Daniel Dodman's rolling weapon disarmed (note teenagers in close proximity)
Let me count the ways the ways this Bad Boy is an embarrassment to the human species -- that is supposedly differentiated from animals by, umm, sentient intelligence.
And Daniel S. Dodman is 21 -- old enough to die for his country -- so youth is not exactly an excuse.
The telephone pole won
Driving south (away from UMass) on Triangle Street around 6:15 PM Thursday, he sideswipes a WMECO utility pole with two large, potentially explosive transformers on top, and completely loses control of his heavy duty Volvo.
He then crashes into a line of large landscaping boulders bordering Bertucci's Italian Restaurant, which was relatively busy at the time.
Dodman ended up with "a piece of the Rock"
Meanwhile almost a dozen teenagers near the busy DB Mart are within 25 yards of the crash scene and provide eye witness testimony to the police. Dodman abandons his destroyed vehicle, now leaking chemicals, and takes flight heading north.
Dodman's vehicle hit hard enough for both airbags to deploy
Yes, the auto is registered to a Daniel Nicholas Dodman; and yes, that is the very first thing a police officer does when dealing with any sort of "motor vehicle stop."
Dodman did not get very far from accident scene
APD soon catches up with him on Chestnut Court and attempts to place him under arrest. He resists. They arrest him anyway and add "resisting arrest" to the complement of charges headlining with DUI, and leading with "open container of alcohol" in the vehicle.
In order to cut down on drunk drivers, perhaps the Department of Motor Vehicles should institute an intelligence test for license requirements.
I am trusting that the APD had the perp evaluated by the AFD as a general abundance of caution.
ReplyDeleteYou may think he is drunk, there may be strong evidence to support this (open container, odor of alcohol, etc) and he well may be.
And 95% of the time, he is nothing but drunk. But he did hit stuff hard enough to touch off both airbags, you know that he was in a MVA, and until you know otherwise, you have to presume head injury.
A head injury can make someone combative as well -- so can being drunk -- and I trust that when they got things kinda under control, APD had someone (maybe even one of their own) with some relevant medical training take a look at him and make sure he didn't have a head injury.
It sorta is embarrassing to have someone suddenly die in your lockup, and that is what you potentially are looking at if you don't presume head injury until you know otherwise. Yes, people can die of these -- didn't someone die of one this year notwithstanding the best efforts of the AFD?
Well I know he did not die in lockup.
ReplyDeleteAmazing. How did know who he was I wonder. I mean he left the car and walked away and yet they figured out who he was. :) Dope of the day award.
ReplyDeleteYou know ... there are all kinds of reasons why people are impaired. Medical and mental reasons number in the hundreds.
ReplyDeleteWe should all be glad that nobody was hurt or killed. Let's hope some of the derision evidenced here will give him a wake up call, if he was indeed drunk. Come to think of it, even if he was having an insulin reaction, this should be a wake up call to take better care of himself.
I won't argue that what Mr. Dodman was right and that he might be a moron as Larry stated. But drunk driving laws have been on the books for many years now with people knowing full well the penalties involved. So there's just the possibility that even after all the warnings, the person who gets behind the wheel drunk may not be as stupid as we think, but under the influence of an alcohol problem that has taken control of control in their lives. They're not able to make good decisions before taking the key.
ReplyDeleteI would like you to take an intelligence test sir, most of your arguments come from a bias ignorant point of view that you shell out in hopes that some few followers of your "blog" will share your bullshit most likely hypocritical ideologies. Not condoning this mans behavior in choosing to drive drunk and endanger others. but you use these instances to create fictitious stereotypes on the umass student body, creating the thought that we are detrimental to the town when the truth is we are what makes this town thrive 8 months out of the year...something you can not dispute and the only reason anyone has ever even heard of Amherst Massachusetts, the only reason your blog has any readers.
ReplyDeleteI dare you to take an intelligence test and post results showing that you are of superior intelligence to us at Umass, then maybe someone will start to take you seriously.
To better prove my point, the fact that you must approve all comments before they are allowed on the website shows that you are manipulative and use this as a way to defy our freedom of speech and to make sure readers see what you want them to see and not what the VAST MAJORITY thinks.
Well if you had half a brain you would know the First Amendment ("freedom of speech") only applies to GOVERNMENT suppression, not a privately owned blog. CAN.
ReplyDeleteLarry, take him (or her) up that dare. Please.
ReplyDeleteLarry, exactly what does the APD have?
ReplyDelete1: A wrecked vehicle.
2: Possibly eyewitnesses who can identify the individual whom they subsequently arrested as having gotten out of it. (Hopefully.)
3: Someone who was intoxicated when they arrested him -- some time and distance from the accident scene -- around several corners and OUT OF SIGHT of any witnesses let alone officers.
OK, prove that he had consumed the alcohol before the accident and not after it!
So witnesses stated that "he appeared drunk" -- are they trained police officers? Would "appears" be enough even for a trained police officer?
So there was an opened beverage in the vehicle. That means that his BAC was still going up (even if he didn't drink anything else) and what it was when you arrested him is inevitably higher than it was when the accident happened. (This is solid medical science.)
How hard would it be for an intrepid (or merely competent) defense attorney to say "OK, you found the opened one, but he took several unopened ones with him and drank them before the cops found him."
"Resisting Arrest" is actually "Resisting a Lawful Arrest" and I'm not so sure they had lawful grounds to arrest him. Did the arresting officers even see him operating the vehicle? Did they witness the accident?
Remember, otherwise it is "lawful self defense" and he is a victim of an assault by municipal employees... Seriously....
All they had is someone who is drunk NOW and who owns the vehicle. So?
All the APD really has is "leaving the scene of an accident" although if he pushes the false arrest issue, he can argue "fear of the police" and that has been upheld.
And then he can turn around and sue the shite out of the town and I kinda hope he does. Remember that municipal police departments (and the towns that employ them) do not enjoy 11th Amendment protections and are subject to Section 1983 suits.
Can you say "Rodney King"?
Yes, Ed, this case is virtually identical to that of a historically racist police department beating a black man on videotape, and then going to trial, only to get acquitted of police brutality.
ReplyDeleteThe parallels are beyond belief!
FREE DODMAN!
ReplyDelete