Seems like an open and shut case of...oh, it was a cop? nvm

Clark1961 said:
There is another point of view here and that the LEO has personal responsibility for their actions. No one held a gun to the LEO's head and said that you have to respond to this email right now while you are driving. The LEO had the opportunity to do the right thing which was stop the vehicle. The LEO chose not to do so ant that is at the very least careless driving. The result of the LEO's careless driving was the inadvertent death of a bicyclist. The LEO should be prosecuted for the LEO's careless act which resulted in a death.
Click to expand...

It is unreasonable to think that a routine task performed by cops all around the country would result in this. No cop would pull over. That's called the reasonable and prudent standard - what would another cop do in the situation. Do they drive and read their laptops? Yes. Change the system. Don't punish the individual.
 
Jaybird180 said:
It is unreasonable to think that a routine task performed by cops all around the country would result in this. No cop would pull over. That's called the reasonable and prudent standard - what would another cop do in the situation. Do they drive and read their laptops? Yes. Change the system. Don't punish the individual.
Click to expand...

Since the careless act resulted in a death it certainly wasn't a reasonable action. Punish the individual who made the incorrect choice, demand personal responsibility which is the standard for all citizens in the same circumstance.
 
Jaybird180 said:
It is unreasonable to think that a routine task performed by cops all around the country would result in this. No cop would pull over. That's called the reasonable and prudent standard - what would another cop do in the situation. Do they drive and read their laptops? Yes. Change the system. Don't punish the individual.
Click to expand...

Citizens routinely text while driving, but if I do it and kill someone, do I get the same grace?
 
This is all just nonsense and if I'm wrong, I hope a real lawyer will set me straight...

The cop committed manslaughter. He is going to get away with it because his department allows the activity he did. How in the world is this any different from me running over a cyclist while changing a CD on my CD player. Both are allowed. What exactly is the reasoning that the cop should not be held to the same standard of diligence while texting as I would for changing a CD?

Imagine I hit a cop on the side of the road while changing a CD. I can guaran-fcking-tee you what the outcome would be.
 
SkyHog said:
Citizens routinely text while driving, but if I do it and kill someone, do I get the same grace?
Click to expand...

That's what I'm really on about here. Mistakes almost everyone have made get a fine at most... unless you get a bad roll of the dice and actually hit someone or cause an accident. Then you're a murderer and looking at jail time. It doesn't make sense to me at all.... it assumes we're all perfect but we're not.

I don't mean to say laws shouldn't exist or we shouldn't fine or take points off people's licenses for these things. Just to acknowledge a normal human lapse in judgement doesn't suddenly make someone evil. Accidents actually happen, what you're doing with this is changing sentencing based on the outcome not the act.
 
Old Geek said:
This is all just nonsense and if I'm wrong, I hope a real lawyer will set me straight...

The cop committed manslaughter. He is going to get away with it because his department allows the activity he did. How in the world is this any different from me running over a cyclist while changing a CD on my CD player. Both are allowed. What exactly is the reasoning that the cop should not be held to the same standard of diligence while texting as I would for changing a CD?

Imagine I hit a cop on the side of the road while changing a CD. I can guaran-fcking-tee you what the outcome would be.
Click to expand...

That's what you're missing. He wasn't texting, he was doing what the
Sheriff's Department paid him to do. Doing his job had an unforeseen consequence (amongst police officers - not us non-cops - you know, judgment by a jury of peers and all....)
 
Jaybird180 said:
That's what you're missing. He wasn't texting, he was doing what the
Sheriff's Department paid him to do. Doing his job had an unforeseen consequence (amongst police officers - not us non-cops - you know, judgment by a jury of peers and all....)
Click to expand...

I'm not missing a thing. He was sending a text message. Maybe not on a cell phone and maybe in the line of duty, but he should be held to the same level of care and diligence as any citizen. I suspect there was nothing to prevent him from pulling over and sending the message.

It's manslaughter when a citizen does it and "an unforeseen consequence" when a LEO does it. Is it any wonder that citizens don't trust or cooperate with the cops any more?

