Posted on 04/03/2018 5:46:51 PM PDT by Hojczyk
72-year-old John Schooley has been charged with second-degree murder in the tragic death of a child on the water slide he co-designed. Schooley was arrested at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport on Monday, just after returning from China. In addition to murder, Schooley also faces charges of aggravated battery and aggravated endangerment of a child.
A Kansas grand jury has indicted all three men involved in the incident that resulted in the decapitation of Caleb Schwab, son of Kansas State Representative Scott Schwab. The boy’s raft lost control on the 17-foot slide, and he was killed as he hit an overhead loop at high speed.
Charged along with Schooley are co-owner Jeffrey Henry and the private construction company of the park, Henry & Sons Construction Co. Both have been charged with reckless second-degree murder as well as 17 other felonies related to other incidents on the “Varruckt” slide.
But it was Schooley himself who signed off on the ride, claiming it met all of the required American Society for Testing and Materials standards for use. Even then, he allegedly said that “if we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily, it wouldn’t be that spectacular.”
“Not a single engineer was directly involved in Verruckt’s dynamic engineering or slide path design,” according to the indictments. Those same indictments also claim that Henry rushed production of the slide in order to impress executives involved with a Travel Channel television program.
Thus far, the Schwab family has reached a $20 million settlement with the Schlitterbahn water park and companies associated with the slide’s production.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The guy was returning to the U.S. to turn himself in. Arresting him at the airport was uncalled for and grandstanding.
Ya pay yer money and you take your chances, but these guys covered up problems..
Are we saying goodbye to all American ideas of law? Negligent homicide is the worst any American legal concept could come up with. It’s wild abuse of law.
Dude it takes time to investigate. Or did you not notice the dates ...
Yes, you are correct. It is a 17-story slide.
The prosecutor is a little out of control on this???? Murder
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At most manslaughter. I don’t think the designer constructed something with the intent of killing people.
Read the background information on this. These guys were beyond reckless. They knew how dangerous it was and let the public use it anyway. Second degree murder is totally appropriate.
Dude do your research before offering legal opinions.
Most radical Schlitterbahn slides are enclosed smooth tubes, this was a death trap.
Lol! It was unsafe. None of the park employees wanted to ride it. In two years 13 people were injured in airborne accidents including two confusions and a back injury.
Murder is absurd although if it were my child, it would be murder.
Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?
Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?
Mind you, this is a real beaut. None of your blood caked on the walls and flesh flying out of the windows incommoding the passers-by with this one. ......My life has been leading up to this.
Those poor confusion sufferers! Libs, right ;)
Dig out a law book ...
One doesn't need specific intent to take a life in order to be guilty of murder. One can be so reckless in one's behavior that loss of life is a very predictable result. An analogy is getting drunk, getting behind the wheel and killing someone.
The prosecutor is a little out of control on this???? Murder
...
After reading a couple of stories about the owner and the ride, I’d say no.
They were confused after their concussions
Do they even charge drunk drivers with this crime? I’m not sure I’ve heard of this charge before.
Seems the first bad accident and nobody would want to use it anymore. So to have malice makes no sense. There is every disincentive.
We have to look at the Scylla to this Charybdis — namely the supremacy of government nannydom. It’s not even perhaps that somebody got killed on the allegedly misbegotten apparatus. It’s perhaps that some regulation was not followed.
If freedom doesn’t mean the freedom to do something dangerous, even deadly, at our own option, what does it mean? We construct rubber rooms on pain of law, but at what other costs?
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