Discuss Detroit » Archives - January 2008 » Very sad driving and alcohol story « Previous Next »
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Docmo
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Username: Docmo

Post Number: 319
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 3:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.d ll/article?AID=/20080101/METRO /801010334

This tragedy almost didn't happen. It sounds like the police just missed getting this asshole off the road before he killed 5 people.
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Newport1128
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Username: Newport1128

Post Number: 156
Registered: 05-2007
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 3:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

What's the most time the alleged perpetrator could get in prison? I'm hoping life without parole.
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Belleislerunner
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Username: Belleislerunner

Post Number: 393
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 3:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Life in prison seems pretty extreme. Where does one draw the line between an eye for an eye and forgiveness?

I always wonder in cases like this. It's very easy in a shooting/rape circumstance to feel that jail is justified but here it seems harder. Empirically a person is still dead in each. But that begs the question - should the circumstances that led to that death really matter? Hmm. Tough...
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Greatlakes
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Username: Greatlakes

Post Number: 108
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 3:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20080102/NEWS05/ 80102017

"Aggravated vehicular homicide is a second-degree felony that carries a sentence of 2-8 years in prison."
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Wash_man
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Username: Wash_man

Post Number: 526
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 3:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"What's the most time the alleged perpetrator could get in prison? I'm hoping life without parole."

According to information I read, he could get 2-8 years for each count. I assume they would be served consecutively so it looks like he could bet 10-40 years.
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 830
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

How drunk could someone be that would allow them to drive but on the wrong side of the road? They posses enough reasoning to find their way to the expressway. They don't have enough reasoning to realize they are going the wrong way or are too drunk to drive. Sounds like the cops sorta dropped the ball on this one. If he was that drunk, they should've caught him before he ever made it to the expressway.

Though, it seems some idiots are destined to do something stupid like this. One really needs to put the blame on the drunk. Terrible accident that could've been avoided in so many ways. I personally know the Redford fire marshall they reference, he's a good man.
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Fareastsider
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Username: Fareastsider

Post Number: 757
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Drunk or not he was going the wrong way on the e-way for over a MILE! Now a family is almost all gone. Toss him in a cell and leave him. He screwed up WAY to big.
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Mikem
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Username: Mikem

Post Number: 3535
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

How drunk could someone be that would allow them to drive but on the wrong side of the road?


About three times the legal limit.
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Wash_man
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Username: Wash_man

Post Number: 528
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"How drunk could someone be that would allow them to drive but on the wrong side of the road?"

I've asked the same question. I've travelled the area of the accident several times in the past year. I looked up some information on where he entered the freeway and where the accident happened. By my calculations, he went at least 4-5 miles before the accident. What the hell did he think, that EVERYONE ELSE was going the wrong way? I'm surprised that he was even able to navigate his truck at all. I wish the people at Taco Bell would have been more aggressive in trying to stop him before the Police got there. At least they tried to stop him and certainly all the fault belongs to the drunk driver.
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Mikem
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Username: Mikem

Post Number: 3536
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Sounds like you guys have never been drunk before.
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 1731
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yeah, I totally drive on the right side of the road whenever I'm drunk. ;)
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Kenp
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Username: Kenp

Post Number: 956
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Take a good look at the faces of those kids. There is no need to argue or joke.
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 1733
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Take a good look at my fat white ass.

Now kiss it. ;)
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Docmo
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Username: Docmo

Post Number: 321
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb cs.dll/article?AID=/20080102/U PDATE/801020396

The audio links from the 911/police calls are so sad. I wonder if Taco Bell served him his order or did the drunk eventually just drive off just ahead of the police?
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Bobj
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Username: Bobj

Post Number: 3519
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

How could he even walk with a blood alcohol like that?
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Docmo
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Username: Docmo

Post Number: 322
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's easier to sit in your big truck and blindly drive the wrong way than it is to walk.
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Jeduncan
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Username: Jeduncan

