Man killed in crash had been stopped by cops hours earlier

During the initial stop, Jason Stacy was found to have had a blood-alcohol content of 0.12 -- legally drunk. He wasn't arrested, and three hours later he was killed in a fiery crash. (WISC-TV)

Comments

[Soo]

Cops playing Darwin? Who knew?

[wonderin']

At least he took himself out and no one else. If he'd killed someone AFTER he got pulled over and let go, the cop involved would have had his ass sued off....

[jdotglenn]

Cops playing big bleeding idiots is more like it. I'm sure that lady friend of his would have keep him off the road...but she probably thought it was okay because the cops let him go. Lock up drunks, coppers. Hobos and yuppies are all the same.

I'm glad this scabby ween hit a tree or whatever.

[elchampino]

As it is the dead dude's family is going to sue the cop's ass off anyway, I'm sure.

This is a tough one. The cop decides to go easy on the guy - giving him some tickets but not the big DUI charge. He makes sure someone comes to pick the guy up so he gets home safe and isn't putting anyone else at risk. And then this fool, who has been handed a one-in-a-million break (two one in a million breaks really - getting off easy from the cop and getting home in one piece after getting behind the wheel slammed) jumps back in the car and takes himself out.

Technically the cop is in error I guess. I suppose he could have hauled the guy into the drunk tank to sober up and still not given him a DUI if he wanted to go easy. But this guy seemed determined to kill himself in a fiery wreck.

[wonderin']

Definitely 'mission accomplished' then.

[tfangel]

So why don't we treat drunk drivers like pedophiles? They kill more and cause more damange than pedos, yet they always get slaps on the wrist even when serious injury happens. Their cars should have big letters proclaiming that they are drunk drivers after the first stop. Let people know to avoid them, or have a national drunk driver registry.

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

Years ago I was driving home after some time at a pub. Just blocks after I left, I was pulled over by a cop, who didn't pull me over for driving - it was because I had only put my parking lights on and not my headlights. Actually an easy mistake -the dash lights were on and I was in a well lit area - this gave me no real clues they weren't on.

She saw that I had been drinking and gave me the whole field sobriety test and a breathalyzer. I was a few points under the legal limit. She told me to go for a walk, have a coffee, and drive home later.

I walked for about half an hour and then drove home.

[Soo]

I'm with you, tfangel.

Consider my sister: after her 4th dui which lead to a week in the pokey, her attitude made me want to club her: "I just don't understand all the hatin'. It's not like I killed somebody, you know."

And the thing is, she really didn't learn from this, other than not to drive drunk in Ohio.

[Cherie]

By the time I was 20...I'd lost 4 people to drunk driving...my neighbor was killed in front of his 8 mo pregnant wife while changing a tire on the side of the road...drunk driver swerved off the road and hit him...AND kept going....my best friend's father was on his way to work at 3am our Senior year and was broadsided and killed by a drunk driver and 2 of my High School friends had been out partying and were on their way home Xmas Eve morning when they struck and killed a father of 6 and themselves....its this simple folks...>DONT DRINK AND DRIVE< Dont drive a little buzzed...dont assume because you haven't killed anyone yet that you wont....In regards to THIS guy...it was his time...no point second guessing what the cops SHOULD have done.

[The Asshole Guy]

I have a great deal of respect for most involved in law enforcement but this officer needs to be fired. Officers are there to serve and protect. This officer did none of that.

My 2-Cent guess is the cop "gave the guy a break" because he was a friend or relative or they were one degree of separation somehow. So call a friend and let him take off.... It will come out eventually....

Too bad drunks rarely learn or get the message; now he's just another Darwin Award winner....

[Nell]

The penalty in Alaska for DUI is
First Offence: up to $3000 fine (yes 3 thousand dollars), mandatory 3 days as a guest in the local lockup; 30 days suspended license.

Subsequent offences--the fines keep jumping and the mandatory jail time increases.

There are folks up there working off 15K and 30K drunk driving *fines*. {That's the part I find really hard to get my head around--you've been through the wringer at least once, so you know enforcement is really happening and you Keep Doing It?)

[Sean, Torrington CT]

So it's not OK to drive drunk if you don't kill someone, but it's OK to speed if you don't kill someone?

DUI laws are seriously rediculous

[The Asshole Guy]

I think Sean needs a hug or was not hugged enough as a child. You have a lot of anger issues.

They don't necessarily arrest people for DUI where I live. The city cops usually just issue a summons and tow the car. If someone wants to go and plow into a tree it's their decision, but I think trees deserve more respect than that.

[WZ]

DUI laws are ridiculous. Once you've proven you lack the capacity to drive responsibility (without shooting your chance of killing anyone else on the road through the roof), you should have that priviledge permanently removed. I feel the same about gun ownership, once your toddler shoots your preschooler because you were too stupid and irresponsible to lock up your gun, you should never be allowed to own a gun again.
But maybe rediculous means something else.
Or maybe Sean doesn't think DUI affects one's driving. Or maybe he seriously needs to stop DUI.

[UpperClass Becky]

Albuquerque has a law (I don't know why it isn't statewide, yet) that after your second offense, you lose your car, and it's put on the auction block. It used to be third offense. But that just wasn't getting the message across. The ACLU stepped in at one point and said it was unconstitutional...the court asked them to point out in the constitution the part that gives you the right to own a vehicle. They couldn't. The law was reinstated.

