Can someone clarify one thing: WHO WAS IT WHO ACTUALLY RAN OVER THE DEPUTIES?! The article is ambiguously worded.

The person who actually hit the piglets should be charged. If it was the old boar himself, don't try to pass the blame onto the Toyota-taffer.

/the Thief games better not be obscure
//couldn't think of any more pig jokes

Saborlas: WHO WAS IT WHO ACTUALLY RAN OVER THE DEPUTIES?!

The cop who was chasing the guy.

The person who actually hit the piglets should be charged.

Yeah, good luck with that. Like I said, it was the pig who was chasing the rat.

So, when cops are doing their job poorly and die, it is always somebody else's fault...

The fallen officers' families will now likely sue the company that made the stop spikes, for not warning them to look both ways before stepping out into the path of a police car to remove them.

every tearjerker story results in a dimintion of civil liberty.

little johnny got hurt in a wreck, now every kid under 4' 9" has to be strapped into a seat.

The new threat:

In a tense standoff, Sheriff Jules suddenly grabs his own Deputy Ringo, holds a gun to his head, and says to the suspect "You don't want me to kill him, do you? If he dies during this incident you started you're going down for murder, you're getting the chair. But I don't want that. And you don't want that. And Ringo here *definitely* doesn't want that."

hey cops, maybe don't be out in the middle of the road when cars are there. Seems pretty obvious to me. Avoiding getting hit by cars should be one of your top priorities.

TexasPeace: The fallen officers' families will now likely sue the company that made the stop spikes, for not warning them to look both ways before stepping out into the path of a police car to remove them.

They will more likely sue the driver of the Toyota in civil court.

Oh those fabulous Blues Brothers are gonna face a lot of manslaughter charges for this one.

reminds me of a time a couple years ago when a police officers was chasing a suspect and collided with a jeep carrying a man and his son, killing both, over a stolen purse

one of the saddest things I've ever read

Good its called natural selection they were too stupid to live.

xCh: So, when cops are doing their job poorly and die, it is always somebody else's fault...

No, what the Sheriff is saying is that when you commit a crime, you should be held responsible for the consequences of your actions, even if those consequences are seemingly far removed from the original crime. In this case the POS stole a car, thus triggering a series of events that eventually led to the deaths of two officers. It's unfortunate that the POS can't be held legally responsible for the events that he set in motion.

/Also, this "pig" thing is pretty damn immature. It went out in the 60's anyhow.

Manuel and Wallace were trying to remove spiked stop strips from the road intended to slow Daley.


Huh. If only there were some sort of device one could add to the strip that would allow it to be retrieved without requiring two people to walk out into the highway?

Perhaps some sort of portable, extending device that would allow one to exert a directional force on an object from a distance...




I shall call it "Lamune's Portable Reach Extender!"

Now the law is so rigged as to protect cops who kill cops? Stick a fork in it, the politicians are done roasting common sense and basic liberties.

Deputy Gregorio Fernandez, 39, was chasing Daley in a stolen Toyota Camry on a dark State Road 715 the morning of Nov. 28 when he accidentally struck and killed deputies Donta Manuel, 33, and Jonathan Wallace, 23.

Why was the deputy chasing Daley in a stolen Toyota? Don't they have cop cars?

Since when are stop strips deployed when you haven't even tried to pull a suspected car thief over yet? Once there is a high speed chase because the suspect had made an attempt to elude apprehension, sure, but TFA makes it sound like the strips were out before the officer even activated his lights. Sounds like someone didn't follow good procedure and two officers died because of it.

Mr. Anon: hey cops, maybe don't be out in the middle of the road when cars are there. Seems pretty obvious to me. Avoiding getting hit by cars should be one of your top priorities.

Hey idiot, they made a barrage to stop the stolen car driver, not because they wanted to play Monopoly in the middle of the road.

I have a suspicion that when they make barrages, they stop the traffic you know. Might be just a hunch though.

FTFA: Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Friday he was disappointed that Daley won't be charged in the deputies' deaths.

"He's at fault for stealing the car and forcing us into the position to try and apprehend him for stealing the car," Bradshaw said.

Yes, yes he is. Which is why he's been charged with grand theft. The fact that you incompetents can't lay out a spiiked tire strip without running one another over is the fault of the commanding officer, i.e. YOU If they had been trained better or if someone had helped them think their cunning plan through, your men would be alive today.

ass_double: Good its called natural selection they were too stupid to live.

Like your mother who didn't have sense to abort you?

That sux. The car thief is the cause of their deaths. He should fry...fry I say. Light him up.

How was the prosecutor not acting improperly here?

They seem to be so outraged that this Law Must Change! plus they are repeatedly claiming that this defendant is responsible for two cops' deaths, which obviously places the defendant in peril.