Post Number: 165
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 4:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

they should stone him.
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Carolcb
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Username: Carolcb

Post Number: 3407
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 5:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

When I worked at the Sheriff's Dept, I saw a woman with a 3 something walking and talking.
People would routinely come in to bond someone else out when they were drunk.....
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Bobj
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Username: Bobj

Post Number: 3525
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 5:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I blew a .15 on home unit once and thought the world was spinning out of control. Maybe the accuracy wasn't good, but .25 and up is unbelievable
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Mind_field
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Username: Mind_field

Post Number: 850
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 5:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think some Scandinavian Country, or maybe it's Volvo (??) did an experiment to crack down on drunk drivers. The car would measure your blood alcohol level and not start if you were drunk. Don't know what came of it?
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Kenp
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Username: Kenp

Post Number: 957
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 5:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They have those devices here as well. I had a friend who had to blow into one before he started his car. Once he was drunk and went to sleep, woke up the next morning and his level was still to high to start the car.
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Belleislerunner
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Username: Belleislerunner

Post Number: 394
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 5:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I used to work in fast food as a teenager and when someone was drunk in drive through we would tell them to "pull ahead" to the parking space while we wait for the fries/food to finish. (i.e. wait for cops to arrive) He probably left without getting his food - as I can't imagine the person who called the police going out to give it to him.
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Jrvass
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Username: Jrvass

Post Number: 369
Registered: 01-2007
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 6:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Not everyone is as smart as you Belleislerunner.

I'm sure the TB employees tried their best, but what can you do?

I was in the hospital when that guy plowed into the mother and 2 kids at 4 times the legal limit in Farmington in the middle of the day. All kinds of "code words" were announced in the hallways to alert the staff.

"Dr. Firestone" was their code for a fire. I don't remember others since I was sick and in the hospital.

The Lord's blessings on all those involved.
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Crystal
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Username: Crystal

Post Number: 90
Registered: 05-2007
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 7:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

For a short time Michigan had sobriety check points, one lane set aside for drivers to have their alcohol level checked. If I remember right, you did not have to drive in that lane, and if you did, you did not have to roll down your window. After a very short time it was ruled that those "drunk driver check lanes" infringed on a person's civil rights, and the lanes were discontinued.

What amazed me was how many drunk drivers were caught in those lanes nonetheless!

I still wonder why cops don't hang out outside bars. Civil rights and entrapment issues, I think.
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Alan55
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Username: Alan55

Post Number: 1001
Registered: 09-2005
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 7:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This drunk is only 24 years old.

Even if he were to serve 30 years in jail (which he won't) that would only make him 54 when he was released - plenty young enough to have many more years of drunk driving, and the opportunity to harm more innocent victims.
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Sstashmoo
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Username: Sstashmoo

Post Number: 831
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 7:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Quote: "I still wonder why cops don't hang out outside bars"

They do. The real question in all this: How can bars even be legal? Folks drive to the bar, drink, get back in their car and drive. Before someone yells designated driver, hardly anyone uses them. The majority of people still get in their car and drive home. And the majority are above the legal limit. So if one is truly against drinking and driving, they have to be for doing away with drinking establishments, Yes? No?
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Jiminnm
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Username: Jiminnm

Post Number: 1561
Registered: 02-2005
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 9:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

We started the year wrong here also, but since this guy was an active AF MP he can do 6 years for the state and up to 20 in a Federal pen.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

