Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Drunk cop in copcar kills biker, DUI & murder charges dropped



The Dragonator says: The current punishment for 1st-degree murder by drunk driving is death penalty or life in prison, and the legal limit for blood-alcohol is 0.00%...Unless you're a cop. Cops always hire the best criminal defense lawyers, or rather the FOP uses your donations to hire the best lawyers for cops. Note how the "news" fails to report that dozens of ordinary chemicals and bodily fluids give a false positive of so-called blood-alcohol tests -- a fact all cops know when it applies to them -- proving that "news" corporations are paid by the Police State to lie to you.


Outcry Swift After DUI Charges Against Officer Dropped

Indianapolis, IN. Aug. 20 – Questions about how Indianapolis police have handled a fatal drunken-driving investigation of one of their own officers became that much more pointed Thursday.

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi announced he would drop the most serious charges against officer David Bisard. Why? Because Bisard’s fellow police officers had botched the case.

The reaction was swift — and far-reaching.

An embarrassed Public Safety Director Frank Straub announced that the FBI will be brought in on the case. He also removed a lieutenant from his positions as commander of the department’s hit-and-run unit and coordinator of the multiagency Fatal Alcohol Crash Team.

One victim’s family called the dismissal a "travesty." A legal expert said the police ineptness leaves the public with little choice but to wonder whether the bungled case was more than an accident. And Mayor Greg Ballard has become increasingly frustrated as he seeks answers, as well.

"The people in the city are not the only ones wondering what happened at the scene," Ballard said. "I am, too."

Straub and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Chief Paul Ciesielski repeated their insistence Thursday that Bisard received "absolutely no deference" from fellow officers Aug. 6 after he crashed his cruiser into two motorcycles that were stopped at a light.

The impact of the crash — which occurred while Bisard, 36, was responding to a request for help serving a warrant, with his cruiser’s lights and siren activated — killed Eric Wells, 30, and seriously injured two other riders.

Bisard surrendered after prosecutors learned a blood test had shown his blood-alcohol level was 0.19 — more than twice the level at which an Indiana driver is considered intoxicated.

But that arrest didn’t come until five days after the crash because of the lag in test results. The delay in arresting Bisard drew scrutiny from some — as did the fact that no officers conducted field-sobriety or breath tests of Bisard at the scene.

Or that nobody seemed to suspect Bisard might have been drinking. Officers who interacted with Bisard after the crash have insisted he showed no signs of being impaired.

But more problematic for Brizzi: The officers failed to follow proper procedures in collecting that blood sample — and it was the only evidence that Bisard was intoxicated…

"Everything else can be explained away," said Henry Karlson, an expert on criminal procedure and a professor emeritus at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis.

But add in the mishap with the blood draw by seasoned alcohol-crash investigators, he said, and "there’s only so many mistakes you can make before it starts looking like a plan."

Affidavit of Probable Cause - Drunk cop hit 3 RUBs on Harleys stopped at redlight, knocked them 125 feet

UPDATES - IMPD Chief Paul Ciesielski demoted three officers including his second-in-command following the case of Officer David Bisard. Authorities say a blood test showing Bisard was drunk cannot be used in court because the person who drew Bisard's blood did not have the right certification. Hundreds of people packed Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis Friday night to protest the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's botched investigation of one of its own. A thunderous roar of motorcycle engines permeated the air as bikers showed support for three of their own, those killed and injured when Officer David Bisard struck them while he was on duty and intoxicated, authorities said.

North Carolina Review Finds Crime Lab Fixed Murder Cases - In March, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper ordered an independent review by two former FBI agents of the State Bureau of Inspection (SBI), the state's crime lab, after an agent testified that the crime lab had an unwritten policy of excluding complete blood tests results from reports provided to defense lawyers before trials. The report was released today and it has shocking results. The independent review found that the crime lab omitted, overstated or falsely reported blood tests in dozens of cases. The cases involved three that ended in executions and another involving the murder of Michael Jordan's father. The report found that the crime lab repeatedly aided prosecutors in obtaining convictions over 16 years by misrepresenting blood evidence and keeping important notes and documents from defense attorneys. The report calls on the review of 190 criminal cases in which "information that may have been material and even favorable to the defense of an accused defendant was withheld or misrepresented." The report finds that the lab may have violated federal and state laws that evidence favorable to the defendants must be disclosed to their lawyers. At least four of those cases involve inmates that are on death row and one inmate whose death sentence was commuted to life.

No comments:

Post a Comment