The law was written that way for good reasons. This prosecutor is probably just mad that his ratio of convictions went down. When you flee police at a high speed, you are doing something really outrageous. And when you flee police without using a high speed, that's much better for society. We want to treat the two situations differently. Under the proposed law change, if a cop gets in a car accident trying to pull me over for speeding, and the accident is the cop's fault and he dies, then I am responsible.

That's stupid. What went wrong here was the cops did not communicate. First, the cop in the car should have used his siren, second he should have used his radio to announce he was close behind the defendant. Did this cop know about the spike strip? This police force needs better training and communication to avoid cops walking in the middle of the damn road when another cop is driving through.

Also, why was the cop driving so fast that he killed two people? I thought the toyota was driving the speed limit? And just hit spike strips. So he wasn't going fast at all. WAs the driver speeding because he just alwasy drives like a bat out of hell when he is investigating crime?

For sure, the chief of police probably should be relieved, the driver of the car should be relieved, and that police force needs to use caution and communication. Nothing the criminal did is the proximate cause of this accident. This accident was caused by the police being very reckless.

It's also totally improper to drop charges against someone and then tell the papers he's responsible for killing cops. That kid, wherever he is, is probably is peril because some cops didn't take responsibility for their actions.

McMutt: Since when are stop strips deployed when you haven't even tried to pull a suspected car thief over yet? Once there is a high speed chase because the suspect had made an attempt to elude apprehension, sure, but TFA makes it sound like the strips were out before the officer even activated his lights. Sounds like someone didn't follow good procedure and two officers died because of it.

Yes because we need Hollywood like car chases when apprehending a suspect. In fact, any polices that get in front of an unchased suspect must stay in his car and wait for him to pass by, sometime with an amusing song or an old guy narrating the scene in the background.

God forbid that they try to arrest anyone without a chase!

CruiserTwelve: xCh: So, when cops are doing their job poorly and die, it is always somebody else's fault...

No, what the Sheriff is saying is that when you commit a crime, you should be held responsible for the consequences of your actions, even if those consequences are seemingly far removed from the original crime. In this case the POS stole a car, thus triggering a series of events that eventually led to the deaths of two officers. It's unfortunate that the POS can't be held legally responsible for the events that he set in motion.

/Also, this "pig" thing is pretty damn immature. It went out in the 60's anyhow.

I actually agree with you. But with a username 'Cruiser' anything, you're a cop-shill on Fark cop-bashing threads, regardless of what you say, so good luck.

On the other hand, a lot of places have stopped doing high speed pursuits, as such.

Lamune_Baba: Huh. If only there were some sort of device one could add to the strip that would allow it to be retrieved without requiring two people to walk out into the highway?

Perhaps some sort of portable, extending device that would allow one to exert a directional force on an object from a distance...


I shall call it "Lamune's Portable Reach Extender!"

Naw... any attempt to bring rope into the equasion would have immediatly placed the RACE CARD in play.

Teafortwo: McMutt: Since when are stop strips deployed when you haven't even tried to pull a suspected car thief over yet? Once there is a high speed chase because the suspect had made an attempt to elude apprehension, sure, but TFA makes it sound like the strips were out before the officer even activated his lights. Sounds like someone didn't follow good procedure and two officers died because of it.

Yes because we need Hollywood like car chases when apprehending a suspect. In fact, any polices that get in front of an unchased suspect must stay in his car and wait for him to pass by, sometime with an amusing song or an old guy narrating the scene in the background.

God forbid that they try to arrest anyone without a chase!

Yeah, that's what PULLING THEM OVER is for. Once they're ACTUALLY evading (which doesn't always happen at high speed), THEN you should deploy the strips or PIT. At least, that's how I thought it went.

We just need to assign blame.
It just can not be an accident.

I'm so sorry for the men trying to do their job and their families.
Damn.

I would be ok with charging people with the deaths of the cops in the performance of the cops duties, with the proviso that the officers involved were not acting negligently. In this case, the officers who got ran over failed to observe the environment around them before running into the street... then the driving officer was endanger their lives and those of the civis around by maintaining the "pursue at all costs" mentality.... the reality is that though fleeing from the law inherently creates an unsafe situation, these cops were not following any sort of responsible safety regimen, there was a total lack of regard for both public and officer safety, and the ultimate responsibility for the driving officer's actions must be that officer. Sometimes you need to end a pursuit b/c the pursuit itself creates a greater danger than letting the suspect get caught later... it's just the way it is.

meintx2001: That sux. The car thief is the cause of their deaths. He should fry...fry I say. Light him up.

