The local Ventura County Star article.
This is not appropriate in this Forum. If you have to vent at another poster, take it to the BBQ Pit.
Do not do this again.
[ /Moderating ]
Excessive speed in this context would be driving too fast to be able to see people lying on the sand. So driving at 10 mph would be excessive if it meant that you could not see a person lying in a dip in the sand before you drive over it. So, prima facie, driving over a sunbather is negligent. Just the same as if you were driving on an ordinary road, in heavy fog, at a low speed, but still hit someone on a cross-walk because you did not see them.
That may be a little excessive, but it does seem reasonable, after you have stopped for a while, and before you drive off blindly, just checking who is on the sand in front of your vehicle.
Never said it was negligent. It was. A wrongful death case here will likely settle. A criminal case ain’t happening, unless there’s important details missing from the three linked articles I have seen. This is ordinary negligence. Not a criminal act. Period. Amen.
GRRRRR…WHY IS THERE NO EDIT FEATURE?
meant to type I never said it was not negligent.
From the link posted by tomndebb:
Which would imply that they are on regular patrol in a squad car/SUV and swing by the beach as part of their normal patrol. Still, if they do this regularly they should get the same training that the lifeguards do about operating vehicles on the beach.
My apologies to all. I did think we were in the Pit when I typed that. I’ll be sure to double check if I ever feel the need to vent like that.
Obviously she wasn’t using enough SUV protection.
Thanks.
For may part, yeah, I spoke too casually about cops as a group. But police departments in general today are too isolated from the people they serve.
Thanks.
I almost wish we had been; the urge to respond in kind was very hard to resist.
So these guys who risk their lives every single day in the line of work they chose, get distracted when considering if they will be risking their life again, and have a terrible and tragic accident they they regret terribly.
Get a rope.
For some reason I want to substitute “swimmer in danger” with “group of bikini clad blondes”
I was surprised by the “didn’t realize” part too. Last week I hit a frog 
It, with its squishy little body, made enough of a bump to feel it. I realize sand has some give (though not enough to push the small rocks you walk on all the way into the ground), but even so, you should be able to tell you’ve hit something pretty big if it’s a head…
So don’t anyone take this the wrong way and think I’m blaming the victim, because she could have been sound asleep, or the engine on that vehicle could be exceptionally quiet…but I’m curious. All the reports said the officers pulled up to the top of the berm, sat there a while observing the swimmer and then drove forward over the top and down the slope. So she didn’t notice a vehicle pull up within a few feet of her? She didn’t sit up to see why there was a car idling near her?
I have a hard time understanding all the “they should be more careful, have more training, have someone walking in front with a bell…” blame for the police here. They weren’t, according to the reports, driving recklessly. Unfortunate things, bizarre things, can happen where no one is really to blame. As samclem so eloquently said, shit sometimes happens. Would there have been so much blame if it had been a member of the beach-cleaning patrol? Or the lifeguards? Or the guy who runs the hotdog stand and uses his light truck to make a restocking run?
Do you say this from personal experience, or are you just projecting?
I, too am kind of curious about this. If I were lying on a beach and suddenly heard an engine I’d look to see what the heck was going on. From the article it sounds like there are no other vehicles on the beach. So, if someone was lying on a beach where no traffic should be and suddenly heard a truck you think they would at least look around.
Something doesn’t make sense about this. Either she didn’t hear the truck (possible if it was moving fast, maybe) or she didn’t react to a truck coming towards her. I can see the second option being possible if she was asleep or impared in some other way. Or she heard it and ignored it.
Slee
Well, yes, driving without due care and attention then.
I would expect to have to look for others using the beach in the same way that I would look for cars and not pedestrians on the motorway, but both when I’m driving round my girlfriend’s estate.
The roar of the surf and the prevailing wind may make it difficult to hear a vehicle. And if the truck were on one side of a berm and the woman on the other, there’s another factor contributing to the inability to hear a vehicle.
I’m not familiar with the beach in question, but I’ve seen vehicles on other beaches. One would think that the officers would have been trained to not run over people, and would know that people are likely to be anywhere on a beach. Wrongful death, yes; criminal, no.
The point of my OP was that that sunbather had a reasonable expectation that she would be safe ON A BEACH WHERE SUNBATHING and seagoing-related activities were legally permitted. She should have expected to be safe, healthy and unmolested in all ways.
OTOH, when you are hired to patrol said beach, and you are in said SUV- for whatever reason you are placed into the SUV- it is incumbent upon you, not said sunbather, to show due dilligence.
They did not. They should be charged. As will come as no surprise to most folks, law enforcement and safety officers are held to a higher level of responsibility because it is their job to rise to that level. They failed to do so.
And this is why laymen are not allowed to practice law. A crime has either been committed, or not. Does not matter who the putative Defendant may be, the elements of the crime are exactly the same. There is either evidence to prove those elements, or there is not. The victim isn’t any deader than she would otherwise be. For the umpteenth time in this thread, a civil claim for wrongful death is likely to be sucessful. A criminal charge is not.