Biker down and justice left the building

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From: Matteu
Subject: File this under STFU
Jonny,
galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso…

I survived Hurricane Ike, staying on the island throughout the storm. The morning after the storm I helped pull helpless women and children from the attics of their flooded homes.

And in spite of all of the devastation I witnessed, this is the true tragedy.

What do you tell the victim’s family? I’m sorry our cops are such sloppy, arrogant, and incompetent assholes, but your son’s killer will walk away.

Police down here are already under investigation for numerous travesties of justice, but this sends a very bad message just before the Lone Star Triathlon Festival down here on the island in April.

Galveston clearly has little regard for cyclist. Every morning I leave my house to train and I’m treated like a crackhead and criminal because I’m riding a bike.

Last year I successfully lobbied for the police department to abolish it’s ‘right to stop and search’ policy towards cyclists (GPD claims the policy was set in place to combat drug dealing, and selectively enforced). Since then, I’ve seen the number of recreational and competitive cyclist grow almost overnight.

And then this? That man walked out the courtroom today and probably headed straight to the bar. I wonder how many cyclists he passed.

-Matteu

The cyclist in this tragic episode, Daniel Gonzales III, was 16 years old.

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About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

19 Replies to “Biker down and justice left the building”

  1. If I lived nearby I might be inclined to hand out some vigilante justice to a 67 year old’s wrinkly drunk ass. The police officers probably deserve a beating even more than the driver does though.

    Even if the blood sample was obtained by not following strict police procedure, how the hell does a BAC of 4 times the legal limit not warrant a conviction for someone who essentially murdered another human being through his own reckless negligence?????? The jurors have to bear that responsibility as well.

    Shit is unreal. After commenting yesterday on the biker down post, I was on my way back home from a 2 hour ride when a minivan veered straight into my lane, pushing me into a ditch. It felt like it was in slow motion. The driver was avoiding my neighbor who was walking his dog towards traffic. The idiot behind the wheel was so fixated on the dog that he drove directly into my path. I steered of the road and yelled into his open window to watch out. Since I was literally 2 houses away from mine, I turned around and followed him down the street and proceeded to critique his driving skills or lack thereof in front of his entire family in his front yard. Guy was about 50 and since he lived in my neighborhood I tried not to get too heated, but it’s hard when you just had a ton of metal driving 35mph straight at you. I think I managed a nice ratio of insults to information about right of way and being aware when your behind the wheel of an automobile. His red complexion and apologetic demeanor confirmed that I was successful in making him feel like a 15 year old in front of his children. Hopefully he’ll watch what he’s doing from now on…….or just hate cyclists. Dammit.

    I realized you gotta keep your guard up no matter where you are.

  2. If the Gonzales family is smart they will crush that guy in the civil suite… it will be very easy for them to win a civil lawsuit, that is if they are smart enough to file one?
    But most people don’t know the difference between a civil lawsuit and criminal… unfortunately (and sometimes fortunately) it is still very hard to convict someone of any kind of manslaughter that was perpetrated while behind the wheel of a car. The “accident” part of our driving laws is very interpretive and extremly vague when it comes to convicting the driver of anything more than reckless driving even if they are drunk.
    It is still very hard because we are a very civil society and we do not have the “eye for an eye” mentality that we should have for this kind of crap… I don’t know how many people here have been in an “accident” but could you imagine getting sent to prison for a mistake that was nowhere near premeditated? That is why he didn’t get convicted because our laws protect such a broad range of “accidents” that his lawyer was probably laughing his way through the trial… knowing a conviction was a 1 in a million chance!
    But he will get what is coming to him in the end!

  3. “followed him down the street and proceeded to critique his driving skills or lack thereof in front of his entire family in his front yard.”

    Pfaff-

    Do you think this made him a better driver? Or maybe it just made you feel better to light into the guy? Believe me, I know how hard it is to keep it in perspective when, as you saliently point out- the guy almost killed you with a two-ton machine.

    As for the fate of young Mr. Gonzalez: that’s just fucked up. How often have I posted this comment here??

  4. Mikey, at the very least he realized that he almost killed his neighbor on his own street with his kids in the car because he was in lala land while behind the wheel. I think every time he drives in a residential area from now on he will at least be more conscious of the fact that sometimes people will walk on one side of the road, and at the same time, someone else could be in the other lane on a bicycle.

    I completely refrained from using profanity because I wanted to convey some actual points to him. My insults were about his driving skills and the fact that he veered straight into the oncoming lane, almost hitting a person who had the full right to be there, riding what is legally considered a vehicle.

    After all, it is my only means of conveyance and I do have to live down the street from him.

