursuit? Obviously the guy would have a huge head start, and the chances of that officer actually apprehending the suspect were slim and none. He did it anyway. Didn't notice the big fu[/red]cking dumptruck occupying the lane that he was going to be merging into and WHAM! Seriously fu[red]cked up officer. Of course they put all the blame on the speeding suspect who's only known crime at the time was travelling at approximately 100 MPH.

Never caught him as far as I know, and the officer will never work as a patrolman again.

Edited, Tue Aug 9 10:38:05 2005 by Kastigir

Here in AZ we are only permitted to go 10 above the posted speed limit regardless of public or highway roads. Most of our commanders for the shifts are very adamant about monitoring our speeds and such and officers can get tickets from their sqaud leaders for breaking laws...Happens all the time to motorcycle cops who try to catch up to someone who flew past them but then they were barraged with a stream of traffic not permitting them to get into the flow of traffic.

Regarding the officer, it's sad that he passed, but then again he totally ignored his training and duties as he was most likely caught up in the whole concept of "Gotta get the badguy". I've been caught up once before in a highspeed chase but it was on a freeway at about 2am with little to no traffic..(not that I am making light of the seriousness because it was still wrong) The adrenaline takes over and almost anyone can and will succumb to that feeling.



Edited, Tue Aug 9 12:19:04 2005 by Sindarek

Bah. Any criminal who runs from the cops is totally responsible for all butterfly effects.

I say we burn him.