Deputy Who Fatally Struck Cyclist While Answering Email Will Face No Charges

Frosty P writes The LA County District Attorney's Office declined to press charges against a sheriff's deputy who was apparently distracted by his mobile digital computer when he fatally struck cyclist and former Napster COO Milton Olin Jr. in Calabasas last December. The deputy was responding to routine work email when he drifted into the bike lane and struck and killed Mr. Olin. An official with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said it is launching its own probe into the deputy’s behavior.

Comments

yet if we did it

[ganjadude]

if me or you did this, we would be locked up on vehicular manslaughter

Re:yet if we did it

[Neil Boekend]

To be locked up over this is right. Whoever decide that this idiot could walk away from it without being sued should be fired. From a cannon. Into the sun.

Re:yet if we did it

[FSWKU]

The funny (messed up funny, not amusing funny) thing is one of the suggested links I see at the top of the page: "33 Months In Prison For Recording a Movie In a Theater"

That's right. In today's society, you can get more prison time for recording a movie than for killing someone through criminal negligence.

Re:yet if we did it

[Rigel47]

Well, duh. Let's state the obvious. Police are not governed by the same laws that apply to you and me. *Technically* they are but time and again we see cops getting paid leave as their sole form of punishment for egregious crimes. Does anyone really think the cop that strangled to death the guy in Brooklyn who was pleading the whole time "I can't breath" is going to see a day in prison? Puh-lease.

The only way to reign in the renegade and abusive behaviour of American police is to apply the law to them exactly the same way it is applied to citizens. That psychopath in Ferguson who pointed an automatic at people while shouting "I'm going to fucking kill you"? He should be up on charges for that, not allowed to quietly resign with pension.

Anyways, that's enough day-dreaming.

Re:yet if we did it

[kencurry]

No, if you or I did this, we are violating the LAW.

When the brave officer did this, he was just doing his VERY DANGEROUS JOB. /sarcasm

Re:yet if we did it

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not enough. He killed a man. It was his fault the man is dead and there is no ambiguity about that. Being in a position of authority means he should be held to a *higher* standard, not get a free pass on manslaughter.

Throw him in a cage and replace him with someone competent!

Re:yet if we did it

[reboot246]

Paid leave is what really irritates me.

Paid leave = paid vacation = reward.

Why reward somebody who is under investigation? Would your boss pay your salary if you were being investigated?

Re:yet if we did it

[Frosty Piss]

well to be fair, im sure a civil case is going to happen. Its just sick. I wonder if there will be any riots over this one

Nah. It was wrong, but people generally don't riot over the death of a rich dude.

Rich white dude.

Anyway it is slightly different that shooting some guy with his hands up, or shooting some guy running away - a pretty standard cop thing. The guy is just as dead, and the point is that the cop was negligent yet being held to different - much lower - standard that a citizen. One expects cops to be held to higher standards, but we find that it just isn't so.

Re:yet if we did it

[Tx]

Look, the dead guy should just consider himself lucky he's not being tried post-mortem for getting in the way of an officer.

Re:yet if we did it

[Zero__Kelvin]

"This was within standard operating procedure for the deputy."

So what you are saying is there are at least two people who should go to jail for manslaughter. The person or people who said to do this, and the officer who was negligent enough to follow the procedure.

Re:yet if we did it

[Richard_at_work]

Why reward somebody who is under investigation?

Precisely because they are under investigation - to not pay them means the investigators and the employers have taken a particular stance, and also it would be extremely easy to harm someone by making a false accusation against them. Any accusation that leads to an investigation means the target is out of pocket, regardless of the end result.

Re:yet if we did it

[crakbone]

distracted driving is against the law. As well as hitting someone with your car. Just because he did it while reading an official email should not exclude him from the other laws. Ultimately he is the only one who can determine if the environment is safe for him to operate that computer and drive. He failed. It cost a life. He needs to pay a price for that.

Re:yet if we did it

[NatasRevol]

How many riots over rich black dudes have there been?

Re:yet if we did it

[NatasRevol]

LEOs are in a completely different boat when it comes to them being susceptible to certain laws

What the fuck are you talking about?

Is distracted driving illegal? Yes.
Is it illegal if you're a LEO? Yes.
Is vehicular homicide illegal? Yes.
Is it illegal if you're a LEO? Yes.

Are the laws different if you're a LEO? No.
Will you be *prosecuted* differently if you're a LEO? Yes.

Re:yet if we did it

[ultranova]

we're generally more willing to believe a tragedy was accidental and not the result of systemic problems between the police and a particular community when it was accidental and not the result of systemic problems between the police and a particular community.

The problem is, this death was a result of systemic problems between the police and society at large, specifically the police thinking - correctly, it appears - that they're above the law.

This also goes to show why you should not tolerate such problems even when you are currently not affected: eventually they'll grow to the point where even you aren't safe.

