Cop drives drunk and kills someone, not charged with DWI
Update: I was just made aware of a Facebook page about Officer Bisard receiving special treatment. Please join them and show your support.
Update 2: Three officers demoted.
According to the thetowntalk.com
Public Safety Director Frank Straub and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Chief Paul Ciesielski say officer David Bisard, 36, received “absolutely no deference” from fellow officers Aug. 6 after he crashed his cruiser into two motorcycles stopped at a traffic light.The impact of the crash – which occurred while Bisard, 36, was responding to a request for help serving a warrant, with his cruiser’s lights and siren activated – killed Eric Wells, 30, and seriously injured two other riders.
Questions about how police here have handled a fatal drunken-driving investigation of one of their own officers became more pointed as the county prosecutor announced Thursday he would drop the most serious charges.
Bisard surrendered after prosecutors learned a blood test had shown his blood-alcohol level was 0.19 – more than twice the level at which an Indiana driver is considered intoxicated.
But that arrest didn’t come until five days after the crash because of the lag in test results. No officers conducted field-sobriety or breath tests of Bisard at the scene or suspected that Bisard might have been drinking. And the officers failed to follow proper procedures in collecting that blood sample.
“There’s only so many mistakes you can make before it starts looking like a plan,” said Henry Karlson, an expert on criminal procedure and a professor emeritus at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis.
“The system failed,” Straub said. “Our investigation failed. . . . Yeah, we are embarrassed.”
Bisard will still face three charges, including reckless homicide.
For those who had been skeptical and critical, Thursday’s development was the last straw.
Full article here.
