Subject:  Police BLUE Wall |
Author:
Nicole Miller
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Date Posted: 05/27/10 8:46pm
I am at my wits end; I cannot for the life of me see how this makes any sense at all. If you could give me any insight at all, it would be greatly appereciated.
On February 5, 2010, our 15 year old daughter; M-C was struck and killed by an SUV driven by S D. The crash happened at approximately 7:20 pm. We did not know anything had happened until about 10pm, when a friend of our daughters’ sent a text that M-C had been hit by a car. We went to her friends’ house where she was supposed to be spending the night. When there was no one home, we called the friend that had texted us about the crash. She stated that they had gone to Five Guys, a hamburger restaurant. We headed to Five Guys; the manager informed us that he had seen them at about 7pm, but not since. We tried calling 911-and were given no information. We headed to the hospital, and came upon a Sheriff’s deputy at a road block. We decided to ask him if he knew of any pedestrian crashes-or if he could find any information for us. We pulled into the road behind the deputy-and he told us to wait there-he would call a supervisor to the head of the road. While waiting-I noticed a news crew setting up. I asked them what they were doing, and was informed they were covering the crash—some kid was hit and killed. This was about 11pm.
We have since found out:
1. S D had admitted that night to having taken HYDROCODONE
2. There was no drug/alcohol test done on S D, one was never even requested
3. S D did NOT call 911-instead he called his ATTORNEY
4. We have been told by co-workers and acquaintances of S D that he has a substance abuse problem, and has a reputation of “being on cocaine, and other drugs”
5. There was a passenger in the car with S D, this passenger was NOT mentioned or interviewed
6. Witnesses were allowed to LEAVE the scene of the crash WITHOUT leaving contact information or statements
7. The woman who went to my daughter, was not interviewed, nor was her information taken. She was allowed to leave the scene when Trooper A arrived.
8. The ONLY witness statements taken were from my daughter’s friend, and a couple that was driving behind the woman that went to my daughter and made the eventual 911 call. SD REFUSED to give any statement beyond his written statement, and told officer on scene he had to speak with his attorney first, they attempted to call him 11 days later-and left a message, SD did not call back, they made no further attempt at contact.
9. S D was permitted to leave the scene after giving a brief written statement. His statement read:
I WAS DRIVING ALONG AND I DID NOT THE GIRL
All capital letters, no punctuation. This is an exact quote from the police report.
10. S D was allowed to drive his car home that night, and he promptly had it in a repair shop the following morning—at the time, he was the body shop manager in Columbia.
11. Trooper A NEVER ran SD’s license, although he is heard on the dash-cam video requesting it. If his license had been run, it would have shown 12 speeding tickets in the last 10 yrs.
12. There was a Columbia City police officer on scene first—he lives behind the street where the crash took place. There is no mention of him in either report. He does not make a statement-and he is not interviewed.
13. The State Trooper that was in charge of the scene, Trooper M A is heard on his dash-cam yelling “Oh sh**, Oh sh**!! What am I going to do?” He has supposedly been a Trooper for 3 years-he was Forestry service prior to that.
14. We were told that he did not know what Hydrocodone was, let alone the fact that it is a controlled substance, and carries a warning NOT to drive while taking this medication. The effects of which are compared to Morphine and Heroin. Trooper A did not know how to fill out the crash report; something as elementary as the diagram was not done properly-he used the symbol for bike, moped or motorcycle instead of pedestrian. He was also unaware of the statutes for filling out a police report. They are found on the first pages of the manual used to fill out the report. He disregarded EVERY one of them.
56-5-3230: Drivers to exercise due care.
56-5-1230: Duty to give information and render aid
56-5-1260: Immediate report of accidents resulting in personal injury or death
56-5-1520: General rules as to MAXIMUM speed limits; lower speeds may be required
S.C. is an absolute speed law state. The speed limit on that road is 30 mph; SD stated he was driving about 35 mph. Trooper A erroneously wrote the speed of the road as 35 mph, as well as SD’s speed at 35 mph. They did correct Trooper A’s mistakes, after we requested a meeting with the Troopers—they changed the road speed to 30, and changed SD’s speed to 30-35 mph.