And I don't think you understand what "jury of peers" means...
It means "an impartial group of citizens from the legal jurisdiction where they live.", not fellow cops.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/jury_of_ones_peers
 
Last edited:
I can link Cornell law too:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable

Just, rational, appropriate, ordinary, or usual in the circumstances. It may refer to care, cause, compensation, doubt (in a criminal trial), and a host of other actions or activities. In the law of negligence, for example, the reasonable person standard is the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would observe under a given set of circumstances. An individual who subscribes to such standards can avoid liability for negligence.
Click to expand...
 
it's amazing to watch the increasing rise of the cop as the victim here. Never mind there's a dead guy out there as a direct result of this guy's stupid actions. I already said this long ago, unless a cop is on a high speed pursuit, there is NO REASON to be distracted while driving. Not for me, not for you, not for the cop in the squad car. No reason = doesn't pass the 'reasonable man' test. I sure as heck wouldn't pass for me, or another citizen but it should pass for LEO? Oh yeah - he's a victim now, I forgot.
 
docmirror said:
it's amazing to watch the increasing rise of the cop as the victim here. Never mind there's a dead guy out there as a direct result of this guy's stupid actions. I already said this long ago, unless a cop is on a high speed pursuit, there is NO REASON to be distracted while driving. Not for me, not for you, not for the cop in the squad car. No reason = doesn't pass the 'reasonable man' test. I sure as heck wouldn't pass for me, or another citizen but it should pass for LEO? Oh yeah - he's a victim now, I forgot.
Click to expand...

I didn't say there is no fault. The system is at fault here and as employer who makes the rules of what employees can or cannot do, they are responsible for his death.
 
Old Geek said:
Wow. Just wow. You actually believe that this applies to this case?

I quoted Cornell law because you were wrong, not to make a legal argument.
Click to expand...

Look- I lost a civil case against a negligent cop because of an exemption created for them in the law that got twisted (with perjury). I had a sucky lawyer that was ill-prepared. I know and understand what can happen.

I think this stinks for the guy, but he's dead. Only thing can be done now is to prevent more similar deaths. Going after this one cop doesn't go as far as going after a negligent system.
 
cowman said:
That's what I'm really on about here. Mistakes almost everyone have made get a fine at most... unless you get a bad roll of the dice and actually hit someone or cause an accident. Then you're a murderer and looking at jail time. It doesn't make sense to me at all.... it assumes we're all perfect but we're not.

I don't mean to say laws shouldn't exist or we shouldn't fine or take points off people's licenses for these things. Just to acknowledge a normal human lapse in judgement doesn't suddenly make someone evil. Accidents actually happen, what you're doing with this is changing sentencing based on the outcome not the act.
Click to expand...

By that argument, I can shoot my gun at a target all day and never even get fined. But if I shoot that gun at a person and he dies..

Situational outcomes matter. If they didn't, police would never have reasonable authority to use force.
 
SkyHog said:
By that argument, I can shoot my gun at a target all day and never even get fined. But if I shoot that gun at a person and he dies..

Situational outcomes matter. If they didn't, police would never have reasonable authority to use force.
Click to expand...

No, that would only make sense if someone stood behind the target, you didn't see them, and you shot them while aiming at the target. Intent is the key and I'm pretty sure that's an important legal distinction in criminal matters.
 
cowman said:
No, that would only make sense if someone stood behind the target, you didn't see them, and you shot them while aiming at the target. Intent is the key and I'm pretty sure that's an important legal distinction in criminal matters.
Click to expand...

Correct. Crime= act and intent
 
Old Geek said:
Well, I guess I stand corrected. I thought manslaughter was act and negligence.
Click to expand...

You are of course, correct. If someone acts in a manner that a reasonable person would presume to be dangerous to another, and it is in fact dangerous to another, then that satisfies negligence. Most often happens as it relates to kids, and is used in the negative action(failure to feed, cloth, shelter. Leave in a hot car, don't put in kid car seat, etc) where a reasonable person would know that the outcome will be injurious.

There are citizens in prison right now for what this cop did. DUI is another form of negligence, but apparently they aren't teaching that to LEOs anymore.
 
Jaybird180 said:
I didn't say there is no fault. The system is at fault here and as employer who makes the rules of what employees can or cannot do, they are responsible for his death.
Click to expand...


You keep missing that while the job requires the activity it does not demand the vehicle be in motion while doing it. There was no rule saying he couldn't pull over to do it.
 
I find this strange dichotomy in all this. Someone mentioned earlier how people aren't held accountable anymore. "Back then" people were rarely held personally accountable for any accident, almost never. But it is said that there is no accountability today? Peoples lives are ruined over mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes today that were unheard of even 20 years ago. The current cultural climate must exact a pound of flesh, I am sometimes guilty of it myself. One thing I can say with integrity is this, once you have met one of the situations personally, your view changes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
denverpilot said:
You keep missing that while the job requires the activity it does not demand the vehicle be in motion while doing it. There was no rule saying he couldn't pull over to do it.
Click to expand...

