Colorado trucker gets 110 years for crash

I don’t think many people are claiming that he’s an innocent victim of racism. Most of the criticism is that the sentence is way disproportionate

 

Not so much. Twatter, reeeeeeddit, crapbook and a ton of other places are blowing up about the rasist gooberment punishing him unfairly because mah racism. whereas if you actully follow the case you can see there were REASONS he was charged the way he was. Hell the attempting to flee the scene alone did a huge chunck of the damage towards makeing the charges worse god forbid trying to flee the country. Add in everything else and it forced the judge to give him the maximum sentince via the morons own actions.

 

I’ve not seen it reported he attempted to flee except for here, that aside though, the reasons he was charged was because it was a big media case and prosecutors are politicians, he didn’t know to demand an attorney instead of talking to the police.

none of what you described is justification for a 110 year sentence

 

After looking at the petition signed by over 2 million people, there are parts of their argument that I agree with.
First off, this kid was 23 when the accident happened, and although there isn't an exact date, it appears he entered the US just a couple months before the accident. If he came from Cuba, he didn't have much or any commercial driving experience that would have helped him in the US on mountain roads. Second, he had only worked for the company for 2 weeks. It stated that he was happy to get an interstate job out of Texas because it meant more money for his wife and kid. I've been searching for quite a while, and there just isn't any info out there on exactly when he obtained his CDL. Obviously he was a resident of Texas, so we know he got it there, but we don't know if he went to school, or got his CDL through a trucking company that also could give CDL tests. In any case, he was pulling spread axle loaded with lumber down one of the worst grades in the US with 2 weeks of experience under his belt. The company had 10 brake related OOS violations, and 3 for drivers that didn't understand or speak English. So his employer with 5 trucks and 5 drivers only hired Hispanics that were pretty new to the US.

Bottom line, yes the kid needs to pay for his stupidity, but in my opinion the truck company that threw him on the road with no experience is the one that should really be paying the price for this fiasco. The owner should be doing some serious time behind bars.

 

Really? Man killed 4 mained and injured many others, lied multiple times, tried to run from the scene, tried to flee the country to a no extradition nation hostile to us i.e escape crimes and judgment. Bypassed multiple options to safely stop his truck. May or may not have had an illegal CDL, willingly drove a poorly maintained truck and you dont think he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison and that he should get off with a metaphorical slap on the wrist?

Oh some additional details i was able to find after extra digging. He or rather his legal team tried to blame a broke down driver and additionally he said it was his first time through the pass. They found he had been through it at least TWICE before. So the whole 2 weeks experince thing doesnt hold water.

Trucking News: - Truck driver in deadly I-70 crash says that another trucker was to blame...

Furthermore there are eyewitness accounts of him driveing like a madman prior to the wreck.



Infact there is VIDEO of it


So no thats a load of rancid grade A horse ####. This guy deserves life for his actions. There are just to many accounts of him having a blatent disregard for life. Regardless of experince, regardless of where he came from, all the evidence, all the eye witnesses, all of the signs point to this being justified.

 

I think a big reason they went so hard after this kid was that the trucking carrier carried only the 750,000 minimum and closed their doors pretty quickly after the crash.

 

1) yes, he was responsible for an accident, that is not contested
2) “lied multiple times” did he? What are you basing that off of? The police interviews immediately after the fact? You ever been involved in an actual police interrogation? Their whole technique is scientifically designed to get you to admit to elements of the highest offense they can charge you with while reducing your credibility.
3) “tried to flee the country” again this has been asserted but never sourced. Although this really doesn’t matter much to me. Exile is in fact a valid response to manslaughter in the Bible.
4) “to a country hostile to the US”
You don’t pick where you are born, it was his home country, and the status of Cuba’s relationship with the United States is not relevant in this case
5) “bypassed multiple options to safely stop the truck”
Yes, he should’ve taken the ramp. Again this is negligence and not malice. It’s likely he didn’t even know what the ramp was.
6) “may or may not have had an illegally obtained CDL” well we just had a criminal trial, was the status of his CDL brought up? If you’re making this allegation you should source it.
7) “willingly drove a poorly maintained truck” ok, again this is part of negligence and not malice

