Saturday, February 4, 2012

Justice Served, Finally

There was a horrible situation that happened in Orange County a few years ago. A high school girl decided to jack her father's new Porsche and take a wild and crazy ride... that ended rather quickly and abruptly against the side of a toll booth.

It was mess. Her body was mangled, nearly decapitated, and her brains ended up splattered against they wall. Literally. Her brains were splattered against the wall.

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) did their required investigation including photo documentation.

Within two weeks, crash scene photos started popping up in the grieving family's email accounts with usually taunting messages. A horrible time for the family became even more so, as you can imagine. The cyber-taunting went on for months, and to this day still occurs.

The family sued the CHP for releasing the photos. The CHP denied any liability, which was all bullshit because they were the only ones who had possession of the images. Then the CHP tried various other gimmicks and maneuvers, anything at all, in an effort to dodge culpability.

Finally, the CHP settled with the family shortly before going to trial.

Link to the story here.

Personally, I would have prefered this case went to trial. Certain folks need to be put on the stand and explain publicly their tortured reasons for dragging the family through this. The public shaming would have done society some good.

It's a travesty when those who are sworn to be the administrators of justice pull out all the stops when it's their ass on the line after they've created the injustice in the first place.
As to be expected, nobody has lost their jobs over this.

7 comments:

Foxfier said...

I bet that the person who put it out was either going "stupid kid deserves this for driving so dangerously" (probably not in those words) or had sufficiently dehumanized any crash victim that they just went "woo, cool photo!"

Don't know which is worse. I can't even watch people cut themselves in movies.

Gino said...

the crash happened on Halloween. he had said that he sent it for that reason, a mix of the macbre and 'dont do this'.

Gino said...

eother way, it was serious violation of policy, privacy and protocol and the dept should have owned up to it that minute.

Foxfier said...

Wait, they know exactly who did it?

...

That is solidly jacked up. Who is he related to?
(Usually I'd research it, but... yeah, no. I've got enough trouble with the images of mangled dogs that people feel free to post for their various @#$@# obvious stupid "causes." I don't want to go looking for some poor, dumb, dead kid.)

Gino said...

yes, it was two dispatchers. one dude retired, which i beleive protected him from lawsuits, and the other filed bankruptcy which forgave what ever monetary damages he may have been assessed with.

either way, the state is responsible for the damage caused by their employees on the job.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Absolutely revolting. I understand the instinct to protect 'their own,' but they're supposed to be serving the citizens of California. And they put them through an additional hell instead.

Bike Bubba said...

Building on WB's comment, if you protect the guilty among the police, don't be surprised when people won't trust you and talk to you anymore, or worse yet attack them.