No he didn't. Unless he said "I knew I hit her and just left", he did not incriminate himself. Again, had he come forward at noon that day, he most likely would have had the same charges pressed against him.
Arrest reported in ISU hit and run death
- Thread starter cyflier
- Start date
No he didn't. Unless he said "I knew I hit her and just left", he did not incriminate himself. Again, had he come forward at noon that day, he most likely would have had the same charges pressed against him.
How often do you see in a movie or crime TV show where a detective keeps going through the evidence until he sees something that was right in front of everybody but no one saw it? Got to give kudos to the Cy Ride supervisor who watched and listened to the audio three weeks later and apparently solved the case. Will be interesting to hear what the recipients of the texts from the driver have to say.
I used to work for the school bus company in Ames. We had cameras on our buses as well, and there was a fatal car/motorcycle accident at a stop light right next to our bus that we caught on camera. Day of the accident, a police officer came to my office, and I played the footage for him. It was plain as day what had happened.
But we weren't allowed to turn over the tape as evidence for two more months due to legal stuff. The Ames PD had to subpoena it from us, and we had to pass it up the corporate ladder and let it be handled by the company lawyers. Part of this was because there were minors clearly visible on the bus, which wouldn't be a problem (necessarily) for CyRide in this case.
But it is important to note that this was a CyRide employee on the clock in CyRide property who killed a person and fled the scene (whether he knew it or not). It makes sense to me that CyRide probably was pretty upfront with the APD about what they had, but at the same time, made the APD dot all the "i"s and cross all the "t"s before they turned over evidence. Not that they were obstructing, but just handing it over could have opened them up to legal action by the family of the victim and the driver. I'm sure CyRide just handled it all through lawyers to protect their own butts as much as possible. I'm also pretty sure that the APD knew what CyRide had the day they requested it, there was just a delay due to the legal process.
If he came forward that day and said he thought he may have hit something but never imagined a person until the news broke and he realized what happened. He may have been charged but would have not been convicted. Still may be the case. He can claim he panicked after he realized what happened later that day but at the time he truly didn't know. There is at least reasonable doubt that could be true and in which case he would be guilty of failure to come forward (not sure if that's a crime) but may walk on the leaving the scene. I can see the jury being sympathetic to a bad situation and a horrible accident /scared kid. Who knows. I'll reserve judgement until all facts are known.
Vehicular Homicide (which this would be) is a class B felony, carrying up to 25 years in prison, and fleeing the scene is a class D felony, so, a $1000 and up to 6 months.
They said they have footage of him getting out and checking the bus and walking around looking at it. That's how they figured out it was him. He had no reason to do that unless he knew he hit something, plus they have audio of the hit and it sounded like he tried to stop.
yeah, we don't know that he didn't come forward right away, and this is just the timing of when they could arrest him. He may have called the cops the day of and said "hey, I may have hit something, and in retrospect, it might have been this girl. I don't know that it is, but it could have been." Then, they contact CyRide, who checks out their tapes, and says "yeah, it looks like it's him. Get a subpoena for this and it's yours." They get the subpoena, it goes through lawyers, a month later, he's in custody.
I think Clague's (the bus driver's) position is a lot worse than some people seem to think on here, based on some of the facts from the Ames Tribune's story today:
The facts alleged by the Story County attorney indicate a knowledge of the accident. I can see Clague striking Ms. Jacobs and not knowing what occurred right away, but I do not think it likely at all that he went on for weeks without the thought crossing his mind that he might have been the driver who struck her.
While I can perhaps understand his position in that moment - as a person, you wouldn't want to admit to anyone that you're responsible for a death, especially if there's a part of your brain desperately saying "Maybe it wasn't me" - the alleged facts would pretty easily prove guilt if it did come to a trial, I would imagine, and any sympathy that I might feel for a person who made a small mistake with such enormous consequences is washed away by his selfish and cowardly actions that prevented the victim's family from gaining closure.
The facts alleged by the Story County attorney indicate a knowledge of the accident. I can see Clague striking Ms. Jacobs and not knowing what occurred right away, but I do not think it likely at all that he went on for weeks without the thought crossing his mind that he might have been the driver who struck her.
While I can perhaps understand his position in that moment - as a person, you wouldn't want to admit to anyone that you're responsible for a death, especially if there's a part of your brain desperately saying "Maybe it wasn't me" - the alleged facts would pretty easily prove guilt if it did come to a trial, I would imagine, and any sympathy that I might feel for a person who made a small mistake with such enormous consequences is washed away by his selfish and cowardly actions that prevented the victim's family from gaining closure.
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"Clague has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in a death, a class D felony and failure to obey a traffic control device, a simple misdemeanor."
Class D felony = up to 5 years of jail time.
Yeah, I agree. Hearing that it wasn't in the video just the audio maybe means they missed it the first time and the. Gave it a second look.
I can say from my experiences driving my race car hauler (a semi converted to a RV that is 34' long pulling a 34' enclosed trailer (enclosed trailer is not shown in pic below but you get the point)) that I side swipes a neighbors truck one time, it did considerable damage to his truck and I had no idea it happened until he asked me about it the next morning.
Plus add in something that big isn't a smooth ride so you learn to ignore a lot of the bumps.
Plus add in something that big isn't a smooth ride so you learn to ignore a lot of the bumps.
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The news stories lead you to believe that the video wasn't connected to the crime until two weeks ago. That could be sloppy reporting or for some reason the police didn't want the public to know about the video earlier to make sure they had everything in place before making an arrest and going public. They were pleading for the public to come forward with any information in December which seems odd if they had this video then. I also thought I read where they were going to body shops interviewing employees and looking for cars that would have damage from this type of accident. Seems like a waste of a lot of man power if they had this video on the first day.
None of the charges stem from him not coming forward. He most likely would of been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident if he came forward right away.
kinda sorta... it's still vehicular homicide according to Iowa Code Chapter 707.6A. But I was wrong that it could be a Class B. This would be a Class C if they decide to call it negligence.
Vehicular homicide is when you kill someone by doing something reckless, like OWI, drag-racing, eluding police, etc. This is not vehicular homicide.
And I could be completely wrong, as I haven't been keeping up with the case at all. And I've been wrong already in the thread.
I'm just saying, it wouldn't surprise me one way or the other, without any need for some ulterior motive. They could have missed it, which sounds somewhat likely, or they could have seen it right away and were just going through hoops.
I don't see how this point responds to anything I said or claimed in my post. Curious what you are getting at.