The rest of the state has somewhat lax DWI laws. Recently I read an article about a man who had just been arrested for his 28th DWI. He no longer had a license, but that didn't stop him from driving. Great enforcement, huh?

[Soo]

I'd like to see someone get balls big enough to put through legislation like this:

Any "impaired" driving offense (drugs, alcohol, sexytime in the front seat, stuff like that) results in instant car crushage. Seems to me that would put the kibosh on idiots like my sister and those 28-timers.

TAG I swear that was just teh funnay, saying Sean has "anger issues." Maybe it's the day I've had, but I lol'd.

[UpperClass Becky]

Soo, it must have been bad. You're starting to write like I usually do when I'm tired!:P

[UpperClass Becky]

In 1969, long before DWI laws began to be strictly enforced, my oldest brother had three beers, when three girls coasted into the gas station he was closing up for the night. He told them to leave the car and he would give them a ride home to Santa Rosa, which is almost 200 miles from Albuquerque. He did fine all the way there. My other brother's friend and some other guy was with them. I'm sure that cutting up and showing off for the girls helped. On the way back, they got just a few miles out of Santa Rosa, when, apparently my brother either fell asleep or passed out. He hit a bridge abutment and did a spinning nose-dive to the roadbed below. He was thrown out the driver's side window. The front seat passenger, my other brother's friend, went through the windshield. The backseat passenger was asleep or passed out in the backseat and didn't even receive a bruise. The car landed upside down on my brother and the front seat passenger. It crushed my brother's skull. The other man was crushed from the middle of his back down, but survived. My brother, of course, died instantly. If the DWI laws had been enforced, then, his death might have been prevented. He would have already lost his license, because he had priors, and my dad would have sold his car. But we can't live in the land of if only.

The reason I told this story is to point out that it doesn't matter if it's 1 beer or a dozen or more, It affects your judgement, or it makes you sleepy. In my brother's case, it did both. And too many people die this way. I wish DWI laws here in the southwest would tighten up. New Mexico has one of the highest DWI rates in the country. And they usually result in an innocent person being killed.

[Soo]

Your story is similar to why I'm such a dedicated DD: my father's father "had a few" before going home after work and hit another car, killing a dad, a pregnant mom, 2 of the 3 kids, and himself. I sometimes wonder how the survivor turned out.

My father was about 14. I never got the chance to meet a really funny guy who was musically gifted enough to play in a session band for Chubby Checkers and who was also asked to play in a session band for Dean Martin in Vegas, who had stories to tell of growing up with immigrant parents, stories of driving Gen Patton around during WW2, why playing the accordion is important, etc. (for some reason, he insisted on every one of his kids learning to play the accordion, but none of them could say why that was.

All because of "one for the road."

Granted, this was in the early 60s and cars didn't have the safety features they do now, but that doesn't change the fact that he could have skipped the alcohol knowing his only way home was to drive himself.

[UpperClass Becky]

Very Sad, but true. Why? Are they on a suicide mission? I've often wondered about my brother. Here's the kicker: Alcoholism seems to run in the men on my mother's side of the family, seems it was passed down to my brother and my son. The women in the family seem to have problems with bipolar disorder or depression. It makes me wonder what went wrong in that family, and when.

[Ace]

So why not just ban alcohol?

Go back to the days of the Prohibition?
I need to read up on how that started, lasted and died.

If alcohol impairs judgment, how the hell can we expect the drinker to decide if one drink was ok, or if he/she needs to get a ride?

[Cherie]

Pot's illegal...and for those of you that have smoked it...I'm sure you'd attest that being drunk and being high...both alter your ability to think and physically react. Alcohol is a drug...why NOT make it illegal...like all the other drugs?

[Oriole]

Almost as dangerous as drunk drivers are over-tired drivers, and there are more of them on the road than you probably realize. I used to work in the steel industry, and it was common practice for a salesman to promise a load of steel to a customer in Texas (I'm in Michigan) on X date, even though he'd already checked the production schedule and knew that the load wouldn't be ready until two days prior to the required delivery date. He'd slip the driver some cash under the table to get him to drive straight through from Detroit to Brownsville non-stop. The drivers fudge their log books and know how to avoid many weigh stations. So you've got guys racing down the Interstate functioning on nothing but caffeine while hauling 80,000 lbs. or more of steel coils.

My brother is a truck driver and is walking around in his sleep most of the time. His route is double what it used to be (company keeps laying off drivers due to gas prices) and I can't help but picture that day that he falls asleep behind the wheel and kills himself and/or other innocent people.

[WZ]

Drunk people know they're drunk and know it's illegal to drive, they also choose to become drunk. This means before they purposely impair themselves, they have options to make it as safe as possible, including giving up their car keys.
My dad's advice for driving drunk: close one eye. Takes care of the double vision.
That is actually my dad's best advice.
LOL.

[Ace]

Oriole, that's sad on so many levels.

WZ, "Drunk people know they're drunk", actually there was a study somewhere (don't you just love that sentence? *grin*) that people who drink keep underestimating just how drunk they really are. I think they had a 1 to 10 scale of self assessment of impairment.

So for someone deciding on going on a binge, or knowing that it is going to be a crazy weekend can choose not to drive.

The problem is when people drop into a place for a 'quick one' which then become two because they don't really feel buzzed "and it's probably because of the heavy meal/coffee I had" and then have another and another...

And as to closing one eye, I can see a drunk right now, closing one eye...still seeing stuff blurred....chooses to close the other eye too....aah...much better.

:D
Ace.