“A St. Clair County coroner’s jury ruled the death of two sisters who were killed when an Illinois State Police officer crossed Interstate 64 and hit their car as a “reckless homicide” this morning, an official in the coroner’s office said today.”
Jeez, what a terrible paragraph, even for newspaperese. A quick rewrite for morning radio news:
“The verdict’s in on that Southern Illinois car crash in November that killed two teenaged sisters. A St. Clair County coroner’s jury says the deaths of Jessica and Kelly Uhl were reckless homicide. The girls, aged 18 and 13, died when their car was hit by a speeding Illinois state trooper’s car that crossed the median on I-64.”
And really, at 126 mph (or any significant fraction of that) the value of a siren or lights is slight. Cars you’re overtaking won’t have anything like the necessary time to see you, evaluate the situation, and then make a safe maneuver. Blaming the crash on being cut off is incredibly lame - pretty much an admission the officer lost control of himself.
I also wonder if it was possible that the vehicle that allegedly cut off the officer was simply making a proper lane change, unable to see the extremely fast moving police car behind him because he had crested the hill whereas the officer had not crested the hill.
I did some research on the Impala. The best numbers I could find were from the Michigan State Police evaluation. Cite.
Summary:
Stats: 3.8L V6, 240hp
Top speed is 142 mph (Top of all the police cars in this test. The cars I rode in topped out at 130mph)
Braking Distance from 60mph is 142.4 feet. This is not a terrific score, as some of the SUV’s tested actually matched (and in one case did better.)
Essentially, the Impala is a much faster car than the ones I rode in. FWIW, I still don’t believe the guy got it up to 126 in a real world scenario without a lot of determination.
Excellent point. All the cops I rode with slammed on their brakes when approaching the crest of a a hill, and sped up when they could see ahead of them.
Mitchell has now been charged with two counts of reckless homicide and two counts of aggravated reckless driving. The grand jury said he was distracted by “other activities” but it doesn’t say what. If I had to guess, I’d say it was just routine fumbling with the radio or looking at a map or the computer or whatever, but who knows – could get a lot more interesting.
I know this is a bit of a zombie, but it’s the only recent thread I could find on this.
Turns out Mitchell is now going to court to claim Worker’s Compensation for the injuries he sustained in the crash.
That would be the crash in which he killed two young girls by swerving into their car at 125mph while emailing and chatting on his cell phone.
Apparently he stands a good chance of receiving a substantial payout as he was on official business (i.e. responding to a call) at the time; negligence by the employee is not usually enough to prevent the payout.
I know I speak as a foreigner, but that’s just f*cked-up IMO.
Pure uncut steaming bullshit.
Jesus, there is not a single piece of good news out of this story.
He kills two girls while driving at 125 mph and texting, and gets nothing but two years suspended on full pay followed by a sentence of probation. Now he might get workers’ comp.
That’s how no-fault insurance works. Guess what? Negligent or reckless employees can almost certainly collect workers’ compensation benefits in your state, too.
It’s kind of a good thing right? I mean, the families of the deceased can sue the fuck out of him and he will have non-zero wages to be seized.
Right?
Please tell me I’m right. I will be very sad if this is not the case.
Well, maybe. As a public officer he’s entitled to a degree of immunity to civil suits, or to be indemnified by his employer (in this case, the state of Illinois).
If he’s found to have been grossly or wilfully negligent that may or may not apply. Depends on Illinois law.
Actually, according to the stories i’ve read on the case, the families’ lawsuit is not against Mitchell himself, but against his employers, the State Police. According to this story, a verdict is expected soon in that case, in which the families are asking for $46 million.
So, if they win the case, the taxpayers of Illinois will get the pleasure of footing the bill.
That’s why I never called it “no-fault” insurance…it’s more like “prepaid fault” insurance…the employer (aka State of Illinois, aka The Taxpayers of Illinois) are paying for the fault before it happens, and then pay for future increases due to crap like this.
I see that you have escalated the incident Trooper Mitchell was responding to from “an accident” to “an emergency”.
Do you have a cite that this was an emergency he was racing to, or did you just decide you liked that word more, since it helped to make your point more?
[QUOTE=St. Louis Post Dispatch]
Mitchell was on his way to a traffic crash scene where officials said he should have known other first responders had already arrived.
[/QUOTE]
Ex-trooper who killed two seeks workers’ compensation
tsfr
I don’t recall what I was relying upon two and a half years ago when I wrote that, no.
Try to do better next time. Sheesh.
First time I have laughed in this thread…Thanks Contra.
RIP Jessica and Kelli…
tsfr