ACAB… seriously?

ACAB… seriously?

                I have seen sadness.

                Not all stories can be lighthearted and have storybook endings… I have seen great human suffering.  My last assignment as a police officer was riding motorcycles; it is the most fun you can have as a cop.  However, there is a downside.  Motor officers investigate fatal traffic collisions.  Those investigations are serious and detailed reports of what happened to cause a collision and how that collision contributed to someone being killed.  The District Attorney may want to prosecute the person responsible for the collision for homicide, and the prosecutor will need a thorough investigation to proceed.

                It’s about 8 pm on a cool October evening.  The call came to me at home… a crash with multiple fatalities.  I reported to the station then drove with another motor officer to the scene.  Horrific.  Six young people crammed into an older Honda… two had been transported to the hospital but four dead were still in the car.  The deceased included a 23-year-old male, two 19-year-old males, and a 16-year-old girl.  Only minutes before the collision, they had been drinking… beer and tequila.

                During their impromptu party in a nearby cul-de-sac, the 19-year-old driver received a call from his girlfriend who was also the mother of his child.  They argued about him seeing another young woman.  He got angry, hung up, and told everyone to get into the car.  They did.

                The car had three different makes of tires and different wheels.  The driver accelerated down a long straightaway.  Traveling more than 70 mph, he lost control and the Honda struck a dump truck.  Four dead instantly.  One teen male survived with serious head injuries.  The other survivor was an 18-year-old girl.  She was small in stature.  Her sister, the 16-year-old who died in the crash, was a physically much larger person.  The younger, larger girl was sitting on her 18-year-old sister’s lap in the middle of the rear seat at the moment of impact.  The teen boy on the 18-year-old’s left sustained debilitating head injuries.  The oldest male of the group was seated on her right at the point where the Honda struck the dump truck.  His head injuries were even greater.  He died instantly.  Sad.  The larger 16-year-old girl actually functioned as a human shield for her smaller sister.  The first officer to respond… a rookie… found the gruesome scene.  The 18-year-old girl was the only conscious person in the car.  She was hysterical because she was trapped and unable to move with her dead sister on top of her.  All the rookie could do was talk to her soothingly until more help arrived.

                I looked into the Honda.  I could see that the 23-year-old with the grisly skull damage bore the brunt of the tremendous force of the collision.  But the 16-year-old girl on the backseat and the two 19-year-old males in the front seats looked peaceful… almost as if they were sleeping.  Then I noticed the boys in the front seats had broken limbs.  The crash was violent and did its work quickly.  The coroner arrived and removed the victims.  The motor officers including myself continued processing the scene.  This report would not be used in a prosecution.

                Later, I interviewed the 18-year-old girl.  She was guarded and uncomfortable because she thought she would get in trouble if she admitted she had been drinking.  I told her that she was not in trouble with the police… I just needed to know what happened before the Honda struck the dump truck.  She mentioned the phone call to the driver and that he appeared to be angry.  I asked if he was using the phone while driving.  No.  I really wanted to know where the driver bought the beer and tequila.  The 18-year-old relaxed a bit.  She didn’t know where he obtained the alcohol; it was already in the car when he picked her up. 

                While at the station the next day, the sister of the 23-year-old who died due to extensive head trauma came to see me.  She was the spokesperson for the family.  I told her that I was very sorry for her loss.  She said that she wanted to see her brother.  She was also in her mid-twenties and close to her brother.  I paused then said it might not be a good idea to see him because he will not look like the brother she knows.  She was determined, so I made arrangements for her to see him.  About a week later, she called and thanked me for trying to dissuade her because he did not look the same.  I told her that she can always remember him and the good times everyone enjoyed when they were with him.  

                Later that same week, the driver’s family came to the station to look at the impounded Honda.  Just before impact, the driver tried to gain control of the car but overcorrected causing the Honda to turn hard left almost 180 degrees.  It was still traveling at a high rate of speed when it struck the parked dump truck… no skid marks.  The family stared at the mangled wreckage without speaking.  The patriarch… moving slowly with age… shoulders rolled forward from a life of hard work… started to remove tools from the Honda’s trunk.  I thought… wait, this car is still part of our investigation.  The family cannot just take things out of the car.  Then I thought… the tools would cost a lot to replace… money the family probably didn’t have.  I stood by silently while he gathered the tools.                  

                A call came in from the other deceased 19-year-old’s family.  They needed money for funeral expenses and wondered if there was an insurance company involved so they could file a claim for burial costs.  No… there was no insurance.

                My involvement with the families of the four tragically dead young people took a toll on me.  It was at that point I started to think about a career change.  Seven months later, I left police work to teach US History to high school juniors.  However, I would see more traffic carnage before my first day in the classroom.  Some researchers believe all police officers suffer some level of post traumatic stress due to the demands and experiences on the job.  They’re probably right.

Copyright © 2023 by Ray Fowler