Father of handcuffed man who drowned at Missouri lake calls for federal investigation

[alp227]

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The father of an Iowa man who was handcuffed when he toppled off a Missouri Highway Patrol boat in May is calling for the Justice Department to investigate his son’s death.

Craig Ellingson, 53, of Clive, Iowa, said Wednesday that he would be meeting with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad to discuss getting a federal investigation into the drowning of his son Brandon Ellingson, 20, at the Lake of the Ozarks.

“Brandon is going to get justice, and I’m going keep pushing forward until he gets the justice that is due to him,” Ellingson said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

Ellingson said he thought the Missouri state trooper who arrested his son before he drowned should be fired and face criminal charges.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/father-of-handcuffed-man-who-drowned-at-missouri-lake-calls/article_fd949108-ec18-50f6-906d-ae22e263e02e.html

[Sunlei]

1. no life jacket on everyone on a boat? That alone is criminal negligence

[Enrique]

2. the family boat was named "Sotally Tober"

isn't that cute? And the guy's alcohol content was over three times the legal limit.

This family is all about water safety.

[Live and Learn]

3. How is that relevant to the officer being neglectful in putting the life vest on properly?

When you arrest someone and handcuff them, they become your responsibility. If this were a child and the parents didn't properly vest them, some people (even on DU) would be screaming for their heads. Immobilizing a person makes you responsible for whatever happens to them afterward.

Are you implying that naming your boat with anything to do with alcohol is some kind of proof that a person over indulges? Perhaps, they just found the name cute.

Or are you implying that a person deserves to die because they did and got caught?

[Earth_First]

4. Read the article...

The cop testified that he didn't believe that he was adequately trained to perform arrests while on the water.

Regardless of the level of intoxication of this man...from what I gather was cooperative...this man died while restrained by a law enforcement PROFESSIONAL.

Someone needs to face the consequences of this ineptitude...

[markpkessinger]

5. I don't think anybody is defending the young man's operation of a boat while intoxicated...

. . . but when police take someone into custody, they are assuming responsibility for his or her safety. And in this case, if a suspect is obviously intoxicated, then that should have been all the more reason for the officer to take particular care in securing his life vest, and in securing the individual so that he couldn't fall off of the boat.

[NutmegYankee]

6. And yet again I see victim blaming on DU.

If the guy hadn't been handcuffed, he probably wouldn't have drowned. Once the officer arrested him, he had the responsibility for his safety.

[whistler162]

7. Now.. now.... you aren't allowed to bring uo

ancillary facts. Just because the father is a brain inhibited butt wipe for naming the family boat "Sotally Tober" and didn't teach his children not to drink to excess and drive motor vehicles. Isn't really relevant.. Don'cha know!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. You're right.

Nome of that IS relevant.

[enough]

9. I can't see any way in which the stupidity of the father, or the drinking habits of either the

father or the son, has any relevance to the question of negligence on the part of the police.

This idea that police get a free pass if the victim is less than a perfect human being is pernicious.

[Enrique]

10. lol

"brain-inhibited butt wipe"

[Jerry442]

14. There is a logical fallacy...

...usually unstated, that responsibility, like matter and energy is conserved. In other words, if actor A bears, say, 20% of the responsibility for a situation with a bad outcome, then actor B can, at most be 80% responsible.

Not so.

Brandon Ellingson was responsible to some degree because he became intoxicated to the point that law enforcement officials felt the need to intervene.

But Trooper Piercy was 100% responsible because he failed to protect an intoxicated and handcuffed person in his custody, regardless of the circumstances that led up to that situation.

[Syntheto]

19. Yeah, I mean it's not like...

...he was a Black kid. Just some drunken White trash, right? Now, if he was Black it wouldn't matter how drunk he was, especially since the cop involved was White. I mean, the media narrative is that White police officers are actively hunting Black school children.