No rule saying he had to either. Nor were there any technical controls in place to prevent him from violating a human policy. I'd call that a FAIL
 
Jaybird180 said:
No rule saying he had to either. Nor were there any technical controls in place to prevent him from violating a human policy. I'd call that a FAIL
Click to expand...


If you need tech to make sane decisions for you about how to operate a motor vehicle, you definitely shouldn't be carrying a firearm.

Operating a motor vehicle in a known unsafe way, especially if you're one if the people who regularly scrapes what's left of human bodies up off the pavement so you know better, isn't manslaughter. It's murder. You chose to do it.
 
denverpilot said:
If you need tech to make sane decisions for you about how to operate a motor vehicle, you definitely shouldn't be carrying a firearm.

Operating a motor vehicle in a known unsafe way, especially if you're one if the people who regularly scrapes what's left of human bodies up off the pavement so you know better, isn't manslaughter. It's murder. You chose to do it.
Click to expand...

Management has a responsibility. I think that the DA not prosecuting the lowest man on the totem pole was the right thing to do in light of this view, it places the responsibility to correct the problem where it belongs. The cop likely feels bad and will never do the same again.

I can see I'm beating a dead horse here.
 
This is why I quit texting while driving and now use email. There's so much less controversy.
 
Please explain how prosecuting this, given the cost of trial, cost of incarceration, and the societal cost of having him locked up for a few years benefits the public.

I don't care if he's a cop or not.
 
cowman said:
Please explain how prosecuting this, given the cost of trial, cost of incarceration, and the societal cost of having him locked up for a few years benefits the public.

I don't care if he's a cop or not.
Click to expand...

Easy. It will do the one thing that will detour other cops from committing the same negligence.
 
Old Geek said:
Easy. It will do the one thing that will detour other cops from committing the same negligence.
Click to expand...

Do you seriously believe anyone in that scenario is going to text while driving knowing they might run someone over but the thought of jail suddenly makes them put the phone down?

It's simple human nature, if he thought he was going to run someone over he wouldn't have done it. You can stack on every penalty in the world, it's not going to matter.


A better route would be to push police departments to get laptops out of their cars, or maybe just turn them so only a passenger can use it. Encourage them to pull over to text, and get more voice control/speech to text systems installed.
 
I've been reading this thread, but debated contributing to it at all, and I guess my thoughts led to a very recent incident for comparison: the death at the Arizona shooting range... for those not familiar.

A family went to an outdoor shooting range that has full automatic weapons available. The parents fire an Uzi, and either because she asked to or they prompted her, their 9-year old daughter goes up to the firing line. The 9-year old pulls the trigger on the fully automatic Uzi, loses control of the firearm while still pulling the trigger and a stray bullet from the gun strikes and kills one of the range instructors.

Here is where I see the similarity and differences in this case...

Similarities
The parents and the range personnel put this little girl into the position to cause harm to another person and they did not do their utmost to mitigate the risk of the situation. For example, whenever I fire a new to me firearm, I load one round so I can get a feel for how it reacts, and I insist on the same for anyone I take to the range who is not comfortable with firearms. If I'm the most experienced person in my group there, I feel it is my responsibility to make sure everyone else is being safe. In my opinion both the parents and the range bear at least some responsibility for what happened.
Similar to how the city put the cop in a position where he could cause harm without enacting policies to keep the risk to a minimum. So I would say the city does bear responsibility for not mitigating the risk as they should have.

Differences
It is likely (in my opinion) that a 9-year old girl is unaware of the basic dangers of firearms and therefore doesn't necessarily have the proper respect for them. And it's very likely she is completely unprepared for the way an automatic firearm behaves once you pull the trigger. She is of the age where more mature, responsible people should have been taking the precautions to keep everyone safe.
A police officer however, is very aware of the dangers of distracted driving. Through personal experience on the job, the plethora of educational material broadcast publicly every day, and the basic knowledge that a vehicle weighing upwards of 4,000 lbs can be a danger to others if not handled carefully. Finally, as a member of the organization tasked with protecting the public, they are (or used to be) held to a higher standard. So I would say the officer should carry some of the responsibility for this accident.


Punishment? That's not something I'd want to dive into as I can see both sides of this issue.