2 Killed in DWI Collision

By T.J. Wilham
Journal Staff Writer
Mark Baca could see it coming: the dark SUV barreling down Fourth Street, changing direction, racing back so fast Baca couldn't tell what color or model it was.
"This guy looked like he was on a mission to kill somebody," Baca said later. And in about 15 minutes, the Ford Escape ran a red light at Fourth and Menaul and slammed into a Nissan pickup, killing two people.
It was about 1:40 a.m. Tuesday, the city's first drunken driving fatal crash of 2008.
Police say the force of the collision "welded" the two vehicles and they had to be pulled apart with a firetruck and a chain.
"It looked pretty bad. It was horrible," said Adrian Romero, who was driving on Fourth when he saw the wreckage and called 911. "It looked like a camper shell flew off the truck. There was a lot of smoke coming from the vehicles."
Micah Henry, 23, a military police officer at Kirtland Air Force Base, has been charged with two counts of homicide by vehicle. His blood-alcohol content was more than 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit. He was in custody late Tuesday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in lieu of a $50,000 bond.
"It's the typical story where the drunk walks away without a scratch," said Albuquerque Police spokesman John Walsh. "This is so tragic."
Police say they believe the victims were from Santa Fe. One of them was Marvin J. Garcia, an employee of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, said his mother, Cora Garcia. The identity of the second victim could not be confirmed Tuesday evening.
Henry is an airman with the Air Force's 377th security forces squadron. He had been on active duty for the past four years and three months, Kirtland officials said.
About 15 minutes before the crash, an Albuquerque police officer spotted Henry "traveling at a high rate of speed," according to a Metropolitan Court criminal complaint.
But the officer didn't stop Henry because he was en route to a "suspicious person" call and had his lights and siren on. About 15 minutes later the same officer got a call to respond to the crash site.
Walsh said he didn't know whether the officer had reported the speeding vehicle to dispatchers before the crash occurred.
About the same time, Baca was trying to catch up with the SUV.
Baca, 46, said he was driving north on Fourth when the SUV passed him going in the same direction, so fast that he couldn't get a license plate number.
If he called the police, he said, "what was I going to tell them? That there was a dark-colored medium-size SUV?"
So Baca tried to catch up, with the intention of calling the state's DWI hot line on his cell phone.
The SUV did a U-turn and started to head back in the opposite direction. Baca pulled over, waiting for it to pass so he could get the plate number. But again the SUV was going too fast. Baca said he followed it until he lost sight of it at Montaño. He continued to drive up Fourth Street looking down side streets in hopes of finding the SUV.
Just as he was about to quit his search, he saw emergency lights at Menaul. He stopped and told police what he saw.
"I am not sure what more I could have done," he said.
Baca said at first he didn't believe the driver was drunk. He said he thought it was a young person "racing up and down Fourth Street. ... He was just racing up and down the street zigzagging in and out of traffic. It wasn't like he was looking for somebody or going anywhere. He was just racing.
"I am amazed at the distance he covered in a short amount of time," he said. "It's amazing that all three didn't perish."
Baca couldn't get any sleep Tuesday morning— he felt frustrated, angry and sad, he said. He couldn't stop thinking about how close he was to perhaps preventing the deaths of two people.
"I have so much feeling going on right now," he said. "I feel kind of useless 'cause I could see this coming."
Walsh said Henry had left a Downtown bar before the crash. He said APD will turn over its information to the state Department of Public Safety's special investigation division.
DPS spokesman Peter Olson said agents will start looking into where Henry had been drinking to determine if he had been served too much alcohol.
The new year saw two more possible DWI events Tuesday morning, one of them also fatal.
The driver of a '94 Chevy Blazer died in a rollover in Roosevelt County when the vehicle drove off the road into a dirt field at approximately 1:30.
And an Amarillo man was arrested by State Police on Interstate 40 in Quay County after he was spotted going the wrong direction on the highway. Manuel Mendoza, 22, was charged with aggravated DWI after he refused to take sobriety tests.
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Adm70
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Username: Adm70

Post Number: 17
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 9:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Add sporting events, too. I was at the San Diego/Lions game and I was floored by how loaded people were getting. I thought, "Nice, get loaded, put the kids in the car and drive home..."
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Gistok
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Username: Gistok

Post Number: 6037
Registered: 08-2004
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 - 10:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I saw that that 24 year old guy in the news today... a very handsome fellow... he'll make one hell of a good bitch for someone in prison named Bruno for about 30 years...

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