You want to know how wrong you are that the WP isn't responsible, in a year or two the State of Missouri will be writing a big fat check to the Family for wrongful death, it doesn't get more responsible than that, we'll see what all shakes out of after this tragedy when it all said and done, there's gonna be changes to how the WP arrest and handle people in custody and the taxpayers will be short a lot of cash, I hope none of your kids are ever transported by the Missouri WP for any reason, it seems they're not trained properly and don't even know how to drive a boat.

My kids are not drunk little *******s who run from the police. I hope my children will have more sence then to attempt to flee from the police while handcuffed by jumping from a moving boat. But I guess we will see in couple years how this turns out.

What part are you disagreeing with? The first part was a quote from another member.

There are two phrases that come to mind with this scenario.

Play stupid games....win stupid prizes
There are no victims....only volunters

BAC far in excess of legal limit, positive for cocaine, a friend jumping in the water and swimming over to where the cop is administering the sobriety test. We all know what happened here. There is no doubt the cop was negligent on several things but this kid killed himself. I am sure that 90% of this board has had the cocaine cowboy fu(k the police attitude at some point in our lives but one rule has always applied. When in the proximity of cops, and certainly in the custody of, you shut the fu(k up, sit the fu(k down, and comply. EVERY time you see these stories of people dieing around cops it's because they didn't follow that rule.

Did not the deceased jump from the WP boat? I may be mistaken, but it seems I read in the original thread that witnesses saw the young man struggling and then he jumped from the boat.

Sam

One glaring problem with that article revolves around how they reported the chain of events...
The writer throws out the "in a hurry" quote, then several paragraphs later, gives the reason for being "in a hurry"- one of the arrestee's friends in the water, coming toward the patrol boat, during the sobriety test, and prior to cuffing the arrestee.
Getting out of the immediate area was a sound choice. If you wonder why, put on a 10-15lb duty rig with belt keepers, and a bulletproof vest, then have someone suckerpunch and/or push you into waters of unknown depth.
Not stopping a safe distance away to adjust/change PFDs was a poor choice, but hindsight is 20/20, and certainly he wasn't expecting the outcome that occurred.

Sounds like a man that's been on the delivery side of an X26.

two wrongs do not make a right

if the guy was operating a boat while intoxicated than he should be held accountable

If in the process of doing his job the WP made some mistakes than he should be held accountable

Sounds like we got a couple leo on here circling the wagon :)

Regardless if the kid fell out because of rough conditions, because he used poor judgment and jumped out, or was so coked up he thought he could fly to the nearest land......
The officer showed pure neglect and incompetence. He failed to protect and serve.

Was the kid even officially under arrest yet? Or just in "Protective custody " until he performed field sobriety or b.a.c tests ?

Not law enforcement, Former fire capt. and medic.