15. We met with Lt. K P, Sgt. CS and two members of the MAIT team. They have said that there could have been more done as far as the investigation was concerned—and have admitted that it was not done properly. Trooper A was conspicuously absent from the meeting, and there was no defense for his actions. Only apologies and excuses. When I asked them to please tell me something, anything they did right that night, I could not get an answer from any of them.
16. We asked Trooper A and Sgt. S where our daughter’s phone was the day after the crash when they came to our home. Sgt. S said he did not know of a phone. Trooper A said nothing the entire time he was at our home. We were told to ask the Coroners Investigator. We did, he told us that he saw the phone in the possession of Trooper A. My mother contacted Lt. P, the commander of Troop 1, and asked him about the phone, and Corky Spires, the Coroners Investigator assertion that Trooper A was in possession of the phone. Lt. P told my mother that he had spoken to Coroner’s Investigator, and he apologized if she misunderstood, but he did not know where the phone was. She then called Coroner’s Investigator, and he informed her that he had NOT spoken to Lt. P at all, and reiterated his stance that Trooper A WAS in possession of the phone. The phone showed up in Trooper A’s car a few days later.
17. My daughter’s shoes and her hat were at the scene, S D hit her with such force, she was knocked out of her hat and shoes, and no one knows where they are now. The last time they were seen was that night, in the road and on the grass. Trooper A apparently only thought to “secure” her phone.
18. On the dash-cam- Trooper A is heard asking S D if he was talking to someone on the phone---yeah--Who is it?---my attorney---You’re going to have to hang up the phone now---I gotta go Jack.---Are you chewing gum sir?---yeah---You are going to have to get rid of the gum, Sir.---ok---SD sounds groggy, and his voice is monotone. He does not sound like he is upset, distraught or remorseful.
19. My daughter and her friend were walking on the ONLY side of the road that is lit—there are NO SIDEWALKS on either side of this road, and it is only lit on the one side. My daughter’s friend was walking in the strip of grass, and my daughter was walking in the concrete gutter next to the curb. S D’S tires had to be approximately 8 inches from the curb in order to hit my daughter the way he did. This road is at least 3 lanes wide—pin straight and flat--it is the direct route into/out of two of the largest neighborhoods in this area-the draw for the people from this neighborhood is the mall, and innumerous shops, stores, restaurants, theatres and other enticements. This road is heavily travelled by pedestrians, runners and cyclists.
20. Our daughter was NOT the first person to be hit on this road—on January 11, 2007 THREE women were hit just yards from where our daughter was killed, sending two of them to the hospital with serious injuries.
21. I am in possession of a number of accident reports, speeding violations, drunk driving incidents as well as resident complaints of speed and racing along this road.
22. There are NO PAVEMENT MARKINGS along this road as is required by law for roads wider than 24’.
23. A Lexington County Sheriff, told his daughter (who was friends with my daughter) of the crash—and my daughter’s death, his daughter immediately began texting her friends (again, my daughters friends as well) about what happened, and it went viral among them. They all knew about what happened before I did.
24. News of the crash was on a local news station’s (same news station that told me of my daughter’s death) twitter feed at 7:41pm, on their website at 10:22pm, and on their broadcast at 11pm. Along with my daughter’s name, and in the case of their website—her picture. They went on her Facebook page, (illegally, because her settings are all private-friends only) and her friends’ pages, looking for phone numbers—calling those that had one, and harassed them for information about our daughter and our family.
25. S D had a friend of his, M G; try to find out information about my daughter in the same way—she stalked my daughter’s friends-and me—sending messages through Facebook, looking for defamatory information. This woman even showed up at my daughter’s wake questioning my daughter’s friends.
