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Speeding Public Officials Face Charges After Fatalities

By Eddie Farah

They are sworn to protect the public, but instead these individuals are being charged with endangering it.

Criminal charges will be filed against a Jacksonville Sheriff's officer and a Jacksonville Fire Rescue district chief. Both men were involved in speeding incidents that left two elderly men dead, in separate incidents.

We've reported on one incident - the case of 86-year-old Matthew Ogden Jr. who was broadsided by a JSO police car driven by Officer Marcus Kilpatrick last January. Ogden was killed at the scene by the speeding officer who was in pursuit of another motorist who reportedly had tinted windows.

Witnesses say the emergency lights weren't even on when Kilpatrick slammed into Ogden's truck at about 60 mph after he had been speeding at 100 mph.

In the other crash, District Fire Chief Adrian Johnson is facing charges of culpable negligence after a November crash with a car driven by Howard Corrigan, 75. In that case too, police say Johnson did not have a siren on. No word on who or what he was pursuing.

Kilpatrick is also facing culpable negligence charges as well as charges that he lied during an investigation.

We are sorry for the loss of both of these men.

The law allows both officers to face charges that are misdemeanors. And while they can carry a jail time of up to one year, the State Attorney's Office is saying that jail time may not be appropriate in these cases.

Just what should the punishment be for killing two people? What would be the punishment for one citizen hitting and killing another?

With at least 400 estimated deaths from police collisions across the U.S. (and some say that might be double), Voices Insisting on Pursuit Safety, and the Orlando-based advocacy group, Pursuit Watch, say enough is enough.

Both of these groups were formed after someone they loved was killed by a police vehicle, Candy Priano lost her daughter Kristie, who was killed in the back of the family minivan on the way to her high school basketball game by a police car in pursuit, and John Phillips of Orlando, lost his 20-year-old sister Sarah when a cruiser hit her car traveling 70 mph.

Phillips has helped Orange County develop one of the most responsible and restrictive pursuit policies in the nation which sometimes means there is no chase. Its adoption follows a similarly restrictive policy by the Orange County Sheriff's Office in the fall of 2003.

Sometimes police forget their job isn't to catch a bad guy but to protect the public.

The State Attorney's office is showing incredibly bad judgment here by letting two individuals skate. If anything they should be held to a higher standard of public safety than the rest of us, not a lower one. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Full post as published by Jacksonville Personal Injury Lawyer on May 08, 2009 (boomark / email).