While we're at it, let's give his parents the chair, too. If they had raised him right, he would have known right from wrong and made the proper decision when faced with the possibility of stealing a car.

Let's take it a step further and prosecute the person whose car was stolen. If they had purchased an alarm system, and installed a kill switch in the vehicle, the thief wouldn't have even been able to steal the car.

Arcanum: And when you flee police without using a high speed, that's much better for society.

I use go karts. Y'know, for society's sake.

Your Honor, I refer the court the clear legal precedent set in the Dukes of Hazzard- not only is the suspect NOT liable for car crashes and damage not directly involving the suspect's vehicle, but in fact it constitutes All Kinds Of Win on the part of the suspect.

As such, I ask that these charges be dismissed and the defendant be issued a Freakin Medal.

TexasPeace

There actually are instructions telling police not to step into the road to retrieve stop sticks because a pursuing police car might run them over. Some lawyer was on the ball for that one.

TexasPeace: The fallen officers' families will now likely sue the company that made the stop spikes, for not warning them to look both ways before stepping out into the path of a police car to remove them.

Nope, an investigation will prove that the spike strips were not at fault, but that the officers were not trained properly on the removal of the spike strips. They'll sue the sheriff's department.

McMutt: Since when are stop strips deployed when you haven't even tried to pull a suspected car thief over yet?

When the probability of a pursuit is high, it makes good sense to disable the pursuee before even trying to stop him.

Lamune_Baba: Manuel and Wallace were trying to remove spiked stop strips from the road intended to slow Daley.


Huh. If only there were some sort of device one could add to the strip that would allow it to be retrieved without requiring two people to walk out into the highway?

Perhaps some sort of portable, extending device that would allow one to exert a directional force on an object from a distance...
I shall call it "Lamune's Portable Reach Extender!"

A chain is usually attached to the spikes and spikes are placed at the opposite end of the road from where the officers are located holding other end of the chain. When the perp comes racing along and tries to swerve to avoid the spikes, the sikes are dragged accordingly and almost always work.

Famouspolka

Naw... any attempt to bring rope into the equasion would have immediatly placed the RACE CARD in play.


Wow - that's noose to me.

CruiserTwelve:
No, what the Sheriff is saying is that when you commit a crime, you should be held responsible for the consequences of your actions, even if those consequences are seemingly far removed from the original crime. In this case the POS stole a car, thus triggering a series of events that eventually led to the deaths of two officers. It's unfortunate that the POS can't be held legally responsible for the events that he set in motion.


I'm really not sure how I feel about this. I definitely agree that criminals should be held responsible for those who are injured by their crimes, even indirectly. But it really seems like in this case, the cops screwed up what should have been a reasonably routine procedure, especially considering that it hadn't yet progressed to a high-speed chase.

Put it this way: If you get pulled over for speeding and, while getting out of his car to write the ticket, the cop steps too far into the road and gets nailed by a passing semi, should you *really* be held responsible for his death? There's really not a whole lot of difference between this scenario and what actually happened.

/Totally agree about the "pig" thing. Far out, man.

going the speed limit, no siren and they used spike strips already? could not have been going that fast i thinks... and why/how did the deputies get hit... did they forget a cop in a car is usually behind a fleeing suspect??

The moral of the story is, turn on your sirens before running over your cop buddies.

ass_double: Good its called natural selection they were too stupid to live.

Guess you didn't get that jorb in the cop shop, huh?

CruiserTwelve: xCh: So, when cops are doing their job poorly and die, it is always somebody else's fault...

No, what the Sheriff is saying is that when you commit a crime, you should be held responsible for the consequences of your actions, even if those consequences are seemingly far removed from the original crime. In this case the POS stole a car, thus triggering a series of events that eventually led to the deaths of two officers. It's unfortunate that the POS can't be held legally responsible for the events that he set in motion.

/Also, this "pig" thing is pretty damn immature. It went out in the 60's anyhow.

Sucks for those deputies, and even the guy that hit them, but you can't prosecute the butterfly flapping its wings for eventually causing a tornado. It's firmly established (at least it used to be) in civil law that if "if those consequences are seemingly far removed from the original crime", you are in fact not held responsible.

There's a semi-famous case (not famous enough for me to find it) in civil law where a railroad porter was helping a kid with a box of fireworks on a train. He pushed the fireworks instead of the kid, somehow the fireworks went off, the fireworks scared some workers, the workers dropped a giant clock, and the clock rolled over someone. Rube Goldberg couldn't have done it better. Anyway, the courts found that no one could be held responsible because the result wasn't "reasonably forseeable" or something.

What if the person whose car was stolen had to walk to work, and got run over by someone? Would the guy who stole the car be at fault then?

