A former Chicago police detective was recently convicted for his role in a fatal hit-and-run car accident. The former cop was also convicted of drunk driving. Authorities say that the detective’s blood alcohol was three times the legal limit when he crashed into a disabled car on the Dan Ryan Expressway in 2009. The crash killed a 23-year-old and a 21-year-old DePaul University student.
A passerby helped the then-detective out of his car, and the detective then walked away from the scene of the drunk driving car accident, past the young men trapped in the burning car. The Chicago Tribune reports that the detective was highly intoxicated at the time of the crash, with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit.
Like many hit-and-run drivers, the detective tried to minimize his culpability in this accident. His defense attorneys argued that he was injured and disoriented, and therefore couldn’t be blamed for leaving the scene. The judge in the case didn’t buy this argument and noted that the detective acted with the intent to flee the fatal crash.
“He could have doubled-back,” the judge said of the detective. “He chose not to. It was a conscious decision.”
The judge presided over the two-day trial in which the family members of the victims had to hear prosecutors detail the catastrophic injuries that their loved ones faced in the crash.
A sentencing date in this case has yet to be set.
<< BACK TO BLOG POSTS