Speeding police car crashes into car turning left killing two teenagers

[notluzn]

From what I get from the story is that the officer was speeding and not responding to a call. But the car did turn in front of him. 2 wrongs?


http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d63_1258554864
Milford Police have released the chilling video of the crash that killed two Orange teens in June.

The video shows Officer Jason Anderson's car racing by another Milford cruiser at 94 mph before slamming into the car carrying Ashlie Krakowski and David Servin, both 19.

The dash cam in Milford Officer Richard Pisano's records his cruiser traveling around 70 mph and shows Anderson's vehicl More..e speed by.

Moments later, Anderson's cruiser collides with the teens' car, which appears to be turning into the path of the cruiser. The impact sends sparks and debris flying.

The video also shows a few things that aren’t obvious at first glance.

Anderson passes Pisano on the right, which is illegal in Connecticut, His lights and siren are off.

It also shows both officers drive through red and flashing yellow lights right before Anderson hits the teens' car at the intersection of Dogwood and Boston Post roads.

"It may appear that the Anderson vehicle is not traveling at that high a rate of speed… but that’s not true because to get a true perspective of the vehicle going in excess of 90 mph, you have to be outside of the vehicle going 70 mph," Attorney John Wynne, who represents Krakowski's father, said.

This impact destroyed the teens' car, threw Krakowski 30 feet from the car and trapped Servin inside until firefighters extricated him.

The officers were returning from a mutual aid call at the Utopia Café in West Haven and Wynne said the accident was completely avoidable.

"They weren’t responding to a call. Their lights and sirens weren’t on. It was 2:15 in the morning and they were just returning back to Milford," he said.

Anderson was suspended with pay from the Milford Police Department, arrested by State Police and charged with manslaughter. He is due in court on Nov. 24.

"His conduct was so egregious and reckless that it brought these deaths and that's why he was charged," Wynne said.

The Milford Police Chief will not comment on the video until after the internal investigation is

[Sinister Rouge]

I'm no expert, but it looks like the teens would be at fault for making the left turn.
But then again, the cop was driving that fast in what looked like an urban area (does it say the speed limit of that road?) and the driver of the other vehicle might have thought he had time to make the turn. After all, if the limit is (for example) 45, he would have had twice as long to make that turn.
The cop should have definitely had his lights on if he was going that fast in an urban area.

[DavidC]

Horrendous.

He was speeding he was at fault. Sad.

[JediMindTrick]

Clearly this department is corrupt because they didn't hold the cop accountable (Just taking JenyEliza's position since she isn't here to do it).

But seriously:

Its a sad situation and its unfortunate that the cop chose to drive recklessly. Kudo's to his department for holding the officer accountable and kudo's to the prosecutor for making the tough but correct decision. As I say in everyone of the weekly cop bash threads there will be bad conduct by some cops since there are 1,000,000 of them nationwide and what we should judge is how the other cops and their departments treat that behavior.

[RogerDodger]

As I say in everyone of the weekly cop bash threads . . .

Thinking that driving 94 mph with no lights or sirens when not answering a call is not a good idea equals cop bashing? Interesting.

[LouC]

Thinking that driving 94 mph with no lights or sirens when not answering a call is not a good idea equals cop bashing? Interesting.

That is not what he said. :rolleyes:

[JediMindTrick]

Thinking that driving 94 mph with no lights or sirens when not answering a call is not a good idea equals cop bashing? Interesting.

How many threads do you or anyone else post on Hannity about good acts that cops do? I guarantee you that the good acts outnumber the bad by about 999 to 1 yet there is never a thread about any of them on this board while we get several threads a week about the latest bad cop incident and many, you are one of the worst, chime in about how out of control police are.

Now how many threads about bad doctors and nurses do you see on this board? Preventable medical errors by medical staff kill tens of thousands of people a year, bad cop acts kill 20 or so a year, yet we don't see constant threads on doctors. Nor on postal workers. Nor on salespeople. Its just a steady stream of bad cop threads here on this board because so many love to bash cops.

Cops are human and being human some will be bad. No cop supporter will deny that as there are 1,000,000 cops nationwide. They handle tens of millions of calls for service every single day. They make millions of traffic stops every day. So of course there will be some mistakes and there will be some acts by some of those cops that are illegal and / or bad. Yet 99.99% of the acts are going to be very routine and very reasonable. Some are even going to be very heroic. But people only want to talk about the occasional bad incident and then profile those acts to all cops.