TheSwissNavy
every tearjerker story results in a dimintion (sic) of civil liberty.

little johnny got hurt in a wreck, now every kid under 4' 9" has to be strapped into a seat

You want to risk your life by ignoring the seat belt? Fine, but you don't have the right to take that risk for your kids. Anyone who does shouldn't be allowed to have kids.

Ha Ha Ha...Good....perhaps other jurisdictions can learn from this mistake and lose the ....must...stop...at...all...costs grunt.. mentality .I love the pic of the brother in court smiling...

/slashies

I don't think that the deaths are the fault of the criminal in this case.

If the criminal were to cause the police to engage in extreme measures, as a high speed chase would be considered, I would consider it the criminal's fault. If a criminal started shooting hostages, and the police hit a hostage in an attempt to take the criminal down quickly, I would consider it the criminal's fault. If, in this case, the criminal's car knocked the spike strip into one of the officers, I would consider it the criminal's fault.

In this case, the criminal was going the speed limit(apparently to blend in as he started to speed up, but I get the idea that that wasn't managed). It doesn't seem like anything more extreme than typical police action(spike strip might be considered extreme by others). Referring back to the hostage situation, I see this as similar to an officer, away from the shootout, hurrying to pick up a dropped gun and accidentally shooting a fellow officer. While the criminal's actions led to the event, the criminal did not have a direct enough cause of the event to be held legally responsible.

I also don't find the officer following the criminal fully responsible unless he was doing something careless. He was in a chase, but I doubt that he would have hit the two officers unless they rushed out at a point where he could no longer stop. The two officers hit were probably in a rush trying to get the spike strip off the road before said vehicle also hit it, and misjudged how quickly the driver could stop.

The only person I could potentially responsible would be the officer in charge of the police, not legally but officially. He has to answer about the lack of communication, miscommunication, or lack of training of his officers.

kroonermanblack: I actually agree with you. But with a username 'Cruiser' anything, you're a cop-shill on Fark cop-bashing threads, regardless of what you say, so good luck.

On the other hand, a lot of places have stopped doing high speed pursuits, as such.

Many of the cop-haters on Fark base their hatred on false information or at least a misunderstanding of what cops do and why they do it. The same Farkers that would condemn stereotypes in any other forum gladly embrace same when it comes to cops. I know it's an uphill battle, but as a long-time cop I think it's worthwhile.

In other news, Spike Strips come with a long string attached so they can be removed quickly from the road after the bad guy runs them over. I've never seen it happen, but I understand that sometimes the spikes from the strips can be driven into the asphalt, thus nailing the strips to the ground. That may have been what happened in this case and would explain why the cops were in the road trying to remove the strips.

As to high speed chases being eliminated, that's probably why these cops were so quick to deploy the spike strips. They wanted to prevent a high speed chase (and were successful at it) because those chases are dangerous. It could very well be that if this POS had decided to make a run for it, the cops would have let him go.

Ha ha ha ha
dead cops

CruiserTwelve:

Sorry, but this was negligence of the officers.

If I steal a car, damage the vehicle's brakes during my use of it, get caught, go to jail, and 3 months later the original owner dies because his brakes failed due to my use of his vehicle am I to be held criminally liable?

If so you're an idiot and hoping to open a whole farking barrel of worms. If not, see article.

The biggest problem with 9/11 was that too many firefighters died, and not enough cops.

firefly212: I would be ok with charging people with the deaths of the cops in the performance of the cops duties, with the proviso that the officers involved were not acting negligently.

I hope I'm never in the situation where an officer drops dead of a heart attack while writing me a parking ticket.

tripperday: Sucks for those deputies, and even the guy that hit them, but you can't prosecute the butterfly flapping its wings for eventually causing a tornado. It's firmly established (at least it used to be) in civil law that if "if those consequences are seemingly far removed from the original crime", you are in fact not held responsible.

There's a semi-famous case (not famous enough for me to find it) in civil law where a railroad porter was helping a kid with a box of fireworks on a train. He pushed the fireworks instead of the kid, somehow the fireworks went off, the fireworks scared some workers, the workers dropped a giant clock, and the clock rolled over someone. Rube Goldberg couldn't have done it better. Anyway, the courts found that no one could be held responsible because the result wasn't "reasonably forseeable" or something.

What if the person whose car was stolen had to walk to work, and got run over by someone? Would the guy who stole the car be at fault then?

I think the "reasonably foreseeable" basis is, well, reasonable. In this case I think the Sheriff is actually agreeing that the POS wasn't responsible for the cops' deaths in a legal sense, but in a moral sense he is. The argument then is whether a cop dying during your apprehension is a foreseeable consequence of stealing a car. It could be argued that it is.