Commentary: Bay Area DAs Complicit in Anti-Cyclist Attacks
4:27 PM PST on February 15, 2023
A passerby leaves flowers in 2021 at the location where Wilma Chan was walking her dog in a crosswalk when a driver slammed into her. No charges were pressed against the driver. Photo: Streetsblog/Rudick
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Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan was out walking her dog in 2021 when she was mowed down and killed in a crosswalk by a motorist who couldn't see because of glare but nonetheless kept going. District Attorney Nancy O'Malley declined to press charges. Earlier that year, Contra Costa DA Diana Becton decided not to press charges against a driver who swerved into a bike lane in San Ramon and killed New York Jets coach Greg Knapp. A statement from Becton's office confirmed that the driver was distracted.
These are just the recent, high-profile cases where reckless drivers who killed weren't prosecuted, let alone cited. Streetsblog could rattle off case after case where prosecutors, despite dealing with clear-cut cases of driver negligence and recklessness, copped out.
A screen shot from bike-camera video of motorists intentionally dooring cyclists on Adeline. Photo: East Bay Bike PartyA screen shot from bike-camera video of motorists intentionally dooring cyclists on Adeline. Photo: East Bay Bike Party
There's a fraction of people who, for whatever reason, take pleasure in harming others. If a door is opened for them to satisfy their sick motivations without any fear of repercussion, they do it. That's a pattern repeated throughout human history, from Genghis Khan to William Calley to cops like Derek Chauvin.
Prosecutors and police who don't take responsibility for this connection are morally confused. The drivers who killed Chan and Knapp aren't sadists, but they absolutely should be prosecuted. They became criminals when they decided to operate deadly machinery in a reckless manner.
The DAs claim--to the point they give any explanation--that it's just too hard to get a conviction in distracted and reckless driver cases, presumably because of the windshield bias of jurors. But in the pursuit of justice, rather than good stats as a prosecutor, it's okay to risk losing. And if they really want good conviction stats, they could also try being better lawyers.
I didn't see them it was:
Too dark Too bright Too rainy Too snowy Too foggy Too sunny Dusk Dawn
You have one job and it's too see. If you can't see, don't drive.
A couple of decades ago, most DAs took the same tack towards drunk driving. It was just something tragic that happened; not a real crime. It was impossible to get a conviction anyway, they would say. Mothers Against Drunk Driving waged a passionate battle against this attitude.
The driver of the limo was killed. Seven-year-old Katie Flynn was decapitated in the crash, right in front of her mother.
Amazingly, at the time, some people still argued that Heidgen "just" made a bad choice and shouldn't be prosecuted for murder. Yes, he made a bad choice--he made the choice to get into his truck and drive drunk, playing Russian Roulette with the public.
Thanks to the hard work of MADD and people such as Rice, our legal culture has changed. Drunk driving is now looked at as a serious crime of recklessness, albeit still not nearly as much as it should be. Driving with one's face in a cell phone or accelerating after getting blinded by the sun should be looked at the same way as drunk driving. It's the same choice to be reckless and irresponsible to the point of criminality.