APRIL 5, 2015
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
Saturday marked a tragic day for Montgomery's men and women
in blue after a fellow Montgomery police officer was killed before dawn on his
way to a call. His vehicle and a commercial tractor-trailer collided near the
intersection of Narrow Lane Road and E. South Boulevard.
"It's not a good morning for the MPD family," said
Montgomery Police Chief Ernest Finley at the scene.
It is also not a good week for the city after three separate
vehicle accidents in the city resulted in four fatalities in the last 10 days.
Officer David Colley's death marks the city's fourth traffic fatality in less
than two weeks.
Colley, 24, of Eclectic, was killed at about 6 a.m. Friday
after he was rushed to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries. He was
an officer with the department for two years and leaves behind a wife and a
1-year-old child.
"We appreciate the support, sympathy and prayers for
his family who has been notified and also for MPD family as well," Finley
said. "Our prayers go out to everyone involved."
According to MPD, Colley was on a call when the accident happened.
He was transported to Baptist South Medical Center a short distance away where
he was pronounced dead soon after. The truck's driver was not injured.
"It's heart-breaking to all of us, regardless of age,
the loss of a life, of a young man with a young wife, it's horrible,"
Finley said. "The thing that we need to do is to build on the grieving
process."
Several counseling sessions were scheduled at different
departments throughout the city Saturday and into next week as officers
continue to mourn the loss of one of their own. About a dozen Operation Good
Shepherd clergy members, counselors and support groups, who work alongside MPD,
were made available to officers.
Pastor Antonio Seales of Faith Missionary Baptist Church in
Montgomery and an original member of Operation Good Shepherd was focused on
helping officers through the grieving process with prayer and comfort.
"We're allowing them to grieve, because they need to
grieve. It's especially hard on the young ones, the new officers. This is a lot
more difficult for them, because it's new to them," Seales said.
"This officer was responding to a robbery, he was just doing his job and
he lost his life trying to help somebody."
Although some of the officers did not know Colley
personally, many came forward with their grief simply because they wore the
same uniform, Seales said.
"We're helping the officers and leadership is doing a
good job helping them through this situation," Seales added. "It's a
very, very tough time. Some did not know Colley or work in the same area, but
it has affected them greatly ... It's hard to see officers grieve because they
think they're supposed to be tough, but what I'm helping them with is
expressing their grief."
That is the mission of Operation Good Shepard, a police
initiative that began more than a year ago to bring ministers of all faiths out
to help those at crime scenes and inner-department tragedies.
Counselors will be made available for each shift at the
various departments.
Finley expressed his support of the clergy and grief
counselors being made available to his officers.
"It's not only for the officers, but for the family as
well ... It's going to be a very rough next couple of days, but I think it's
important with the support and ground work we have with the clergies counselors
to help us move past this," Finley said. "More importantly, is that
we're going to be here for the family and I think that they really need us and
that's what the MPD and the city of Montgomery is all about, just to give
assistance to those who are needing, we are there for them."
Colley's family, parents, aunts, uncles and in-laws were
said to have arrived at the hospital upon receiving the news of the accident.
MPD has requested that the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency
conduct the investigation into the crash, according to State Trooper Sgt. Steve
Jarrett, spokesman for ALEA.
"It's a sad day for the state of Alabama and the
citizens of Montgomery and the law enforcement community as a whole ... it's
sad anytime we lose a life, but it gets to us when we realize how easily it can
happen and how dangerous the job is. Traffic crashes claim a lot of lives in
Alabama and law enforcement officer lives as much as we're in the car,
responding to calls, high speed driving; it's probably the number-one cause of
law enforcement officer deaths in the nation," Jarrett said.
Jarrett said ALEA's homicide unit will be conducting the
investigation. Once a report is made, it will be given it to the Montgomery
County District Attorney and MPD for review. They will be looking for video
footage from surrounding businesses around the intersection for help in the
case.
The intersection and southbound lanes of E. South Boulevard
were shut down for most of the day as Montgomery fire and towing crews cleared
the area.
Source: www.montgomeryadvertiser.co
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http://metroforensics.blogspot.com/2015/03/united-states-still-has-one-of-highest.html
UNITED STATES STILL HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST ROAD ACCIDENT
DEATH AND INJURY RATES IN THE WORLD: 34,000 DIE AND 2.5 MILLION INJURED EACH
YEAR.
Despite the improvements in road safety, the United States
has one of the highest death rates at about 1 person dead per 10,000 people.
Unfortunately, only undeveloped countries have higher death rate.
Some states, such as Texas and West Virginia (sorry, WV,
despite your tremendous progress in traffic safety, you are still at the top of
the worst-death-rate list) have death rates of nearly 1.5 percent, i.e., fifty
percent more people die compared to the national death rate.
Approximately 34,000 people are getting killed each
year. In the 1950s and 1960s, about 55,000 people used to die on the
roads – so, there has been improvement in the number of dead.
However, the number of injured is rising. Roughly 2.5
million are injured (yes, you read it correctly – 2.5 million injured) per
year. That is, 1 percent (1%) of the population that is eligible to drive
is injured every year.
It is worse than a war zone out there.
So, please be safe and be on the lookout for weaving-through-the-traffic
drivers, crazy drivers, reckless drivers, sick drivers, medical-condition
drivers, sleepy drivers, negligent drivers, stupid drivers, careless drivers,
drunk drivers, speeding drivers, drugged drivers, texting drivers,
talking-on-the-phone drivers, looking-at-the-GPS drivers, hurry-hurry drivers,
tailgating drivers, upset drivers, eating-while-driving drivers,
putting-the-lipstick-on-while-driving drivers, elderly drivers, and so on.