Sort of, the news media has always had different standards when it comes to putting themselves in harm's way. If I remember correctly, sometimes (often?) reporting the news is seen as much of a duty as the police apprehending the guy.

Assuredly having a criminal get away with a felony theft is a horrible, horrible thing and should be prevented by playing Demolition Derby on the interstate, regardless of the implicit risks to bystanders (bydrivers?)

Wait, no

Deliberately engaging in a pattern of behavior dangerous to yourself and everyone around you (which is the nature of nearly any automotive chase) is a hell of a stupid solution to theft of property. It's like throwing knives through a crowded party in the GENERAL DIRECTION of the guy who just lifted your wallet. YEAH, MAYBE YOU'LL HIT HIM. OR UM SOMEBODY ELSE

MOSTLY SOMEBODY ELSE

So sometimes they get away with it. I am ok with that. I think it is a reasonable price to pay in order to have a police force that acts like adults.

Well, they don't have a legal duty, but I assume that sometimes press helicopters do assist the police with information during a chase, as the police likely don't have the resources to send out chopper fleets for every little thing, but the press can apparently do that because toot-toot ratings. At any rate though, it certainly shouldn't free pilots from the responsibility to look where they're flying.

From what I understand the cops have to back down from a chase if there is to much risk to bystanders (tho I am not sure who would decide that

Oddly enough, I was about 4 blocks away at my friend's shop picking up some parts when this shit went down. Crazy as hell.

The crash occurred around 12:45 p.m. in Steele Indian School Park near Third Street and Indian School Road.--The Arizona Republic. Not like any of you care having not been to Phoenix.

Its kind of a crying shame that when the deaths of four people have to be placed on an individual that had no direct contact toward their death.

It is safe to say that if the individual had never committed the crime in the first place then the people in the helicopter would of never went out to monitor the car chase.

Unless that individual had literally any direct contact with how the people in the helicopter were operating their aircraft then he should not be accountable for their deaths. Those people made a conscious decision to decide to monitor that story and unless that person was distracting them or influencing their decisions in a direct way he should not be accountable.

I offer my condolences for the people who have perished during this tragedy and their families who have to go through the burden of burying their loved ones. Overall, this person should not be charged for their deaths. He has already been caught for the crimes he committed.

It wouldn't surprise if the american criminal system actually charged him for their deaths since this criminal system is famous for making incredibly stupid decisions.

Let me clarify my second paragraph: When an event such as this occurs, where questionable actions (on either side of the law) are taken, I don't want this criminal to go unpunished as a whole because of so much light being shone upon it. For instance: Rodney King. Now I'm not trying to start shit here about it, but he was a criminal. Led police on a high speed pursuit, under influence of pcp at the time, resisting arrest, etc. Not to mention him being on parole for armed robbery. I'm trying to remember more, but here's pretty much what happend: he was regarded as the innocent victim. I don't recall hearing about him doing much, if any, time for all that stuff he did. And he's such a nice guy still, getting arrested over and over. THAT'S what I mean by a sort of "media backlash".

Does that seem clearer?

I'm pretty sure that any mildly competent lawyer can get this guy off of a murder charge. I looked up the language for First Degree Murder and Second Degree Murder in Arizona. Both contain the word intentional. There's just no way that the death of these people was intentional.

What he can and may go down for is involuntary manslaughter. This law uses "reckless" within it's language, and it wouldn't be too hard to show that the guy's recklessness (running from the police) led to a series of events which caused the death of the pilots.

On the other hand a defense attorney can argue that the chopper pilots were the victims of a hazardous job.

Another thing that's being ignored in this thread is precedence. There's going to be a lot of homework involved here. I'm sure that somewhere there was a car chase which involved harm to a civilian and that civilian or their family sued the criminal fleeing. How did those cases work out? U.S. Law is heavily weighted in precedence and that's going to play a big role here.

In my eyes murder is definitely out of the question, but involuntary manslaughter is very much in the realm of reasonable possibility.

Hotobu, you're reading the statue wrong.

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/FormatD...13&DocType=ARS

Only A.R.S. §13-1105 (A)(1) includes the word intentional. A.R.S. §13-1105 (A)(2) does not.

I do agree that a lawyer should be able to beat any murder charge if the DA brings one, but first degree murder, at least in Arizona, doesn't necessarily have to be intentional; that's the felony-murder rule. Manslaughter would be the wrong charge here because of that rule.

Someone I know tried to find precedence (he just looked briefly) in Arizona case law for this and couldn't find any similar instances.

YouTube Video

Ah yes, nothing like showing pictures of broken helicopters while playing Broken Wings.

It was the only video I could find with the whole news video. =/