Posted on 08/24/2014 8:18:05 AM PDT by yldstrk
Seconds after a state trooper handcuffed and arrested Brandon Ellingson for boating while intoxicated, the officer grabbed a life jacket on his patrol boat.
Missouri Highway Patrol Trooper Anthony Piercy didn’t go for a Type I flotation device, with straps that wrap around the torso and allow for handcuffs. Instead, he pulled out a Type III life vest with arm holes — one that was impossible to secure on a man whose hands were already cuffed behind his back.
In taped interviews conducted by Highway Patrol investigators and obtained by The Star, Ellingson’s friends said they watched from their boat as the trooper tugged down on the already buckled vest, struggling to work it over the 20-year-old’s muscular build.
“He tried to pull (it) over his shoulders … and was having a very hard time doing so,” Ellingson’s friend Myles Goertz told patrol investigators. “… It clearly was not the proper way to wear a life jacket. It was not how the life jacket was designed to be worn.” Brandon Ellingson
Brandon Ellingson
With the vest encasing his upper torso and its top buckle touching his chin, Ellingson sent his friends a reassuring wink. Then the trooper “sped away” with him, the friends said.
Minutes later, Ellingson was dead, his body slipping through 80 feet of water to the bottom of the lake.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
I have a cabin not six miles from where this occurred.
The Lake of the Ozarks is lake overwhelmed by power boating on the weekends. It has a 0.5 mile channel that curves and boating is very problematic.
There are people that go there to be drunk and boat at the same time. Wild drunken groups or individuals are commonplace on weekends. Likewise, unsafe boating is a huge headache and there are multiple drownings and boat accidents killing 1 to 5 people each year.
I have had this place there for five years but have been visiting this lake my whole life and have never been stopped by the water patrol on this lake although I have been subject to minor stops on other Missouri Lakes. The stops have always been very proper, low key and the officers have been businesslike and even helpful. The drunks they have to deal with are probably not getting the same attitudes during stops that I have seen, but I have seen a dozen stops with nothing un-professional.
A good video of a boat accident on this lake is here:http://www.stltoday.com/news/multimedia/videos/lake-of-the-ozarks-boat-crash/youtube_618825e4-f754-11e1-a464-001a4bcf6878.html
With accidents of this nature, the Water Patrol has a big job in dealing with all sorts of issues on the water.
Stupid drunks Darwinize themselves all the time. This one just happened to be in the custody of the police when he did it.
A friend of mine drowned 10 or 12 years back while drunk and fishing. Last I knew his family was trying to sue the company that made the canoe, the township the pond is in, the county road commission (for giving him access) Anheuser-Busch and just about everybody else.
I lost another friend when he was out drinking with friends. He got his jacket hung up on the bumper of a pickup he just got out of, dragged out into a busy street and hit by multiple cars.
With another friend it was hill climbing in a Jeep. Drunk and without his harness on and the jeep rolled down the hill with him under it.
There are more than a few others and more close calls by myself. (Its why I don’t drink anymore)
I might add for general interest that a 42’ unlimited Cat just flipped during a Shoot-Out run at the race this weekend putting semi-professional drivers in the hospital and this is on a closed course race.
oh sorry
I am an idiot, made a mistake, wish posting weren’t so involved
no I am a mom who is sick of the cops “making mistakes”
could been
yeah, glad your teens were so well behaved
The problem with the “Darwin paradigm” is that often the morons end up killing the fit.
My post was ambiguous. The moron was the cop who was too stupid to put a PFD properly on his prisoner.
It is enraging. When you arrest someone and handcuff them you are entirely responsible for them. It sounds like this cop didn’t know what he was doing, and didn’t care that he didn’t know. Sure, he feels bad now, but even with help from the other man he wasn’t able to get this guy out of the water. And what, there was no other help that could be summoned, instead they let his body lie in the water overnight? It is clear from the article that the government’s main concern is in withholding information.
I don’t even know that I think it’s a great idea to handcuff someone in a boat, esp. an open boat like that one, life jacket or no. Maybe if they want to go around taking people into to custody they need to have 2 officers on board.
Civil liability, probably.
I think Missouri has legislation protecting officials from being prosecuted for their errors. I don’t recall where I read this.
Someone can correct me...
“no I am a mom who is sick of the cops “making mistakes””
Have you been demonstrating in Ferguson?
No, but there is a penalty for drunk drowning.
Shockingly, it is said to be too horrible to print.
May the Deep Ones, Dagon, and Mother Hydra have mercy on the landfolk..
I know, right?
Like capital letters and punctuation.. it's just too hard.
Especially when you're sooo tired.
What on earth are you talking about. Your response doesn’t even seem to go to the comment Slump Tester made.
So true. Along the same lines, it’s like the life of libs/dems/progressives (whatever you want to call them).
Their actions, voting, teachings, thought process and manipulation of facts should be their undoing. Darwin for them.
Yet life doesn’t work that way. They thrive in everything yet the ones that suffer are the decent, civil people.
You know the old adage that says a liberal becomes a conservative once mugged. Bull, a liberal just doubles down. Life’s consequences teach them nothing.
It's a statistical thing.
The fit are sometimes near the morons.
The morons are always with at least one moron!
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