This thread feels like though cop was definitely wrong for detaining a victim of his own negligence, he’d be exonerated by a jury of his peers because “oh my gosh, red car was speeding”.
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Actually, yes you can. You can use geometry to determine the distance traveled by the vehicle. Look at the time hack on the video and you can tell how many seconds it took to cover that distance. You can mathematically convert that to MPH. Then find out what the posterd speed limit on that road is, and you got it.
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Whether or not it’s appropriate is an entirely different matter.
- Did the cop violate the law? Yes.
- Would the accident have happened if he had stopped at the sign? Probably not.
- Did he overreact? Yes.
- Did he lie to the other driver about not having any rights? Yes.
- Was the arrest bogus and a violation of proper procecure? Yes.
- Should the cop be punished for being a criminal and an asshole? Yes.
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You do realise that it’s perfectly possible for someone to be both the victim of a wrong and also a wrongdoer themself?
And that while the one doesn’t justify the other, their status as a victim doesn’t somehow make them magically immune from judgement for their own wrongdoing?
Oh, and if you haven’t checked the rules recently we don’t do “don’t talk to me” any more. That’s what the ignore feature is for.
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Since this thread is turning out to be so much fun for everyone, I’ll point out that people moving as fast as Mr. Little Redcar are a danger because you might stop at the sign and proceed before Mr. Little Redcar is even visible to you. And I don’t know about everyone else here, but I’m sometimes guilty of rolling a stop sign after a glance in each direction. By “rolling” I mean not coming to a complete stop, not going straight through like Our Hero in Blue.
Also, you know, as I said earlier, this isn’t a zero sum game. It’s possible for everyone to be an asshole, to greater and lesser degrees.
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Whether the red car was going too fast means nothing. The cop should’ve stopped at the sign, and if the red car was going too fast, then the cop could’ve put the lights on and pulled him over properly.
The cop was supposed to stop at the stop sign. He did not. The accident is 100% his fault.
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You keep insisting it doesn’t matter how fast the other car is going, but it does. Fault is almost never 100%, even legally. Of course the cop should have stopped, but it does matter how fast the other person is going. You have an obligation to drive safely, and if you get into an accident when no driving safely, then you are partially at fault. You can claim the guy wasn’t speeding all you want, but he was going way too fucking fast, and that’s a fact, period, end of story FULL STOP
Just FYI, I was lead juror in a lawsuit for a guy who turned left in front of a speeder and totalled his car in Illinois. He couldn’t get what he thought was a fair shake from the law, so sued the guy in civil court and lost because he was the one originally at fault for making a wrong maneuver in the first place.
In the Q & A after the session, the lawyers admitted they weren’t sure how it would turn out, but the plaintiff insisted on going to court.
So, hey, see how far being hurt over degrees of fault gets you. I assume your mileage may vary.
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There are TWO distinct torts here.
The first is the traffic tort. The second is the false arrest/civil rights claim.
Assuming the insured and their insurance companies elect to go to trial on the traffic tort, under Michigan law, MCL § 600.2959 – comparative fault in tort or personal injury, “modified comparative fault” is used to resolve cases in which the injured party is partially at fault. In other words, damages are reduced if an injured party is found to share the blame. If the injured party is found to be 50% or more at fault, there are no damages.
If I’m sitting on the jury, I probably find the red car 30 to 40% at fault and the cop at 60 to 70% at fault.
For the false arrest charge, in Vining v Detroit, 162 Mich App 720, 413 NW2d 486 (1987), the court held that the comparative negligence doctrine applies to all tort actions in which the defendant’s conduct falls short of intentional acts. Thus, if the claim for exemplary damages is predicated on willful and wanton misconduct (often referred to as gross negligence), the comparative negligence doctrine applies. If the defendant’s conduct is intentional rather than negligent, comparative negligence does not apply.
For a federal civil rights charge under section 1983, Although the United States Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the question, it is generally accepted that a cause of action under Section 1983 for use of excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment must be based on something more than mere negligence. This view is supported by the Supreme Court’s view in Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 146, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2695 (1979) (“Section 1983 imposes liability for violations of rights protected by the Constitution, not for violations of duties of care arising out of tort law”), and by its statement in Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 333, 106 S.Ct. 662, 666 (1986) (“injuries inflicted by governmental negligence are not addressed by the United States Constitution”). Furthermore, in the some circuits, liability under Section 1983 requires proof “the acts or omissions of the defendant were intentional. Don’t rely on anything you read on the Interwebz, including this.
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I don’t think you can estimate speeds off the video. It doesn’t look like a normal frame rate and the replay speed may be different from the recording speed.
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The stop sign can be seen to the right of the hook of the hanging plant in the video. If the cop had actually stopped then he probably would have given chase to the red car for speeding which it seems to have been doing.
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American police pull their guns for the smallest things these days.
I don’t know if it’s their training or just because of an ultra-aggressive mentality.
As a kid in the early 80’s my friend’s dad was a cop and I asked him if he’d ever been in a shootout - he said he’d never even pulled his gun from his holster let alone shot at somebody.
Things are much different now in the good ole USA.
Not really. Right of way is absolute, other variables aren’t relevant.
Now setting that side, was this avoidable? I’m going to guess probably. Does it change things? Nope.
I dunno how fast that guy was going (cuz I haven’t done the frame rate analysis trigonometry) but maybe he should have gone faster. Then he would have been through the intersection before the cop blew through the stop sign.
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