News choppers collide following chase. Chase suspect to be charged?

[grue 1]

(CNN) -- A police chase through the streets of downtown Phoenix turned into a midair tragedy Friday afternoon when two television news helicopters covering the action collided and crashed to the ground in smoke and flame, killing all four people on board.

KTVK-TV said photojournalist Jim Cox and pilot Scott Bowerback were killed. KNXV-TV identified its crew as photographer Rick Krolak and pilot Craig Smith.
The helicopters collided as the rival stations were covering the police pursuit of a stolen white truck towing a trailer. Assistant Chief Mark Angle of the Phoenix Fire Department said wreckage from both helicopters then landed in a downtown park.
Aerial footage from another station covering the chase, KPNX-TV, showed large plumes of black smoke and flames coming from the wreckage. Watch smoke and flames pour from debris »
"I was driving and heard a bang," one unnamed witness told KPHO.
"I was standing out on Central Avenue and I was looking over to the park and saw the helicopters get close," Jerry Fender told KPHO. "The blue one split and went down. The red or orange one went right after it."
"Looked something like 9/11 with debris exploding everywhere," said witness Brian Kenneth, the station reported.
Rick Gotchie, a Phoenix air-conditioning contractor working at a nearby building, was watching the helicopters circling the scene and noticed they were getting closer to each other, The Associated Press reported.
"I kept saying go lower, go lower, but he didn't," Gotchie said.
Angle said the "silver lining" in the accident was that the choppers did not hit any structures on the ground. The site of the crash was near a Veterans Affairs hospital and several high-rise buildings, he said.
"We do not believe at this time that anyone on the ground was struck," Angle said.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced it will send a team to Phoenix to investigate the crash.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor told The Associated Press that the agency is reviewing air traffic control tapes to see if the helicopters' pilots were communicating before the crash.
"Typically air traffic controllers clear helicopters into an area where they can cover a chase like this," Gregor told AP. "Once they are in the area, the pilots themselves are responsible for keeping themselves separated from other aircraft."
Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris said the chase began when police received a report of a stolen vehicle and began pursuing a suspect, who eventually abandoned that vehicle and stole the white truck that was being chased at the time of the chopper collision.
The suspect later bailed out of that vehicle and barricaded himself in a house, where he was captured by SWAT officers who stormed the residence, police said.
Phoenix police Sgt. Joel Tranter said the man was treated at a hospital for several dog bites before being booked into jail.
The police chief said the suspect will likely face criminal charges for the deaths in the helicopter crash.

"I think he will be held responsible for any of the deaths from this tragedy," Harris said.
The park would remain closed indefinitely while investigators worked, Tranter said.









That's fucking bullshit. It's not his fault the fucking pilots didn't maintain separation. They were bad pilots and paid with their lives and those of their passengers. There is nobody to blame but the people at the controls.

cavete terrae.

[quade 4]

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That's fucking bullshit. It's not his fault the fucking pilots didn't maintain separation.

What you say is true.

If the chase had resulted in a police death I could see charging the person that had lead the chase, but helicopter news coverage is completely OPTIONAL and the pilots can always back out of it for safety purposes.

In LA, where tv coverage of police chases is routine and covered by as many as 7 or 8 helicopters at a time, we have yearly briefings on what altitudes and sides of the chase to stay on as when as what the procedures are for when the chase becomes stationary or what to do when it looks like the chase is going to end in a shooting.

It will be interesting to see if Tucson has similar procedures.

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The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[grue 1]

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If the chase had resulted in a police death I could see charging the person that had lead the chase, but helicopter news coverage is completely OPTIONAL and the pilots can always back out of it for safety purposes.

Exactly

cavete terrae.

[Zing 2]

Be even more interesting to see if Phoenix has a similiar procedure ... since that's where this collision happened.

Zing Lurks

[quade 4]

My bad . . . I have friends in Tucson in broadcasting (the Schnebly family if you know anything about Arizona history and broadcasting) and for some reason Tucson just came out of my keyboard rather than Phoenix.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[birdlike 0]

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That's fucking bullshit. It's not his fault the fucking pilots didn't maintain separation.

What you say is true.

If the chase had resulted in a police death I could see charging the person that had lead the chase, but helicopter news coverage is completely OPTIONAL...

That's exactly how I see it.

Not only do I think that the deaths of the helicopter crews can't be laid at the feet of the fleeing suspects just because they were fleeing, I don't even think that cops' deaths in the line of duty can be blamed on suspects either, unless they are the result of specific actions on the suspects' part that could reasonably be believed likely to cause death.

So simply driving away, even at high speed, is not actionable as manslaughter, but say, driving right at a cop who dives out of the way and falls off a cliff, yes, that is.

What would happen if a cop arrested a guy and then on the way back to the station the cop loses control of the car on a wet patch and skids off the road, crashes and dies? You could argue that the cop wouldn't have been there under those circumstances but for the fact that he had to arrest the perp. SO? That doesn't mean the perp did anything to be a PROXIMATE CAUSE of the death. I think that term is going to come into play heavily in this situation.

Hey, what if while filming the chase, the helicopters were brought down by wind shear instead of a collision? Still the fault of the suspects for having given the copters cause to be there in the first place? Jeez, why not charge the mothers for giving birth to the criminals to put them there in the first place to be filmed by helicopter crews who end up crashing?

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[azdiver 0]

this has already been posted twice in the bonfire

light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak

[SkyChimp 0]

I say charge his ass any way. Pile it on the dirt back out of General Purpose. LOL

Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?!

