Sunday, October 9, 2011

This Week's WTH - Wrong Way Edition

AMARILLO, Texas -- A prosecutor says the Colorado state senator involved in a crash that killed a pregnant woman in the Texas Panhandle last year has pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of driving on the wrong side of the road.

Sen. Suzanne Williams paid a $200 fine and $68 in court costs, according to Hartley County Attorney Shane Turner. The Amarillo Globe-News reported Friday that Texas law allowed for the dismissal of two seat-belt citations against Williams.

State police investigators had recommended that Williams be charged with criminally negligent homicide, tampering with physical evidence and injury to a child in a crash that killed a pregnant Amarillo woman, Department of Public Safety records.

But a grand jury declined to charge Williams.

It gets worse. It seems Williams, a loud advocate of child restraints, tampered with evidence when she picked up her grandchild and placed him in a car seat after the accident. In fact, it seems none of the passengers in the car were buckled up.  She lied to the police, but I guess that isn't punishable when you're important.

Investigators said the Honda drifted into the oncoming lane of traffic, colliding with a 2003 GMC Yukon driven by an Amarillo man. The man's wife, Brianna "Brie" Gomez, 30, was a passenger in the SUV.

Gomez was flown to Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo, where an emergency cesarean section was performed. Gomez was pronounced dead after her baby boy was delivered. The premature infant, Curran Blaec Gomez, weighed just 3 pounds at birth. He survived. He now weighs about 18 pounds.
Williams' son, Todd Williams, and his 3-year-old son were ejected from the vehicle. They were seriously injured.

"While on scene Suzanne (Williams) told me that no one had been ejected from her vehicle and that everyone was extracted from the vehicle by rescue ... Suzanne failed to inform me of the truth of the events that had taken place before anyone arrived on scene," a state trooper said in an offense report obtained by the Amarillo Globe-News newspaper.

A misdemeanor is no longer a misdemeanor when it kills an innocent person. Brianna Gomez did nothing wrong. She was sober, driving on the right side of the road, and because of Williams, will never get to know her child. If there is a good reason to dismiss charges, let's hear it. Because the facts say an innocent woman died and the guilty woman would have paid more for a good pair of shoes.

What. The. HELL.

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