Failing to stop USA style

[Matt Bleck]

makes what right?

if anything, it's far from it. It's a job, not a kamikazi force. If it's beyond the guidelines set out to continue with the chance, they must give it up. Doesn't matter what they're chasing. Just so happens to be a bike this time. I bet, if you went back thru all the chases where a cop has been unfortunately killed during a highspeed chase, how many of the crims have been charged with the cops death?

It's not about responsibility in this case. It's about being wrongly accused of doing something he had no control over. Yes, he had control over running or not, but he had no control over the officer chasing him, nor his bloody tyre blowing out!

OK, OK call the dogs off...

[bugjuice]

I don't want it to be quite like that, and I'll agree that we disagree here (also added more to the last post!), but I just feel that it's an injustice.

Don't get me wrong. It's a crying shame that someone has died as a result of trying to do his job, but you can't pin it on someone in circumstances like this. He ran, it got dangerous, let him go, get him another day.

[Lou Girardin]

It'll almost certainly get reversed on appeal. It's the price we now pay for dumbed down juries.
Something similar has happened here though. A driver who was racing another car in Glendene that then hit a third car, killing it's driver, has been charged with aiding and abetting the offence.

[Colapop]

It'll almost certainly get reversed on appeal. It's the price we now pay for dumbed down juries.
Something similar has happened here though. A driver who was racing another car in Glendene that then hit a third car, killing it's driver, has been charged with aiding and abetting the offence.

Is it going to be a case of having juries full of lawyers to interperet the law? Or is it more of a case of a lack of what was once 'common' sense. If sense was as common as the phrase suggests then perhaps the biker would not have gone that fast, the chase would not have been pursued for the distance that it was at the speed that it was .... you get the gist

[FROSTY:Me]

Im missing something here--A person chose to get behind the wheel of a motor car. They CHOSE to drive said car at high speed They killed themselves doing so.How on earth is someone else accountable ??
Yes the biker should get done for running but only one person was pushing down on that pedal

[HenryDorsetCase]

I would have thought if this had happened here that a jury would be the last people to hear it. youd want a dispassionate judge alone, not a bunch of people too dumb to get out of jury service who sit there thinking, that could have been my brother/father/cousin/son/whatever.

[Toast]

Cause and effect.
What caused the cop to speed? A speeding biker
Effect? The cop died

Using this basic logic it's difficult to say that the biker isn't guilty. He (the biker) was speeding. He knew the cop would chase him. He knew that speeding was dangerous. He knew someone could get killed.

A nasty verdict, a sad story - but what kind of message would letting the biker off send out?

That people have to be responsible for their OWN actions (slightly different if the person is a caregiver/parent/guardian), and that you can't assign a single direct cause to everything (i.e. biker speeds, cop dies, thus biker bad man he kill cop)...and that shit happens, not everything is part of God's grand plan or 'cos Satan sent a really evil bastard to Earth with the intent of killing that cop.

Like BJ said...so many other facotrs involved.

[Pixie]

dumb bitch he might have been being payed to be doing his job, but i'll bet he wasn't following his training, any cops want to elaborate on what standard proceedure would be if a bike was lane splitting at 130mph and clearly only showboating for the cop in pursuit? i'm guessing it would be as the others said, drop off and set up a road block further on

It was Florida after all.
The cop would be the type that would introduce you to his wife and sister at a BBQ,and there would be only one woman standing there.

[Pixie]

Thats different, no law broken there...wasn't doing a runner....

not riding at a speed to suit the conditions

[Pixie]

Its not the runner i was talking about,i said he should be charged for that. Its the fact that he is being charged for the policeman's death. We appear to be going round in circles with this

In many US jurisdictions,a death caused in the commission of a crime results in all the perpetrators (including ones not on the scene of the death such as the get away driver at a bank robbery) being charged with murder

[Pixie]

The biker and the cop both have the right to stop the chase. Both have the choice to carry on, or abandon it (with different end results, granted). Neither of them exercised their right to stop. It's their own decision to do that, no one elses. The control room could have even told the cop to break the chase off. Would it still be 'the bikers fault' then?

Expecting a cop to voluntarily to give up a chase is like expecting a bull to ignore a red rag.
We're not talking mammilian level intelligence here (except for the bull I suppose)

[bugjuice]

Expecting a cop to voluntarily to give up a chase is like expecting a bull to ignore a red rag.
We're not talking mammilian level intelligence here (except for the bull I suppose)

The level of intelligence of either party isn't what's under the light here. There's rules and guidelines to avoid disaster in such conditions. The guides were not adhered to by the officer. His level of intelligence in this case, cost him his life then, if that is what you're implying. It is still not the direct actions of the biker that he crashed and died.

[TLDV8]

I wonder if the person minding their own business in the car that was hit sued the family of the officer or police force..it could go on and on,pointing the finger,as soon as the speeds got to the reported "130 mph" decisions by both parties were made.

"Trooper Darryl Haywood, 49, was killed Oct. 2, 2004, when his tire blew out at 130 mph, causing his Camaro cruiser to crash into another car and then a tree on Interstate 4 near DeLand."

"Now Mr. Williams will be held accountable for the death of my husband," she said. "who was doing his job."

[Gremlin]

*insert all pc crap here, yes what he was doing was wrong etc etc* This pisses me off.

down to one fact. HOW can one person be charged (i.e. be held accountable) for another's actions?? That is simply bullshit.

Extend. Help the garbage man pick up the bin outside in case you have made it too heavy and you put out his back?? It could get soo much worse

Each person is in charge of their own actions. The cop was never forced to continue the chase. He could always have stopped chasing.

That's the way I see it.

[Biff]

but the cop manual clearly says (somewhere) that if it's endangouring lives or safety including their own, they must swich off sirens and lights, and discontinue the chase ASAP.

I don't know what the rules of engagement are in some US states. I can only go by what I see on those cop (bad boyz, bad boyz, what u gonna do....)progs.

Anyway - I digress. My point being that you can safely assume that if you take off from a cop, he will pursue you. So in the eyes of the court - the bikers action resulted in the cop chasing him, which in turn resulted in the cops tyre blowing at 130mph ish, and the cop losing his life. So the jury were probably given a logical thought process to work through.

Hid he run? Yes. An offence.
Did he yield? No. An offence.
Was he riding dangerously? Yes. An offence.
Did his riding and the subsequent pursuit result in the death of a cop going about his duties? Yes

Based upon these facts - he was found guilty under US law.

I'm not condoning the cops actions in pursuing him, especially if things were getting dangerous, because I wasn't there. But as far as we know this pursuit happened on a relatively empty freeway when the cops tyre blew. I’m not even saying that ‘directly blaming the biker for the cops death was right, although it’s understandable why people would blame the bikie chap. But rules iz rules. As harsh as they may appear.