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The sad story about 6 year old Andry Perez being killed by a truck driver on Third Avenue at 46th Street in Sunset Park has been very upsetting. With witnesses saying that Andry had the light to walk (even if he may have walked ahead of his sitter) and reports that the driver told the police he was trying to beat a red light, it's galling to hear that the driver wasn't charged with anything. (The police may be still trying to investigate the incident.) Until there's final word, take a look at this 2004 exchange between Transportation Alternatives Executive Director John Kaehny and Brooklyn prosecutor Maureen McCormick, from the Vehicular Crimes Bureau that Streetsblog found:
T.A. Executive Director John Kaehny: Let’s say a mom is walking hand in hand with her young son across the street. They are coming back from a nice morning in the park, it’s broad daylight, they are in the crosswalk and have the walk signal. Suddenly, a motorist runs the red light and kills them both. The motorist pulls over and is found to be sober. Would that motorist be charged with a crime?It turns out Andy's 8 year old brother had been walking with him and the sitter; Arif told the Daily News, "I tried my bbest to save him, but I couldn't. It hit my brother too fast."A.D.A McCormick: Limited to those facts, that motorist would be summonsed for running a red light. A criminal prosecution requires showing that the motorist ran the red light because of more than carelessness or inadvertence. The driver’s behavior at the time of running the light is usually the only way to prove the driver’s state of mind. The state of a person’s mind is a difficult thing to prove. They don’t generally yell out “I’m going through this light on purpose.”
The mother of Andry Perez says "her life is over." She also blasted the police for not arresting driver Joseph Perotta, saying, "He killed my baby! I want him in jail. It's unbelievable that he's out. I just don't understand why. I don't know how I'm going to live without my baby."
Andry would have turned 7 today.
Photograph of indecisive traffic light (good one, Department of Transportation) by Satan's Laundromat
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the driver should be charged with criminally negligent homicide
Legally, it makes sense to not charge the driver with homicide. It's virtually impossible to prove in court. What the NYPD does, is leave the cases for the civil courts and drivers typically have to pay a huge fine (but no jail time). In my opinion that is not good enough. The NYPD (and DA's office) needs to either start charging lethal drivers with involuntary manslaughter, or the laws need to be changed to make it easier to hold lethal drivers CRIMINALLY responsible.
bthirsch:
Can you please explain how "homicide" is virtually impossible to charge in this case? Homicide is just a killing, not necessarily murder, right?
the reason they don't charge Homicide is numerous. First of all, everybody drives. I remember when I learned to drive and was driving slowly and cautiously and the driving instructor asked me why I was driving so slowly and I said "I'm afraid I might hit somebody" and he told me "To drive, you must be ready to hit somebody"; WHich now makes sense, because if you were to actually drive sensibly in this city you'd get nowhere fast. and second of all, you don't want some dude that has a nice job and a good place in society rotting in jail for 5-10 years just cause his gas foot was a little heavy that morning. It's really about social darwinism percentages. Sure it "should" technically be a homicide but the automotive industry has a huge sway on how the public percieves it's criminals. That's why you just hope for a good civil suit.
jojo: I'm sorry to say this but that is the most dumbheaded way of considering penalties for drivers that I have ever read. Think about it this way: You are a gun owner carrying your registered and loaded gun. While you are waving your gun around you accidently shoot it and kill an 8 year old kid. What do you feel like should be the penalty? Fact is that drivers are taking on added resposibility when they drive and the very definition of the term "added responsibility" is that there are significant consequences to messing up.
In several European countries the penalty for killing a pedestrian is a permanent suspension of the driver's license. Oddly enough the pedestrian fatality rates there are all but nonexistent. Frankly I can see no argument against at least a 2 year suspension here in NYC: who wants these drivers on the road anyway? This is a pedestrian city and we should run the show and make the rules.
One organization committed to a reasonble law change regarding stuff like this is the American Motorcycle Association. Motorcyclists face a lot of similar issues that plague bicyclists and pedestrians, and the law changes the Association are advocating would apply to them as well.
Their plan involves two kinds of laws, one for people convicted of non-felony offense, which seeks to take away driving priveleges to get bad drivers off the road, and one for felony offenders, requiring one year of jail time and fines for those who kill.
The first kind of legistlation is now law in New York State.
More info here: http://www.amadirectlink.com/justice/index.asp
The mom should have taken better care. She was contributorily negligent in this case. Look both ways before you cross.
"you don't want some dude that has a nice job and a good place in society rotting in jail for 5-10 years just cause his gas foot was a little heavy that morning"
Oh the guy has a good place in society? Why didn't you SAY so?
A child is dead.
Oh, THAT. Yeah, my gas foot was a little heavy that morning.
WHAT ABOUT NYC BUSES ?
How can the NYPD and the MTA let this continue?