I imagine the officer's state of mind could have some bearing on this case, does he feel regret for what he did? If he does, the prosecutor could have decided him living with what he did is punishment enough.

That begs the question if the prosecutor is the one who gets to make that decision... which technically speaking I don't believe he should. That's what a judge and jury are for.

This is all my opinon of course, feel free to disagree. Really my opinion could go either way but without knowing all the details of the case, nothing will probably swing me firmly into either camp.
 
cowman said:
Do you seriously believe anyone in that scenario is going to text while driving knowing they might run someone over but the thought of jail suddenly makes them put the phone down?

It's simple human nature, if he thought he was going to run someone over he wouldn't have done it. You can stack on every penalty in the world, it's not going to matter.


A better route would be to push police departments to get laptops out of their cars, or maybe just turn them so only a passenger can use it. Encourage them to pull over to text, and get more voice control/speech to text systems installed.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with you here, the threat of punishment might stop some people, but recent history has shown in this case, the majority of people don't give a crap about the fact that they're driving distracted and will just keep doing it.
 
cowman said:
Do you seriously believe anyone in that scenario is going to text while driving knowing they might run someone over but the thought of jail suddenly makes them put the phone down?

It's simple human nature, if he thought he was going to run someone over he wouldn't have done it. You can stack on every penalty in the world, it's not going to matter.


A better route would be to push police departments to get laptops out of their cars, or maybe just turn them so only a passenger can use it. Encourage them to pull over to text, and get more voice control/speech to text systems installed.
Click to expand...

Why do you think we have texting laws? And speeding laws? And drunk driving laws. We have laws with penalties because that's what's needed to change behavior. But that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not a particular group of individuals should be immune from the laws the rest of the citizens must obey. And I think they should not be immune.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Management has a responsibility. I think that the DA not prosecuting the lowest man on the totem pole was the right thing to do in light of this view, it places the responsibility to correct the problem where it belongs. The cop likely feels bad and will never do the same again.

I can see I'm beating a dead horse here.
Click to expand...


Pretty much. Taken to the extreme, lots of German SS officers tried that lame defense. "It was just my job!"

Perhaps if you're doing something at your job that's going to get someone killed, you'd better be saying something to stop it.

Either you're a human being with a brain or you're a frigging lemming.
 
Old Geek said:
Why do you think we have texting laws? And speeding laws? And drunk driving laws. We have laws with penalties because that's what's needed to change behavior. But that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not a particular group of individuals should be immune from the laws the rest of the citizens must obey. And I think they should not be immune.
Click to expand...

If a cop is chasing a bad guy and mistakenly hits another car during the chase, should he pay the price? Afterall, he was speeding and likely driving recklessly too.

The duties of the job have certain risks. In this case, the city should have known about this risk and mitigated it. When it failed to do so, it told the officers by this omission that it is condoned. Likely the entire police force uses them while driving.
 
denverpilot said:
Pretty much. Taken to the extreme, lots of German SS officers tried that lame defense. "It was just my job!"

Perhaps if you're doing something at your job that's going to get someone killed, you'd better be saying something to stop it.

Either you're a human being with a brain or you're a frigging lemming.
Click to expand...

I understand your argument. We do not agree on the best solution to the problem.

Leadership is responsible for the systemic failures they permit, condone or endorse. That's the challenge of leadership. That's where I place blame.

Since you disagree, why don't you communicate your disagreement in a change.org campaign to get the DA to reconsider charging the officer with vehicular manslaughter. Good luck with that (not sarcastic). Just know that if you do, you give the city a pass by so doing, as the cop can't be labeled as the bad guy while simultaneously allow the family to hold the jurisdiction accountable.
 
Old Geek said:
Why do you think we have texting laws? And speeding laws? And drunk driving laws. We have laws with penalties because that's what's needed to change behavior.
Click to expand...

Well, getting caught speeding and texting are fines and maybe some points on your license and most of us still do it... at least speeding and just try not to get caught. They raised the penalty for drunk driving all the way up to criminal charges and sometimes jail even if you don't hit anyone.... and people are still doing it. There's a point at which no penalty will discourage any more people.

But that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not a particular group of individuals should be immune from the laws the rest of the citizens must obey. And I think they should not be immune.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on that and let's please lump the politicians in with that group.
 
Old Geek said:
The issue is whether or not a particular group of individuals should be immune from the laws the rest of the citizens must obey. And I think they should not be immune.
Click to expand...

That's a question for your state legislature.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top