Re:yet if we did it

[Livius]

I believe the parent was referring to the law as it applies to the police. What the rest of us would call rationalizing violations of the law.

Re:yet if we did it

[ultranova]

Ultimately he is the only one who can determine if the environment is safe for him to operate that computer and drive. He failed. It cost a life. He needs to pay a price for that.

Alternatively, we could decide that the blame resides partially - probably mostly - on the police department and current social climate as a whole. After all, the latter has all but declared police to be above law or even the very concept of accountability, while the former certainly took advantage of it. People planted into a poisonous cultural atmosphere cannot help but internalize and treat it as a baseline for what's "normal", and can individually only decide whether they're better or worse than that. And assigning all the blame on that individual lets the system that spawned them off the hook, thus ensuring the same thing will happen again, and again, and again.

Re:yet if we did it

[tysonedwards]

You may want to give a read over the police report itself. It paints a quite interesting narrative, including the officer continually texting his wife from his personal cell phone and lying about it, the officer lying about Mr. Olin swerving from the bicycle lane into his patrol vehicle and causing the accident, and that he was in no way at fault. In fact, the officer received an "instant message" from another officer asking if he was free (U C4 BRO) when the accident occurred. He made the choice to type a response when rounding a corner where there was poor visibility, and most importantly lie about it. http://bikinginla.com/wp-conte...

Re:yet if we did it

[Anonymous Coward]

That's another part that bugs me (or, a lot of us): not only does this being "official police business" apparently protect the officer from prosecution in an incident that (apparently / allegedly) left a bicyclist dead through no fault of his own and what normal people would consider fault and unacceptable behavior on the part of the officer, but the officer won't face a felony charge for lying to officials about the incident.

Re:yet if we did it

[sjames]

Yep, actually. He is exempted from the law that makes typing while driving negligenmce per se.

All that particular law means is that if anyone other than a cop is typing while driving, no further discussion is required, it *IS* negligent.

Absent that law, the cop is still required to drive with due care. We cannot take his typing while driving as necessarily being negligent but we CAN take swerving into the bike lane and running someone over as evidence of negligence.

Just because there's no specific law against popping corn while driving doesn't mean you wouldn't get charged with negligence if you did it (somehow).

Re:yet if we did it

[Kjella]

Nobody else would get away with breaking the law because they were following orders. You try telling that story in court when you run somebody over because your boss wants every email replied to within five minutes and they'll put you behind bars in an instant. If you want to make this sting upwards in the system, do that. But don't pretend he shouldn't be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Re:yet if we did it

[quantaman]

Precisely because they are under investigation - to not pay them means the investigators and the employers have taken a particular stance, and also it would be extremely easy to harm someone by making a false accusation against them.

Okay, fine. Presumption of innocence and all. However, if they are found guilty then I want to see a clawback of the pay.

For example, Nadal Hasan, the Ft. Hood terrorist^W"workplace violence perpetrator" drew over $300,000 in salary while awaiting trial. That's swell. What makes it better is that his victims' families were being jerked around and not receiving death benefits, etc, from the government while this was transpiring.

So innocent cops under investigation can't spend the salary they're making since they have to save it for the off-change they'll be found guilty?

You're thinking about the wrong problem. The problem isn't cops being place on paid leave while under investigation, it's cops under investigation never being punished regardless of the severity of their actions.

Re:yet if we did it

[mpe]

Except in most jurisdictions police have immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit while on duty. That's how they can kick the door to a house down, gun everyone down, then shrug their shoulders and say "oops, we misread the address on the warrant." and walk away free of any responsibility for just having murdered an entire family.

With it working rather differently if the family sucessfully defend themselves against the "burglars".

Re:yet if we did it

[tysonedwards]

A relative perspective argument? That is cute, and I like that... Congratulations, you've won the argument because yes, no one can dispute that from his perspective he would have seen something that would have looked like the whole world swerved into him! It's officially entered philosophical territory of "what is real" versus "what is perceived", and "what does perception even mean" solely in the mind of Deputy Wood territory?

But Deputy Wood knowingly misled his colleagues about other details including that he applied the brakes and swerved to avoid Mr. Olin and that Mr. Olin corrected his path to make contact with the Deputy's Patrol Vehicle anyways, that he was being attentive and did everything right. Deputy Wood only acknowledged them a week later when confronted with irrefutable evidence that he did not apply his breaks, swerve, and was in fact using his MDC and Cell Phone moments before the incident did his story changed from this elaborate and complex narrative to "I don't recall".

He made a conscious choice to send 9 text messages back and forth with his wife while driving 4 miles per hour over the posted speed limit on a windy road with reduced visibility, IM with his "Bud" on his Department issued, vehicle installed computer, and in the process not even notice the human being that died through his inattention. If he had, he would have been able to swerve or apply his brakes prior to impact rather than after the fact, as the findings had shown.