[grue 1]

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this has already been posted twice in the bonfire

If I wanted to talk about it with them, I'd have posted in those threads. I posted it here because I want other people's opinions on the driver being charged.

cavete terrae.

[shermanator 4]

*sigh* the driver should not be charged for their deaths, he had no say in the choppers being there.

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[AdamLanes 1]

I agree it is bullshit if this guy is charged with the deaths of the helicopter crews. This reminds me of the recent case of another suspect who was convicted for murder of a poilice office who was responding to a manhunt while intoxicated, driving wrecklessly, and died in a subsequent car accident. The suspect was 30 miles away. clicky

[azdiver 0]

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*sigh* the driver should not be charged for their deaths, he had no say in the choppers being there.

he created the circumstance that brought them there, so in the eyes of some he is responsible for their deaths. It is still up in the air if he will actually be charged with their deaths though.

light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak

[shropshire 0]

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Then those people who think that are stupid and should not be allowed in law enforcment.

The very sad fact is that some one in the air made a fatal error.







> - Which is more than can be said about the helicopters.

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[Kennedy 0]

THe suspect, as far as I can tell, would not be charged with manslaughter for contributing to the deaths of the pilots and videographers. Instead, he would actually face felony murder charges.

The policy/philosophy in question is the "felony murder rule." Basically, in most places it states that if someone dies due to your involvement in a felony, you can be charged with murder. It's been applied ot getaway drivers, bank robbers who didn't pull the trigger, I even recall one case somewhere wherean accomplice was charged with murder because a "victim" shot and killed one of the perpetrators, and all the suspects were charged with their fellow's death.

How that might apply to someone who is a bystander, and not the target or the suspect, and who was there by their own choice, who died by actions unrelated to the crime, I couldn't guess.

edit to add: Personally, I don't see why the driver should be charged, as the factors contributing to their death were unrelated to the crime in question. The felony murder rule, depending on where you are, requires at least some level of causality. It'll all depend on what the jurisdiction's laws are, and the details that the article doesn't provide.

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[DZJ 0]

While the drivers bear a degree of moral responsibility, I think translating that into legal culpability would require an unsupportably convoluted argument.

[azdiver 0]

from what ive heard,because the news choppers were involved in the chase, observing and giving details to the cops as to his whereabouts, therefore resulted due to the fact of the crime. weather or not the guy is charged with there deaths he will be in prison for the rest of his life either way for the other crimes committed ,2 grand theft auto, assault on a police officer, hundreds of felony traffic violations, breaking and entering, holding hostages, ect ect.

light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak

[Kennedy 0]

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from what ive heard,because the news choppers were involved in the chase, observing and giving details to the cops as to his whereabouts, therefore resulted due to the fact of the crime.

If this is the case, then they were basically no different than law enforcement involved in the chase, and the case for felony murder can reasonably be made.

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weather or not the guy is charged with there deaths he will be in prison for the rest of his life either way for the other crimes committed ,2 grand theft auto, assault on a police officer, hundreds of felony traffic violations, breaking and entering, holding hostages, ect ect.

Oh, please. He'll be passing you on the right in just a few months.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[azdiver 0]

the AG out here only allows people to plead to the max, so to get off he would have to be found not guilty in a trial . With all the media on this doubt that will happen

light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak

[Zipp0 1]

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.....or what to do when it looks like the chase is going to end in a shooting.

Get the best angle and zoom the camera in, right?

Charging a fleeing suspect with a crime related to news helicopters crashing is laughable. The media in many areas has turned fleeing suspects into a side-show circus act ratings grab. They need to send up one chopper and share the feed, or back the hell off if they cannot be safe. What if the helicopter fell on a schoolyard?

Aren't there FAA rules related to aircraft operating in close proximity?

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[quade 4]

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.....or what to do when it looks like the chase is going to end in a shooting.

Get the best angle and zoom the camera in, right?

Actually no. Standard procedure in Los Angeles when it looks like there is going to be a shootout is for all of the cameras to zoom OUT so that graphic images of heads being blown off don't get transmitted. Obviously it's impossible to tell exactly when that may happen at any given moment, but the general agreement between the cops and news is to avoid it if at all possible.

Likewise, when a barricade situation is about to be breached, choppers are also supposed to zoom out so that perps inside can't just tune into tv and see which door the cops are about to bust in.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Zipp0 1]

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.....or what to do when it looks like the chase is going to end in a shooting.

Get the best angle and zoom the camera in, right?

Actually no. Standard procedure in Los Angeles when it looks like there is going to be a shootout is for all of the cameras to zoom OUT so that graphic images of heads being blown off don't get transmitted.

I was being facetious.

But I can show you TONS of tragic life ending scenes that the media captured without any attempt to zoom out.

Anyway, I think the zoom out policy is bogus. We sugar coat reality too much in this country. If the dude gets his brain splattered, why make it look like he just quietly fell to the ground? We get the same thing in our war coverage.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

[Squeak 17]

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from what ive heard,because the news choppers were involved in the chase, observing and giving details to the cops as to his whereabouts, therefore resulted due to the fact of the crime.

If this is the case, then they were basically no different than law enforcement involved in the chase, and the case for felony murder can reasonably be made.
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I cant see how it's the same thing, the pilots were not commissioned by the Cops to follow and detail the chase, they may have forwarded information to the cops but unless they were seconded they were there voluntarily

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