Chandler area motorist on his way to buy a Hummer kills five people, gets one year in jail
Ed over at AZ Bike Law linked to this awful story earlier today and I just read it.
It was just before 10 a.m. on July 19, 2007, a Thursday. According to court records, Myers, then 24, was in his 2007 Chevy Avalanche, headed west on McDowell Road in Scottsdale, on his way to meet his aunt, who was buying a Hummer at a dealership just down the road.
The Chandler man sped past another westbound car, nearly sideswiping it. The driver of that car saw the light changing up ahead at Granite Reef Road and told his wife, “He is going to blow that light.”
Tragically, he was right. Myers ran the red light and broadsided a 1994 Cadillac DeVille as it was turning left onto Granite Reef Road.
Eight people were in that Cadillac. Five of them died – Abigail’s parents, Antonio Pedraza-Olivares and Noelia Rebolledo-Sanchez; Abigail’s four-year-old brother, Antonio; and Abigail’s cousins, Mayra and Jennifer Ramirez-Pedraza, who were 11 and 9. Abigail, her aunt and her 12-year-old sister were injured.
Myers asked for probation. He got one year in jail, but will be released from 6 AM to 9 PM, seven days a week, for “work.” Presumably he still has his driver’s license.
There’s also a story about it in the East Valley Tribune. I would advise you not to read the comments unless you like to hear about how some Mexican people got what was coming to them. (Example: “Mexico is nothing but a country full of criminals, drug lords and slime bags – a place I would NEVER go – that should be sealed off and left to rot…”)
Anyway, setting aside the glaring racist implications of the whole depressing thing, what we also have is a big case of carhead — the idea that these are just “accidents” that happen in our world and there is nothing to be done about them. If we were to punish these acts too severely, people wouldn’t be able to drive at all. And that’s just completely unthinkable, isn’t it?
–Erik Ryberg
May 6th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Unbelievable. Shouldn’t there be some point at which recklessly negligent driving that results in death — let alone multiple deaths — is treated as homicide?
May 6th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
If he had bought that hummer, he’d have killed 8 instead of just five
May 6th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Erik can confirm or correct this, but I
believe most vehicular violations are
classified as misdemeanors. None of us
seem to understand why a death does not
kick it up to a felony. I think the only
way to make a change in this is at the
legislative level and I’m sure there would
be some powerful lobbies against making any
such changes. It’s car-headedness to the max!
And fear of being made to be responsible when
when behind the wheel.
The cumulatve effect of automotive marketing ie,
freedom of the road-carefree motoring, etc.
for years and years has imbedded itself in
our DNA and is showing up in some really nasty ways.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Am I wrong in suspecting that the issue here lies not with the prosecutors but with the law?
In NYC, prosecutors’ hands are often tied in cases where sober drivers kill because the standard for criminal negligence with a vehicle is so high. There’s an exception for alcohol and other substances due to the drunk-driving crusades of past decades, which sadly creates a double standard where sober drivers are far harder to prosecute than drunk ones.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Coghauler is right. We need to take action at the legislative level, as well as pressuring city governments — something we’re just starting to do here in L.A. According to Bikes Belong, somewhere between 12.4% and 38.2 percent of all Americans ride bikes (http://www.bikesbelong.org/participationstats). Even taking the lower figure, that’s a huge voting block.
May 7th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Bob –
yes, i would say that in this particular case (but this one is quite unusual!) you are wrong. That is, the guy plead guilty to Neg Hom; so he is admitting “criminal negligence”.
There is a chart here of the 4 types of homicide in Arizona, scroll down a bit to the table:
http://azbikelaw.org/carlaw/homicide.html
The vast majority of non-DUI-related fatalities result in no (homicide) charges. Though this one is a bit of mystery… compare this to the case of the Irma Quintana Fatality. In that case the driver that killed both ran a red, and was speeding 13 over — why no neg hom charge??
http://azbikelaw.org/blog/28-672-in-the-news/
they seem like pretty similar transgressions, 5 murders in one case, and no murders in the other. All according to the same prosecutor’s office (Maricopa County Attorney)
May 7th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Bob, I think a lot of the problem here is the judge — and the root of that is probably the failure of the prosecutors to make a strong case. It really irks me that this guy got off so lightly. He could have received a much stronger sentence even under the charges that were filed.
Imagine if he had randomly fired a gun in his neighborhood, not intending to hit anyone, and killed five people and put a young girl in a wheelchair for life. How is that so different from what he actually did?
The only thing that makes it different is the car. That’s why this is carhead. We don’t punish people the same for transgressions committed in the holy car.
–EBR
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I don’t want to lose sight of the awful crime committed by Mr. Myers and the obvious anguish suffered by the family and friends of the victims. I am a little puzzled by the headline however and I wonder why the mention of the Hummer is made. I sense this is meant to be a broader indictment of a line of vehicles and a stereotyping of the type of person that buys & drives them. Am I correct? Had the driver been on his way to buy a gallon of milk, would it have mattered?
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
When I read the headline I thought that he maybe hit someone while cruising Van Buren.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:18 am
Hat tip Scott – that’s funny.