Another Not-So-Bright Lawman

[104imdirect]

http://www.kmov.com/topstories/stories/kmov_localnews_080213_firefighterarrested.bd01f42f .html

The short of it:
There's a bad car ax on an interstate. Cop shows up. Firetruck shows up. Cop tells fire fighter to move truck. Fire fighter says no. Cop arrests firefighter.
Fast forward 5 years:
Cop pays out $18k for being a douche.

[Cambot Mk. II]

Wow.

Talk about your f'ed up priorities.
If the accident victim died, that officer should have gone to jail.

I'm assuming this was a civil and not criminal trial?

[Sore Shoulder]

I personally prefer a big fire truck between me and the freeway traffic.
And arresting the firefighter didn't get the truck moved anyway, so what did
he prove?!

[104imdirect]

...that he was acting like a giant douche.

[Baltimore Shooter]

Christ, it must be a requirement to have a super low I.Q. in order to become a police officer. If your I.Q. is over 25, you can't join the force.

Warren

[pre-set]

So, what did the cop do wrong? He made an arrest. That's what they're supposed to do....

Jeez, you guys are stupid.

[Sean-1966]

$18,000, that's it?? What a piece of work. Seriously what is with these cops. Where do they get off thinking they can do some of this stuff.

[Rad]

What's up with the the tiny video player???? I couldn't figure out how to make the video large enough to see. And I could easily see this happening in Raleigh.

[Baltimore Shooter]

So, what did the cop do wrong? He made an arrest. That's what they're supposed to do....

Jeez, you guys are stupid.

What did he do wrong? For one thing, he interferred with the medics duties by telling them to move the truck. For another, he put more people in danger by exposing the medics as well as the person(s) they are assisting by leaving a largeer gap where they could be hit if another car went out of control. They'd be right in the path of danger instead of shielded by the truck.

What if the person died because the medics had to stop assisting the injured and move the truck?

It ain't us who are stupid...

Warren

[pre-set]

Warren - I forgot this part ........... <sarcasm>.


Read it again and throw that on the end. It'll make a little more sense. ;)

[mkay]

Warren - I forgot this part ........... ;)

The smiley does wonders in preventing a misunderstanding ;)

[cameradog]

$18,000, that's it??

According to the article I read, some of the jurors said they went easy on the cop because he has a family who didn't deserve to suffer because of his mistake, and that they were concerned over how he will pay the judgment. The cop was the only defendant because a magistrate dropped the city from the suit. The fireman was arrested and handcuffed, but he was never booked, never charged and only remained in custody for 23 minutes.

After reading that, I don't think it's an unreasonably low award. The fireman didn't really go through that harrowing an ordeal, and $18K is still a rather painful payment for someone supporting a family on a cop's salary to make. I think they probably got his attention with it.

[104imdirect]

As stupid as this cop acted, I think it probably came down 50% stupidity of the individual and 50% lack of training on the part of the department. I don't think that the officer's family should feel the pain of this f-up - but certainly the department should and be forced to take steps to avoid a situation like this in the future.

[justashooter]

Maybe the department did have the training and that is why they were dropped fromthe suit.

Duane