Hey, news flash: this kid fell off the boat with his hands handcuffed behind his back and went straight down. That's pretty horrible don't you think?

yeah, this was in the Post-Dispatch for a day or so, but just like the snipers shooting from an overpass five or six miles away, a gunfight in broad daylight that disrupted a first grade girls soccer game at the local Catholic Church grounds a half mile from my house where my children went to elementary school, or the two brothers shot not even four miles from Ferguson, the whole media narrative is about protests and the 'demands' being made 'or else' and using a young black man's shooting death as an excuse. Go figure.

Ferguson has been raped by the media and it's disgusting because of all the black on black violence that goes on every day and night not even ten miles away, but not considered important because it doesn't follow the evil White policemen stalking innocent Black kids as they make their way to church or their grandma's paradigm.

A drunken white boy falls off a boat with his hands cuffed behind his back and drowns? Yeah, drunk bastard deserved it, especially after his redneck (White) father had the unmitigated gall to name the boat Sotally Tober. Did they arrest Officer Wilson and let the brothers in cell block D anally gang rape him yet? Now that's what's important, right?

[ColesCountyDem]

11. I hope he succeeds with federal charges, because state criminal charges are very unlikely.

Under MO law, the criminal offense that most resembles the conduct described would be 'negligent homicide' (see: MPC Section 210.4).

What would make proving negligent homicide difficult would be proving that a.) the trooper's was aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk to the deceased as a result of his conduct, and b.) that his conduct was a gross deviation from a reasonable person's 'standard of care'.

The fact that the trooper placed a life jacket on the young man at all would tend to both a.) negate the 'gross deviation' element of the standard of care, and b.) call into question whether or not failing to properly secure the life vest constituted a 'substantial and unjustifiable risk'.

Prosecutors are extremely reluctant to bring criminal charges in such cases, whether or not a law-enforcement officer is involved, simply because of the standard of proof of each element of the crime is set at such a high 'bar'.

[Brigid]

12. Where is Jack McCoy when you need him?

[ColesCountyDem]

16. Yup. n/t

[freebrew]

13. Except...

the life jacket was the wrong type, wasn't properly secured and the officer was going much faster than he originally claimed.

The media is now attempting to bring Nixon into this, blaming him for the consolidation of the HP and the WP.
The Repubs did this, Nixon just signed it.

The officer WAS criminally negligent, otherwise this young man would be alive.

[ColesCountyDem]

15. Believing in guilt and proving guilt are entirely different things.

Just ask Ron Goldman's and Nicole Brown Simpson's families.

[freebrew]

17. Oh, I agree with you...

I was thinking: what if this happened to a citizen that wasn't leo. Charges would have been brought long ago, esp. here in MO. The whole BWI thing is a no more than a huge money basket for the state cops.

Here, if you drive around in a 30' boat or bigger the cops don't even check you.

I lived on that lake for 15 years. Saw the place go from a nice vacation spot for normal families to a place now only accessible if you've got some monstrous vehicle that the wakes don't destroy.

Add to that the fact that the electric company steals land from home-owners because they can and you have left a rich people's playground and screw everyone else.

[ColesCountyDem]

18. Quite possibly, even probably so.

Since I live close to Cape Girardeau, I had occasion to defend IL clients charged in MO. While I agree that they may/might have been charged, I was also thinking about how I could have mounted a VERY good legal defense to those charges. That was the basis for me saying that a prosecutor would be very reluctant to bring charges, particularly with a LEO as the defendant. As you know, rightly or wrongly, LEO's generally have instant credibility and are normally 'sympathetic defendants'.

[bpj62]

20. improper PFD

Once the suspect has been arrested his/her safety is the responsibility of the arresting officer particularly if the individual has been placed in handcuffs. If the officer did not correctly adjust the PFD then he bears some sort of responsibility for the young mans death. Whether it is criminal or civil I do not know. It appears to be a tragic situation but it is also one that was preventable if the officer was better trained and didn't rush through the arrest process.