Suspect In Fiery, Deadly I-70 Crash Bonds Out Of Jail

So you would choose to kill others to save yourself, that's a hell of a thing to admit, explains a lot though. When you choose to save yourself and get others killed, you pay the price, whether that's jail for 30 years, life or your head.

 

What distinguishes a Cuban citizen from an American is nationality, not race or ethnicity.
He's not an American. That is a reference to nationality. I don't see anything sad about that distinction.
Or even necessarily about the other distinctions you mentioned, though they do not apply in this case. They don't consider me Thai in Thailand. I require permission to enter and they can refuse it or kick me out whenever they please, and that's exactly how it should be.

 

Does anyone know what was on the other side of the truck sitting on the shoulder? I would like to think I would have ditched it before hitting anything, but there may have been a reason he couldn't have.
I doubt the guy was thinking about killing anybody to save himself, but he didn't think about saving them either.I
It will serve no one any purpose to feed and house him for a large number of years, let him serve his 5 or whatever he gets and deport him.

 

There was a narrow shoulder and an upslope berm of grass leading to the get-on ramp to the right of that parked trailer. He could have turned right and maybe had a better chance of not hitting anyone, though it seems likely to me that there were probably cars parked on that get-on ramp, too, since the original wreck that caused the traffic to stop was a mile further down the road. But still, he could have turned right instead of left into parked cars.

 

I'm as Conservative as they come.. and I'll 100% agree with you on that one.
If he was here on a green card, he was DOCUMENTED.
As Conservatives, that's all we (the sane ones) are asking.
Slam the door on ILLEGAL immigration..
The comments about this guy being an Illegal are unfounded and uncalled for. He had papers.

Now, whether he had command of the English language and should have been behind the wheel of that truck is an entirely separate story.

 

He could've gone a little farther right off the right side of the exit, where there was nobody if you watched the one video, there was a nice grassy area he could've wrecked himself on and injured no one.

 

eh?

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas

 

Wow, so many comments so fast. I guess I'm one of the people saying throw the book at this guy. My reasoning has nothing to do with his nationality or his ethnicity. It has to do with the fact that the guy can't speak English (cops needed interpreters, and the lawyer was translating for him in court). He shouldn't have been driving a truck. I don't know when his brakes "failed" -- and there's at least two different interpretations of what that means, which will likely never been proven by forensic evidence since the truck burned up.

If he couldn't stop the truck, I think that had to have happened by the time he passed up the escape ramp six miles before the crash. I think it's really obvious that he should have taken the escape ramp. I'm pretty sure every driver on this forum would have taken the escape ramp if their brakes had failed. There's video proof that he could have taken the escape ramp, and he chose not to, for whatever reason.

I believe he didn't take the escape ramp at least in part because he can't read English and he didn't know what an escape ramp was for. Now I don't care if he's from Cuba or Russia or backwoods North Carolina, if you can't read English and you don't know enough to take the escape ramp when your brakes have failed as you're coming down the mountain, and then you end up crashing into a bunch of parked cars and killing four people, injuring 12, and wrecking 28 cars and 4 trucks, you ought to go to jail for a long time. It was negligent. People are in prison right now because they were convicted of negligent homicide or manslaughter or something similar.

So please, spare me the comments making this guy seem better than he is. He negligently killed four people. Comparing it to the Las Vegas shooter is silly. Comparing it to other drivers who have negligently killed other people because they didn't operate their truck safely and carefully is more appropriate. I'm not ready to cut any of them slack, regardless of their race, creed, religion, language, national origin, or political party.

Maybe it seems harsh to judge the guy in the court of public opinion based on some news articles, but the people saying that haven't come up with any facts to counter what we already know:

1. He bypassed the runaway truck ramp even though he had a clear shot into it as shown by video, and that had to be after his brakes had already failed.
2. He closed his eyes and steered away from the truck parked on the shoulder and into a bunch of cars full of people, on purpose, by his own admission.
3. He was not qualified to hold a CDL since he cannot speak English well enough to communicate with law enforcement without an interpreter.

There's plenty of negligence here, just like the other truck crashes where someone runs into the back of a line of stopped cars because they fell asleep or were hunting for their dropped sandwich on the floor or playing with their phone or whatever. Oh, he was terrified! Oh, he's real sorry!

Oh, he should go to jail. Tell me why he shouldn't, but please do it using some facts, like "someone sabotaged his brakes the last time he stopped his truck" or "there was a school bus full of children parked in front of the runaway ramp" or "he thought all the parked cars were there because he thought they were just props for shooting a movie on I-70." Something. Not, "gee, he's so young and good-looking, we shouldn't put him away for half his life just for killing four people and injuring twelve others even though he never should have been driving a truck over that hill."

 

What's so hard to understand about that, you chose to save yourself and kill others in the process, now you pay the price, you said you'd choose the same thing instead of smashing the back end of the truck on shoulder.