There is no excuse for the way any of this was handled. The Trooper on scene, Trooper A had no business conducting this “investigation” he was not prepared for this. He has not had enough training or experience. The simple fact that SC Highway Patrol gets less training than any Patrol unit in the Southeast is abundantly obvious in this Troopers aberration on that night. The MAIT team was called out that night because there was supposedly a question about SD’s speed. The MAIT report only has one speed calculated; my daughter’s. Their explanation was that they ALWAYS calculate the pedestrian’s speed—not the car. SD NEVER applied his brakes, and only stopped after he saw other cars coming towards the scene. That was over 110 feet after impact. The speed for my daughter was broken down as follows:
INPUTS: Acceleration Drag factor: 0.6000
Distance in feet: 72.0000
RESULTS: Min. pedestrian Speed (mph): 30.8378
Min. Pedestrian Velocity (fps): 45.2288
Max. Pedestrian speed (mph): 35.9627
Max. Pedestrian Velocity (fps): 52.7454
They determined that SD was traveling 30-35 mph. There was a small electrical box that was in the path that M-C followed. When asked if the box could have been hit by M-C, given the fact that she had landed perpendicular at the bottom of the hill from it, the Officer that had done the calculations was surprised to see it. He had NOT been out to the scene. Yet, it was summarily dismissed as a possibility. I am not an Accident Reconstructionist, but I am familiar with physics. The simple fact that there is no consideration given to secondary impacts, or friction is confusing to me. They calculated from impact to final landing. Based on the damage to the car, admittedly only visual, and from a picture, a retired LI, NY police captain had estimated the speed at between 40 and 50 mph—conservatively. The impact damage has been estimated at between 8 and 10 inches in depth. Given this rudimentary information, does 30-35 mph sound like the correct speed? Witnesses have stated that the impact sounded like an explosion. The Coroner’s investigator has told us that her injuries were similar to someone caught in an explosion. She was basically shattered.
We had been introduced to a Victim’s advocate, and she spoke with the Director of the Department of Public Safety, because SD did not even receive a ticket for this crash. It was blamed on my daughter’s black and white sweatshirt. The Director said that his Troopers had NO PROBABLE CAUSE to test SD. He said that he had taken the drug 7-8 hours earlier. This is untrue—he is heard on the dash-cam video stating that he had taken it at 2pm—just 5 hours prior. But, even at that, why take his word for it? He was calling his attorney—chewing gum after he had just KILLED a child!! That seems odd to me, and I am not a police officer. The Director also stated she was in the road—another falsehood—she was in the concrete gutter—this is evidenced by the fact that her friend is seen exhibiting their location to the Trooper on the dash-cam video. Her location had not been disputed prior to this. The Director also stated she should have been on the sidewalk---THERE IS NO SIDEWALK. There IS a pathway around the lake at the bottom of the hill, but that is AROUND the lake. The girls were going back to the friend’s house.
My question is this, what recourse do I have? I understand that the Troopers did not cause my daughter’s death. There was no high speed chase, or any excessive force. But, they allowed a man thatKILLED a child, to DRIVE home after ADMITTING to TAKING HYDROCODONE!! They disregarded EVERY LAW they are SWORN to UPHOLD. They let witnesses leave the scene of a fatality. They did EVERYTHING WRONG. I cannot understand what they did, or their rationale behind it.
My husband and I have raised our children with the knowledge that they are to trust the
Police. That they are no different than Marines (my husband is a Marine) that while Daddy has to keep our country safe by keeping bad people out, the Police’s job is to keep us safe here. That if a Police Officer pulls you over, he is doing his/her job, and if you are being pulled over—you probably deserve it, and you are to treat them with respect and courtesy. It’s the right thing to do. Period. When my youngest son who is 9 came to me after our meeting with the Troopers, and asked me why I lied to him, I was rocked. I have made a point of trying my best to NOT lie to my children if I can avoid doing so, sometimes to my own detriment. I asked him what I had lied about. He stated that the Police did not help M-C. They helped the bad man instead, and even when they admitted that they were wrong—they are still helping the bad man and blaming M-C. I had to tell him he was right, I had lied, but I did not know I was lying when I told him that the Police are there to help us, and I am sure that all Police are not like these.
I promised my daughter I would get justice for her. While I obviously cannot ALWAYS tell my children the absolute truth, though not for lack of trying, I have NEVER broken a promise to ANY of my children.
I can’t start with M-C. Is there ANYTHING I can do? I have tried reasoning with them, talking to them, even practically begging them. I have tried everything. They were incompetent in their investigation, and I honestly think they just thought I would curl up in a ball, and accept what they said. But, I can’t they blamed my daughter for something that she did not do. They let a man that admitted to taking a powerful narcotic, and then got into a car—get away with MURDER! Are Police allowed to disregard the law? Are they allowed to do a negligent, incompetent investigation and get away with it?
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