Something not quite right about that Crown Vic that plowed into the spectators in MD.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My gut feeling is that there is something not quite right about the info being given out on this event.

Summary: Eight people were killed and six others were injured early yesterday morning in southern Prince George’s County when a motorist unwittingly drove into a smoke-shrouded crowd of people gathered on a dark rural road to watch as two drivers roared off in an illegal street race, police said.
Cite: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/16/ST2008021602560.html?sid=ST2008021602560

But, something’s not right here. The first pics of the Crown Vic, taken while it was still dark, show the car sitting there with the passenger-side doors open and those doors looking barely damaged. So…the doors were open-able. The driver walked away, and the victim went through the windshield into the front seat. There were, reportedly, no passengers in the back seat.

Subsequent pictures, taken after day broke, show the car, unoccupied, sitting there, but now the doors are …missing. Why take the doors off, if all the victims are already out? Isn’t this a major crime scene? Didn’t they just majorly tamper with evidence by removing parts of the car, at the scene? And why take the doors off anyway?

Another thing, even with the passenger-side door compeletely off, the entire backseat area is black as night, see the first pic in the photo gallery at the above link. The only explanation I can think of is that the back window and other door are so darkly tinted that no light gets through. Odd, the only white Crown Vics I’ve ever seen with super-dark tinting in the rear like that are…cop cars.

A final pic of the car, showing it up on a flatbed about to be towed away, shows that they took one of the removed doors and…shoved it through the windshield. :smack: WTF? (View pic #7 to see this). So now any evidence from the door may have been transferred to the windshield/dash. Again, huh?

And finally, the driver…who they refuse to say a word about, only that that person (they won’t even mention the driver’s gender) isn’t going to be charged. No name, no age, nothing about injuries, nothing AT ALL. They’ve named all the victims. If the driver is innocent, why all the secrecy about that person?

Anyone find all of this a little odd?

2

Yep. I thought the same thing this morning when I read the story in the newspaper. My first question was: Can you even buy a civilian Crown Vic anymore? I thought they were only manufactured as police cars. So maybe the guy who hit everybody was a cop.

3

What’s your take on them removing the doors, then shoving one through the windshield?

4

My guess is that it was the easiest way to keep all the parts of the car together. They would have taken all the necessary evidence from the scene; there really isn’t any need to keep the parts pristine once they are removed from the crime scene. Plenty of pictures were taken, I’m sure.

My call - it was a cop trying to bust the racers who hit everybody.

5

If you look at the ‘photo gallery’, pic #7 shows a white Crown Victoria on a recovery vehicle, with the left-hand doors on. The right-hand doors are missing, however, on the picture in the original article - but there’s no light shining through, so it seems the left-hand doors are still on in that picture too.

Theory: the angry crowd ripped the right-hand doors off and attacked the car with them.

6

FWIW, it is possible to buy former cop cars at auction after they are retired from service. (Not saying you’re wrong. Just saying.)

7

But…shoving it through the windshield?? As one can see from pic #1, there was plenty of room in the backseat for it. Or better yet just…don’t take the door off in the first place.

Besides, I doubt they got ALL the evidence they’d ever need from the car right there at the crime scene. There must have been a lot of pressure to get the gruesome scene cleaned up and the road re-opened, not enough time to go over the car thoroughly. Normally, the car would be taken to a forensic lab and be gone over in more detail…

8

Right, but civilians aren’t allowed to have that super-dark tint that this car seems to have.

And then there’s that info blackout/secrecy about the driver…

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Theory 2: the right-hand doors were removed to enable access during evidence recovery, e.g. for a photographer to gain access, without disturbing the driver’s area.

Never forget, CSI ain’t real.

10

I don’t see superdark tint. I see a photograph taken outdoors, with the shadows coming from the right and possibly directed slightly away from the camera, so those parts of the car are darker. As for the ‘blackout’ about the driver, would it be normal Maryland police procedure to release details of a driver not charged with any offence?

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Sorry for multiple posting…but if the victim had landed in the front passenger seat and needed medical assistance before being moved, then surely access through the back door was also needed? So if it wasn’t openable, then it had to be removed. And regarding the naming of the victims, your own link says:

So there were no names released by the police at all, only by relatives willing to talk to the press.