The concern is that Deputy Wood killed someone and as "the People can not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wood's momentary distraction in the performance of his duties constituted a failure to use reasonable care to prevent reasonably foreseeable harm", he will receive no punishment, including a reprimand from his place of employment. That is ultimately the problem, where making his lunch plans with 'Unit 224T2' is now classified as the performance of his duties! (I speak from personal experience from working with a Sheriff's Office, and at 1:00pm if someone is asking if you're Code 4, they're asking if you're able to go Code 7.)

Re:yet if we did it

[c6gunner]

In my first-hand experience, and in the experience of many other people with whom I've spoken, the vast majority of police are scum sucking bullies who prefer harassing decent citizens over confronting real criminals.

Funny; in my first hand experience, and in the experience of many other people with whom I have spoken, the vast majority of people who make such sweeping and bigoted generalizations about the police are scum-sucking narcissists who prefer harassing decent police officers over treating them like fellow human beings. That's my experience as a middle class white guy, and most people say the abuse is even worse if one is a middle class white cop.

Re:Legalized Murder

[Anonymous Coward]

Until you rise the fuck up.

He acted lawfully???

[BrianSoCal]

From the article -> “He was responding to a deputy who was inquiring whether the fire investigation had been completed. Since Wood was acting within the course and scope of his duties when he began to type his response, under Vehicle Code section 23123.5, he acted lawfully.”

So by this same logic - if he was typing on his computer and rammed his car into a McDonalds and killed 10 people, this would have been lawful too???

If I'm not mistaken, if you do a first act lawfully, and you do a second act like reckless driving as a result of the first - you're still liable for the second act. If you drink a coffee lawfully and spill it on yourself and then jump lanes and hit a bicyclist - you don't think you'd get hit with vehicular manslaughter?? And your argument would be, "I was drinking coffee lawfully, so lets throw this case out of court?"

Geez...

Cops are above the law

[Skynyrd]

Once again (still) cops are above the law.

They demand respect, yet show none. Departments overlook and hide massive crimes committed by their officers.

This is just typical cop behavior.

Re:From the linked article...

[SpzToid]

I like bicycles so much I don't have a driver's license. But who on Earth would risk their life riding a bike, (for whatever sensible reason), when professional idiots kill bicyclists riding peacefully and safely?

Ridiculous

[zmooc]

What's ridiculous here is that charges will not be pressed *because* the officer did not violate Vehicle Code section 23123.5 (which prohibits operating electronic wireless communication devices while driving) since it "does not apply to an emergency services professional using an electronic wireless communications device while operating an authorized emergency vehicle".

Apparently they totally failed to check whether the dude might have violated the law that says you should not kill people by driving over them with your car, which he obviously did violate.

Apparently killing people with your car is illegal UNLESS you're doing it while operating an electronic communications device in a police car; in that case you actually get a reward: the job you applied for over a year ago. How odd...

No, it wasn't.

[raehl]

The problem is, this death was a result of systemic problems between the police and society at large, specifically the police thinking - correctly, it appears - that they're above the law.

The lack of prosecution in this case is NOT because the police are "above the law". The lack of prosecution in this case is because the law specifically allows the police to use electronic devices in the course of their duties while operating their vehicles. The same way the law allows the police to exceed the speed limit in certain cases, or allows them to park pretty much anywhere, or allows them to pull you over, or allows them to do any number of other things that a normal citizen can't do.

You may argue that it's a bad practice, but keep in mind that one person dying because officers are allowed to use electronic devices while driving doesn't necessarily mean that's bad practice any more than officers sometimes causing accidents because they can speed or run red lights in the course of their duties means those are overall bad practices either. We'd need to know how many people are hurt as a result of officers operating electronic devices while driving and compare that to how many people would be hurt if officers had to use the radio or pull over every time they needed to use electronic devices.

Regardless, there was no legal basis for criminal charges in this incident.

Re:No, it wasn't.

[jmcvetta]

So the law makes the cops above the law. Sorry bud, legal-formalist arguments don't change the functional reality: the cops are not held to the same standards of conduct they brutally enforce on the people.

Re:No, it wasn't.

[msauve]

BS. The law specifically allows me to drive a car, because I have a license to do so. That doesn't mean I can mow people down with impunity. Similarly, a law allowing cops to use electronic devices while driving doesn't absolve them from responsibility for negligence while doing so.

Re:No, it wasn't.

[Jiro]

Having a law that permits them to use electronic devices just means that using the electronic device isn't automatically a crime. It doesn't (or at least shouldn't) mean that they are excused from all consequences of doing so.

If you want a car analogy (no reason I can't use a car analogy to make a car analogy), a driver's license gives you permission to drive a car, so that you can't be arrested just for unlicensed driving, but you still can be arrested if you run over someone with the car. Likewise, the police have a "use electronic device license", so the use by a policeman is not a crime all by itself, but the negligent use of one still can be.