Monday, April 23, 2007
Darwin comes calling in Montgomery County
Yesterday in Maryland, a State Trooper stopped two motorcyclists for speeding on I-270. However when the trooper exited his cruiser and approached the riders, they took off and subsequently refused to pull over for the trooper. The bikes exited the highway and began to weave through city traffic, trying to shake the lawman, but one of the riders apparently wasn't as skilled as she thought she was. Jean Patterson, 41 years old (old enough to know better) hit a curb at 75 mph and killed herself. While I'm not happy to hear of someone's death, I certainly don't feel bad for someone who died so stupidly while breaking the law to boot. Fleeing the police endangers everyone else on the road and it's a piece of luck that in this case, only the instigator of the pursuit died. I do hope that Maryland does not allow her family to become wealthy now as a result of her bad choices and her poor judgment. It's always bad to die but it's a tragedy when you die stupid like Jean Patterson did. Hopefully others will learn from this and not be so stupid as to run from the police. And if she could respond, Jean Patterson would probably be the first to agree that it would have been easier and better to just accept the ticket.
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Hate to say it, bubba, but better her than some kid selling lemonade on the curb. Sometimes you don't have to be sorry.
ReplyDeleteActually my first chase as a police officer, just three days out on my own, ended with the fleeing vehicle mowing down a little old drunk man who was just crossing the street. The car that nearly killed him kept on going and I've had absolutely no tolerance for people that run from the police ever since.
ReplyDeleteBikes racing down city streets is bad news, that's like going fast in a parking lot - it's just plain stupid. There's too many indiscriminately moving obstacles even for a very talented rider and the numbers start stacking up until they overwhelm. There's a reason that all the traffic goes the same direction on a racetrack.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow it could have been something like a crack-pipe in her pocket that made her run.
I knew Jean. She was my barber and my friend. Many of her friends are perplexed as to why she chose to speed away from the police. Jean was a law-abiding, civic-minded, business owner and budding entrepreneur who often donated time and energy to various city charities. Nothing in her history would suggest that she was a law breaker. We do know that she liked to go fast on her bike. My only guess is that Jean made a juvenile, mischievous decision and in the process endangered the lives of others. It was a foolish, foolish mistake.
ReplyDeleteI don't take issue with the sentiment of your blog (people who "play" often "pay") - but I find the choice of words and tone of your blog painful; especially assigning the "Darwin" tag as the posts heading. Jean death stings and so many of us have been left hurt and confused. I hope you realize that Jean's mother and father, her many, many friends and co-workers would find your "Darwin award" an extremely painful interpretation of her passing.