  5. Mark…true, if he has insurance and/or assets…which i wouldn’t count on. Pfaff #1…damn straight. That guy needs to get run over for the good of society. These stories make me want to vomit…and carry a tire iron in my jersey pocket when out on the road…not that it would help when you’re lying dead in a ditch.

  6. There’s not many things in this world that piss me off anymore. This however is one of them. I don’t know where to even begin thinking who is the the most fucked up – the Police or the Jury? The Po-Po obviously were sloppy, but for the jury to think that somehow this douchebag was somehow not drunk at the time of the accident, but a .31 2 hours later? Not 1 person out of 12 could do the right thing and force a hung jury? Just another reason to avoid Tejas at all costs.

  7. I’ve heard of some pretty fucked up shit in my time but that’s just on a whole different level.

  8. Justice left the building? You bet. Seems that the courts are just a game to people, where the decisions favor the slickest and most manipulative. BIG JONNY – when you become a motherfucking lawyer you better motherfucking fight the good fight and defend the right and eschew the wrong, because if you become a sellout scumbag lawyer, someday I’m going to know about it and we may not have our day in court but we’ll have our day in the bar! Of course not, of course not.

    But, many good little boys out there grow up and defend in court DRUNK DRIVING MURDERERS OF CYCLISTS – So, if you ride the rough roads where your life is of little concern to those in cars+trucks, carry a .45 and if you get hit – murder your drunk driving scumbag in your last moments of life. I do feel this way, I do.

  9. Man, I was there with you bro in the Hurricane. Riding down to the island is certainly a death trap now, even when you start farther North. I remember this in the news, crying shame.

  10. …sad fucking story & even sadder that an obviously guilty perp walks on a technicality in light of the fact that a young life was lost…

    …there are certain laws on the books that i feel are followed to the letter of the law to “protect our freedoms”, rather than the spirit of the law to protect the innocent…

    …& i gotta think that a 16yr old kid on a bicycle has gotta be pretty fucking innocent…

    …i’m outraged…

  11. OK, he slipped the noose in criminal court. Here’s the deal, if the lawyer for the Gonzalez family is worth a plugged nickel, they go to civil court and crush the life of the drunk fool.

  12. I am getting real sick of police not protecting and serving. (semi off topic) The other day, a lady riding her bike was hit by a car. When the police showed up, they weren’t going to charge the driver until a bystander and witness continued to force the issue. After some time and discussion, the police finally charge the driver with careless driving. Careless driving. The cyclist had surgery yesterday to fix her broken elbow and will be off the bike for 6-8 weeks, and will be missing some work at her new job.

    This shit is everywhere in America.

    I am so sorry about this kid, and karma should handle the drunk.

  13. For all the bitching about cops, well one riding his bike (off duty) was killed in Tucson yesterday. The initial AZ Star report (no longer available) yesterday described the incident as “a bicyclist was killed when he collided with a car”. Today we find out that he was struck from behind. The media is an important part of the equation and needs be a lot more accurate.

    http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/crime/283854

  14. …what is it about the fourth estate, in that the general ‘modus operandi’ when reporting bicycle “accidents///incidents” always seems to be biased against the cyclist(s) involved ???…

    …is it precipitated by how information is presented by the police to the reporters ???…is it because reporters don’t consider cycling to be a viable form of transportation ???…could it be that we’re not even considered to be legitimate “adult” recreation because cycling generally begins during childhood ???…could it even be that our own scofflaw nature over the years is now back to bite us in the ass ???…

    …the bottom line is that whoever presents the information to the public, sets the standard that influences how the majority of the population perceives cycling incidents…

    …& “incident” is a pretty mild word when you’re talking about people dying or being physically impaired for the rest of their lives..

  15. The media is definately part of the problem. I heard a report this afternoon that “a train had hit a truck.” i.e. placing the blame on the train. I find this interesting as the only way to be hit by a train is to be in its path, on the tracks, in the way. One would think it should be reported as, “a truck blocking railroad tracks was crushed by the train…cuz that’s what happens when someone thinks the train will swerve.”

    Bikesgonewild, you are absolutely correct.

  16. …-dan…you’d think our physical vulnerability would garner us a little empathy but that seems to fall by the wayside…doesn’t even seem to be part of the equation, for the most part…

    …& heckler’s info about the arizona cop being hit & killed while out on a ride is also pure tragedy…26yrs old, prob’ly still idealistic about what kind of influence he might have as a cop & cut down in the prime of his life…doesn’t mention but i’d be surprised if he didn’t leave behind a young family…

    …guy like that, being a rider might have had a chance to help sway the perception on this very subject…but i doubt if even his cop buddies will raise up the standard in his name…