8) “and you don’t think he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison”

correct

9) “there’s eyewitness accounts of him driving like a madman before the wreck”

it looks like a truck that’s out of gear down a hill. This is not contested. It looks like a runaway truck.
10) I can provide you list of accident after accident where drivers of both personal and commercial vehicles, and sea captains in fatal ship accidents, and airline pilots in crashes, and various other mishaps have killed more people and either not been charged or only served single didget number of years in prison

 

In order responding

1. We agree here no comment needed.

2. He claimed he could not speak english, this was disputed and proven false with link AND source as one example.

3. I will admit im having problems finding the article again with the huge explosion of more recent ones, ill post it when i find it.

4. Yes this IS relivent in this case the hostile to the u.s part was mentioned as it means the odds of our ever getting him to trail had he gotten away are ZERO thus his trying to run away adds a lot of guilt.

5. It was proven he could infact understand english, the ramps he bypassed say RUN AWAY TRUCKS with a bloody arrow in giant bold letters. He had an out of control runaway truck anyone with the IQ of a mentally damaged slug should be able to figure it out. Especially WHEN IT IS IN THE GODS ###### HANDBOOK section 2.16.4 of the TEXAS CDL handbook specifically. If he took the test he should KNOW what a runaway ramp is. ESPECIALLY if he took it less then "two weeks before"

6. I quoted the #### LAW that REQUIRES you speak english. If he cant speak it then his CDL was illegally obtained, if he can then thats why i included the may or may not have. This should be clear.

7. Correct it is PART of negligence i have never once said malice. I have said WILLINGLY, just because you are willing does not mean mallice. It is however a contributeing factor and a large one in my opinion towards this being a disregard of life when collectivly taken with everything else.

8. I entirely disagree and will keep presenting my case. We may or may not ever agree here.

9. Normally yes. However his swerveing away from BOTH runaway ramps while driving the way he did and the understanding he SHOULD have known if his CDL was legal puts an entirely diffrent face on this.

10. Yes, yes you can. And i am not debateing that. However, the law as written mandates the actions and sentence taken. This wreck was unprecidented for a vast number of reasons and several of his choices and actions pushed this sentence to where it currently is. In my opinion he got the sentence he deserved for what he did. If you dislike it then instead of debateing on if what is being unjust which it is not inherently due to the law being followed. Then you should focus on asking why the laws mandate this and asking if the reasoning behind the laws is still valid. If it is then there is nothing to be done he got what he deserved. If it is NOT, then find out why, how to improve them and if this case would fall under thosr improvments. This is the correct way forward.

 

I totally agree with that. I think it's too much I'm a trucker and I'm sure his company knew it was a horrible idea and his ambition drove him to say yes sir I'll do it.. only problem is he had like no experience for what he was doing.. I don't think he should be in jail for the rest of his life ya I know people are going to say but what about the people he killed? It's sad that it happened but he should never have been in that position its his and the companies fault I would say 20/80 he gets 20 company looses all rights to even clean toilets in a trucking company his boss or dispatcher should be the ones prosecuted .. just my opinion.. because if they justify tossing every trucker in jail for life if someone dies in an ACCIDENT I'll quit driving tomorrow because it's not always in your control that's why it's called an accident.. I also feel like it may be a huge media thing because they hate trucks and holy shizzle they got a good example..so they run with it .. my opinion is companies fault

 

I thought the same way, however, you can't be fair if you judge people with your emotions. I totally understand what you mean by that. all I have to say is that we are not in his shoes and /nor the victims also. so, it is hard or unfair to make judgements based on filings. but if we want to be fair, we should compare how justice works for some people in our society. there are people who committed worse crimes than this driver and never put a foot in jail. there are people who committed atrocities in this country and never pay a dime for their crimes, so what is it ????
we want to be fair? we want justice??? what is it ?? what is justice ?? a good amount of money and a good lawyers ???