12

Yes, it is very strange. I found this AP story with more pics. Picture 3 clearly shows the door stuck through the windshield – and no the straight black line of weatherstripping. Picture 4, and expecially 5, apparently do not have the door there. It seem to me the responders or cleanup people shoved it there at some point.

I would think the state of the windshield would be pretty pertinent to an accident investigation.

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I was called @ 4am yesterday morning to roll down to the station, grab a live truck and go live asap, which for us was 7am with a couple hits for CNN @ 8:15am and 9am. During that time I spoke to witnesses, media and bystanders and there was no opportunity for wholesale coverup activities.

Retired Crown Vics are very popular for those who want cheap powerful cars, especially in Prince George’s County. It is an ex-cop car and it still has cop tint but it is several years out of date.

The reality is a bunch of folks were busy on an unlit rural divided highway watching an illegal road race and did not see the car coming at them, and the car’s driver didd not see the crowd due to the dark and the smoke. Lack of information about the driver, who was severely injured, is normal because a) he has not been charged and b) he is injured and HIPPA rules prevent the release much information.

The only question I expect may arise will be the potential for impaired driving by the striking driver, which might not be unusual at that time of night. But early on the PG Police were referring to the driver as an innocent, and during my off the record conversations with officers they admitted much relief the accident has nothing to do with an officer on duty or off. PG County just had an officer indicted this week for his involvement in a chase that resulted in a double fatal wreck last year.

So, sorry, not much there for conspiracy.

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I would have thought that with or without a door through it, a broken window is going to be shaken like a baby’s rattle while being transported on a flatbed, so the state of it afterwards would be meaningless.

Edit: thanks for that information, 2gigch1

15

The Ford website says they can be bought as taxis, and they can be purchased as fleet vevicles for other purposes as well. Maybe rental cars?

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How long has it been since they were available for general purchase, anyway?

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But the door WAS openable. I’m sorry, I’m having trouble finding it again, but the very first photos of the car, taken while it was still dark, clearly show the rear passenger-side door undamaged and open.

Yes, they have released them. From here:

*Police identified the dead as Mark Courtney, 33, of Leonardtown; Daryl Wills, 38, of Clinton; Maycol Lopez, 20, of Gaithersburg; Blaine Briscoe, 49, of La Plata; William Gaines, 61, of Nanjemoy; and Ervin Gardner, 39, of Oxon Hill.

Relatives of Milton Pinkney, 41, of Aquasco, said he was also killed. The eighth victim remained unidentified pending notification of kin, authorities said. *

Okay, see they’ve finally released a tiny bit of info on the driver. He is an adult male. From same link above:

Investigators said the Crown Victoria driver carried a passenger and that neither was seriously injured. Police said both were adult males but declined to release their identities.

That’s it. Two adult males driving a car that looks identical to an unmarked police car, even down to the dark tint and the black door handles…(Gorillman, the superdark tint on the rear doors can be seen in photo #7 from the link in my OP)

18

I’m no expert (although there are some on the board), but I can picture all sorts of reasons why an open rear door would have been an obstacle. For several medical personnel to gain access, or if a backboard was needed, for instance.

My mistake about whether they’d released the identities of the dead. But that’s an important word there - dead. Once relatives have been informed, there cannot be a reason to withold that information. So it is simply not right to compare that to the witholding of the driver’s name. I said it earlier: before you read anything into this, you need to know whether or not it is any different to normal procedures for the jurisdiction.

Tint?..I’m happy going with 2gigch1’s explanation, that it was an ex-cop car. (Is it illegal to have tinted rear windows?)

19

Thanks for the info 2gigch1.

Ok, thanks, I knew I was right about the tint. It’s obvious when you study the pics.

When you were there, was the passenger-side rear door open or already been cut off the car?

The Washington Post article published today (Sunday, February 17, 2008) at 2:25 PM says that the driver was NOT seriously injured…

20

Nah. There’s video on CNN showing firemen messing with the doors in the daylight.

What surprised me was that there were older people out there, people with young 'uns, a regular family night out at the illegal drag races at 3 in the morning.