2y ago

Fort Wayne police sergeant fined $35.50 for fatally striking pedestrian in crosswalk

apnews.com Fort Wayne police sergeant fined $35.50 for fatally striking pedestrian in crosswalk

A Fort Wayne police officer with a history of traffic offenses has pleaded guilty to an infraction after his vehicle fatally injured a pedestrian who was in a crosswalk.

The officer was previously disciplined 4 times for other driving offenses, but killing someone - well - $35.50 oughta cover it.

THE POLICE PROBLEM @lemmy.world

MonsiuerPatEBrown @reddthat.com

2y ago

Fort Wayne police sergeant fined $35.50 for fatally striking pedestrian in crosswalk

apnews.com /article/fort-wayne-officer-guilty-fatal-pedestrian-crash-b55bc9b42a4a3923e367573db432872a

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56 comments

If you want to get away with murder in the USA, use a car to kill your victim.
- Bonus: make sure they're on a bicycle.
  
  SLPT: Become a police officer if you want to murder people and get away with it
  
  But they better not be cop themselves.
  Then it's a hate crime.
- Or invite them over to your house and shoot them through the front door when they knock too loudly.
  
  https://youtu.be/tq-hODfHPf0
- Not just the US, the UK is the same unfortunately

$35.50. Just remember this amount. This is the amount a human life is worth in this fucked up country of ours.
- That was only when people felt obligated to step in and force them to pay some sort of remuneration
- Well, cops get a discount because they own us and all.
  /s

After the crash, Hartup issued a statement saying that as he was completing a turn at an intersection, “I struck a pedestrian. I immediately stopped my vehicle, grabbed my radio, and started aid to the pedestrian, and called dispatch to send medics.”
It gets a little harder to hate the driver when you find out that they did everything after the crash right. Guy still deserves jail time for fucking up driving again so badly that he ended someone's life about it, but I'm not about to call for violence against him. Stopping and calling for help immediately is exactly what you should do if you hit a person.
$35.50 is an absolute insult to the victim, though. I hope it's hard to cope with taking a life knowing that you've only paid the equivalent of a tank of gas for it.
- I assume he is lying unless there is video evidence that he did any of those things immediately.
  
  Are you implying the police might lie to save face? The audacity!
  
  Seems like something the prosecution's lawyer would have an easy time proving by subpoenaing the officer's dash cam footage. If anything, when the victim's family takes the officer to court, they'll subpoena it then. If the camera supports the officer's testimony, you'll never see it, because it won't be used as evidence against him, and no one will bother posting a boring video that just supports a cop's claims
- I filled my tank on a road trip this week. I prepaid $50 and didn't go over.

Well, at least they finally admitted the value of a human life, and it's £28.
Everything makes a lot of sense now when you consider that a person is worth what, a mere 14 bus tickets?

For $35 it'd honestly be less insulting if they didn't fine him at all.
- Isn't the fine for the traffic violation? The compensation from a civil lawsuit will follow I presume.
  This makes sense in my opinion. Violating traffic rules should result in the same fine regardless of whether you hit someone or not (like drunk driving isn't more OK just because you got lucky and didn't happen to hit anyone). But if you do hit someone, expect to compensate all costs and damages to that person or family on top of the fine (that goes to the state).
  That said, I wish traffic violations would be fined much more harshly. Also if you didn't hit anyone during your reckless behaviour.
  
  It does make sense. He should probably also have been charged with manslaughter or reckless endangerment.

I wonder what the fine is if you happen to run over a cop in Ft. Wayne?
What if that cop is dressed in all dark clothes at night?
What if that cop is working on the side of the road, or even in the middle of a lane?
What if that cop has his extremely bright, flashing, and distracting colored LED lights blinding all traffic?
It would still be $35.50, right?
- Yes of course it would! eats tidepod. Equal justice under lol fuck you I got mine.

But if you roll a stop sign, you have to pay a fine of $129.50...
- What the fuck mine was $235

Can the family still file a civil wrongful death suit?
- You’d hope so. They do seem to a litigious country.
  
  Haha, us silly Americans, filing a lawsuit at the drop of a hat.
  It seems like every time a cop runs over a bicyclist and the grand sum of their penalty is $35.50, enough money to almost afford pizza for a family of four, somebody has to file a lawsuit!
  We're so silly, we are such a silly country.

Yep! I’ve noticed my life is worth considerably less than a parked vehicle. So this sadly doesn’t surprise me. They might paint more lines though!!! So that’s neat. Right? Count the bodies like sheep.

MERICAAAAAAAAA! Try the brand new police only deal: 1 runover only $35! Limited time!
- Life is too short, so love the one you got. Because you might get ran over or you might get shot. Gilded this age is…

I think the fact he was a cop doesn't have much to do with it.
This country just really doesn't seem to care if someones shitty, aggressive, dangerous driving kills someone (unless they are under the influence then throw the book at them!).
- In America if you're a civilian and you run over somebody by accident and kill them you can still be charged with negligent homicide and spend several years in prison for it.
  Unfortunately those kinds of simple, logical rules for some reason don't seem to apply to the cops that kill far more people on average than any other group in America.
  
  Sure you could but it doesn't seem to ever happen.

Its about time these guiltless pricks start receiving blunt and sharp objects to their eyes and faces when they go out in public.
- Hey, have you spent any time doing something you love today?
  
  Judging by their comment I don't know if we want them spending time doing what they love...
- Fuck the police. But also maybe you should talk to someone about that inner violence..
  
  Maybe we should talk to someone about open corruption infecting every corner of local governments and enforcement agencies.

"Fatally striking"
The AP is usually pretty neutral, but that language is way, way too euphemistic here. The real work is murdering. The cop murdered this person.
- False.
  Murder is defined in Indiana as either the intentional killing of another person without justification, or causing the death of someone while committing or attempting to commit a violent felony, regardless of intent to kill (the felony murder rule).
  Definitions matter.
  I'm not arguing the horrible nature of the event or careless disregard on the account of the perpetrator, but incorrect statements like this are how we've ended up in a situation where people throw around terms like "fascist" and "communist" for anything they don't like, and as a result, many people have no idea what those words actually mean.
  
  I couldn't care less about the legal definition.
  This cop had a history of pulling shit like this. He's a murderer, and people being willing to make excuses for it and treating the police as some sort of civic religion is how we got here.
- Manslaughter is the typical term, a subset of homicide. Murder is hyperbolic without established motive, say, being in an Agatha Christie cozy.

56 comments