This past week, I was saddened to read about the tragic deaths of two competitive bicyclists in the horrible accident involving a deputy from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department. The young deputy’s life will never be the same, as he will have to live with the consequences and, probably worse, his own memories of this tragedy.
Aside from it being an immensely sad situation for the friends and family of the victims, it seems the way the situation was handled has contributed to the cloudiness around the facts of the accident. According to the reports, the sheriff’s department ushered Deputy James “Tommy” Council away from the scene, which doesn’t seem like proper protocol. Instead of keeping him on the scene answering questions and making sure proper procedures were followed, they have created this huge cloud of doubt, mistrust and anger. Unfortunately, we see this all the time with law enforcement and within government agencies.
Because the facts are so clouded, people make snap judgments with the limited information they have. They know this deputy had a DUI when he was younger, so automatically people connect dots that maybe should not be connected. But this is what happens when people are silent. It’s unfortunate that this deputy is being accused of drinking on the job. However, when there is secrecy and mishandling, people draw their own conclusions. This was probably a young, eager deputy sheriff who worked hard to join the department. Perhaps he made a mistake that any one of us could have made.
Like everyone, I wonder what really happened. Was he too tired from a long shift? Or was it something more than that? Maybe it was something out of the deputy’s control, like a health problem that caused him to black out at the wheel? We all want answers and I hope for everyone’s sake we get them.
My thoughts go out to all involved.
Well, the boys in blue certainly circled the wagons quickly; and they’re still circled. The fact that his father is also a peace officer lends credence to the cover-up theory.
And what about the official CHP statement that “there was no evidence that [the deputy] had fallen asleep at the wheel? Sorry, Mr. CHP flak, but 2 people stated they had heard the deputy state that he must have fallen asleep. Those statements are not only evidence; they are admissible evidence in court.
The D.A.‘s office has said protocol required they be called so that they could send an investiigator to the scene.
Blood should have been drawn promptly to see if drugs or alcohol might have been involved.
Several days have passed, and the silence grows deafening.
When confronted with a tragedy, especially one that in the end will likely be attributed to nothing more than simple human error, we all seem programmed to dive into the details in hopes of finding something unique enough so that we might continue to deny the reality of our ever-present vulnerability. In the case involving the deputy, a young man who made a mistake with truly horrible consequences, the thought that something so common and benign as momentary driver inattention might erase the lives of two fine young people drives us all to look for something more significant (and hopefully find something that we ourselves have never done).
But in the end I suspect we will all be disappointed and discover that the young deputy’s mistake was a common one: driving without proper rest, dialing a phone, texting a message, or maybe just admiring the view.
As anyone who frequently drives mountainous or coastal roads will attest, the real danger posed by even the tightest curves comes from oncoming traffic—vehicles drifting wide on right curves or cutting corners on left ones. Tourists, motorcyclists, multi-taskers, and idiots in a hurry are just as likely to hit you head-on as is any drunk driver.
And speaking of drunk driving: just because the news media had the bad judgment to muddle the accident story by bringing-up the young deputy’s collegiate mistake of seven years ago doesn’t make it relevant. The days of cops drinking on duty, at least locally, passed many decades ago. The odds that the deputy had a drink that day are very low; the odds that his impairment might’ve been missed by his supervisor or coworkers even lower; the odds that any of them would’ve risked their careers to cover for him, non-existent. Remember, this was a case in which outside scrutiny was mandatory.
As for the decision to silence the deputy at the scene, I guarantee you that the policy behind that decision was born in the offices of the County Counsel many, many years ago. The cost of a tragedy—in settlement dollars—can only increase if an involved employee is allowed a chance to express his sorrow (or culpability) in words. For any deep-pockets entity, one “it was all my fault” statement is all it takes to squander the settlement-reducing value of mitigating circumstances. If you put yourself in the position of the deputy, confronted with the horrible consequences of your error and trying to somehow, in a state of shock, comfort those beyond comforting by searching for the non-existent right words, it might help you understand why he was removed from the scene.
Single Gal is right to grieve for the dead and feel compassion for the deputy. This was a genuine tragedy, unique in that it involved someone sworn to protect us, but otherwise just one more very ordinary story of innocent people dying from simple human error. Too bad this tragedy was compounded by the media’s deplorable reporting. Too bad that the gullible public finds it shocking that a police agency would hire someone who once made a mistake in college, or that reporters believe it okay to slander an already devastated young man by injecting into this story a component, drunk driving, that was suggested by neither the circumstances nor the witnesses at the scene.
Absent additional developments, the only mishandling of this case of any consequence was by the media.
Good post finfan. I thought your comments were very well thought out and reasoned as well as compassionate. (unlike #1 whose cynicism and unsubstantiated accusations prevent rational thought).