It is outright negligence.
you guys obviously don't understand america. I'm not justifying the fact that the guy killed someone with a car, just telling you the truth. America lets drivers who kill accidently get away with it cause to prosecute each and everyone of these guys would take a lot of taxpayers money. Commerce would grind to a halt. All those truckers moving freight from cheap labor in china can't drive 55 mph. they go 65-100. If people were handcuffed into driving responsibly America's economy would suffer. Blame it on the justice system's priorities. How can a man in America do a couple of days in prison for stealing a slice of pizza but do none for killing a small child with an automobile?
jojo- this country would not grind to halt. There are so many solutions that you are not even aware of.
mike- that's the problem. solutions are expensive and require forethought and afterthought. letting a small percentage of people get away with killing in cars is a cheap and effective way to go. Police officers hate arresting accidental drivers. We live a a pro-automobile society. I don't understand how you guys can think that we went to IRaq for any other reason to claim their oil for our CARS. We love our automobiles so much that we are willing to let people die for them. And to the person with the gun analogy; that's stupid. Cars kill more people than guns ever will in America. the reason why cars are different than guns is that even though they are very very dangerous, they aren't used purposely to kill people (most of the time). They are used for many more practical purposes, like transportation, recreation, making out, While a gun is only used as a lethal force weapon. You can't really use a gun in any practical matter besides shooting locks off.
Good God, Jojo has a license to drive.
more like a license to kill.
Here's something you don't know, those Christmas packages are not delivered by Trucks, it's mostly via Rail. Talk to any UPS hub guy.
everyone with a driver's license has a license to kill. think about it really hard. cars have been on the road for almost a century now. In 100 years has there ever been laws to curb deaths? NO. 100 years!!!!! there have been laws passed to ban smoking in bars but why not laws with penalties for drivers? People kill people with cars every second but no laws passed. WHY? We live in an unjust world and if you think about it really really hard you'll find the answer: and the answer is more people care about cars than other peoples lives. that's just the black and white truth.
jojo -- you are demonstrably wrong in every post. please educate yourself before posting anymore. i refer you to Sections 125.12 and 125.13 of the New York Penal Code: Vehicular Manslaughter in the first and second degrees.
Furthermore, the law recognizes a car as a dangerous instrument when it is used under circumstances that are readily capable of causing death (CPL Section 10). Therefore, you could potential indict under almost any theory of murder; and such prosecutions, contrary to your posts, are COMMON.
Dodo- vehicular manslaughter is only given to those who the jury finds has given gross negligence. If you were to get in a jury for running a red light they would not give you gross negligence. So a 35000 dollar a day trial would get nowhere fast.
(1) nowhere in those sections is "gross negligence" used (another jojo fiction)
(2) you still ignored alternative theories of homicide (including murder) for causing death with a motor vehicle
(3) why would the government worry about costs, when trial would be a much greater burden for an individual defendant
(4) indictment does not equal trial: which is why most of these cases result in plea bargains anyway!
As much as I want to internet punch jojo.
He/she is making a very real points, sad but true.
So, just so I have this straight, all accidents that result in a death deserve jail time? So, if you accidentally knock a flowerpot out of your sixth story window and it kills a six year old playing on the sidewalk, you will voluntarily go to jail without putting forth an argument, right?
Accidents happen. Life sucks, sorry.
Tom,
Running through a red light because you are "trying to beat the light" isn't an accident. It is a decision. In this case it was a very poorly considered decision that cost a child's life. This guy should pay.
*sigh* Again, In a court of law, it is very difficult to sway a jury to convict on vehicular manslaughter due to gross negligence by running a red light. You'd have to prove that the driver was actually running the red light, you'd have to have pictures or eyewitnesses who can testify at the very moment that person ran the redlight, you'd have to paint a picture of depraved indifference to the fact that he/she ran the redlight due to a sociopathic tendency. Now you see the jury is going to be made up by a lot of people who drive, and most of those people who drive have ran a redlight in some point of their lives. Now, if they convict this person it would be like convicting themselves. That's why no one goes to jail for this.
The guy admitted to running the red light.
We can't just give up because "everyone does it." That's bullcrap. I don't do it. Not by accident, not on purpose. I've been driving for 20 years. All over the country. All over NYC and Brooklyn. Never even came close to hitting a human.
in 1987 my grandmother was killed by a drunk driver in queens during the day when we ran through a red light and hit her. the guy went to jail for the dwi but got nothing for the manslaughter/murder.
yeah sure, it's tough in a city this size to try to actually make it better for everyone. seeking to save the lives of the young and the old, the innocent and the unprotected is tough when it causes any expense to the entitled. that doesn't mean there shouldn't be people hoping that positive change will happen, and trying to see that it does.
jojo, from a legal viewpoint, i know that what you're saying makes sense.
i just hope it's not your loved one getting run over by a truck next time.