Crash with Dutchess County Sheriff’s deputy totaled this lady’s automotive
Lia-Marie Henry, of Poughkeepsie, talks about her expertise after being rear-ended by a Dutchess County Sheriff’s deputy.
- A New York sheriff’s deputy intimidated a civilian into refusing a tow after she was rear-ended by one other deputy, in keeping with the crash sufferer, photographs and regulation enforcement information.
Shock signs gripped Lia-Marie Henry the moment a sheriff’s deputy rear-ended her Subaru Outback.
Her arms shook, her respiration quickened, her thoughts went foggy. She then gingerly acquired out of the car and began speaking with the Dutchess County Sheriff’s deputy, who calmly requested if she was alright.
However when one other deputy arrived on scene, Henry felt the tenor of the interplay shift. That is when the regulation enforcement intimidation ways started, she mentioned.
The incident underscored conflict-of-interest considerations raised by an ongoing USA TODAY Community-Syracuse College investigation of police-involved crashes in New York. Henry shared her story in response to a name for reader suggestions included with that investigation.
You’ll be able to nonetheless share your individual expertise with a police-involved automotive crash by filling out this on-line kind.
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Poughkeepsie lady: I confronted ‘very intense’ questioning after crash
The responding Dutchess County Sheriff’s deputy repeatedly requested Henry why she stopped so rapidly, refusing to just accept her responses, she mentioned. His “very intense” questioning appeared, geared toward getting the then 29-year-old Poughkeepsie lady to confess some type of wrongdoing, in Henry’s view.
Nonetheless shaken bodily and mentally from the crash, Henry merely informed the reality: The automotive in entrance of her stopped all of the sudden on the prime of a hill identified for hindering driver visibility. She swerved barely whereas slamming the brakes, and the deputy within the SUV following behind didn’t do the identical, ensuing within the crash, information present.
The regulation enforcement stress, nevertheless, was removed from over on that morning final October on a rural stretch of street in LaGrange, close to Poughkeepsie.
Lastly happy with Henry’s reply, the responding deputy shifted to pushing her to refuse a tow for her car, she mentioned. He then manually pulled her crumpled rear bumper out and informed her it was secure to drive house.
Inside minutes of hitting the street, Henry heard a horrible squealing sound as she tapped the brakes. She pulled right into a fuel station and referred to as a tow truck. The tow driver took one look and declared the car a complete loss, she mentioned.
An insurance coverage adjuster had the identical conclusion later, noting the crash impression was so violent it buckled the car’s inner body construction, Henry mentioned.
The deputy’s motivation to keep away from the tow additionally grew to become clearer in hindsight, Henry recalled, because the crash report incorrectly confirmed her car suffered lower than $1,000 value of harm.
Put in another way, the information advised the deputy was defending a colleague by downplaying the severity of the crash.
Dutchess County Sheriff’s officers didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the crash.
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Henry described her post-crash questioning by the deputy as tunnel-like; she saved searching for a solution to get out of a traumatic state of affairs.
Because the deputy inched nearer throughout the roadside interrogation, Henry couldn’t assist however suppose: What reply will get me again house to hug my household?
However when discuss turned to probably towing her car, Henry modified course barely and requested: What’s the most secure? That’s what I need to do.
The deputy’s response? The car was high-quality and able to drive. Henry pounced on the likelihood to take a simple out.
“I wished to imagine him,” she recalled, “as a result of I noticed a lightweight on the finish of the tunnel and thought, ‘I can go away now.’”
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However that reduction proved fleeting as Henry’s car faltered. She additionally later started feeling neck and shoulder ache at house, resulting in an emergency room go to. Her accidents proved muscular and never structural, she mentioned, although the tinge of neck ache nonetheless resurfaces right this moment as a sporadic reminder of the crash.
At one level, Henry tried to get the Sheriff’s Workplace to appropriate the crash report back to replicate the true injury to her car, which her mom owned and had changed via insurance coverage protection.
One deputy refused to amend the report, Henry mentioned, asserting she waived her rights to dispute the report when she drove the broken car away from the crash scene. A strongly worded follow-up e mail from Henry satisfied the division to appropriate the report, information present.
In some methods, Henry’s expertise throughout a previous accident deepened her disappointment with the more-recent crash consequence.
In that prior crash, a motorbike rear-ended Henry and witnesses on the scene supported her story. The cop who dealt with that crash was skilled and reassuring, she mentioned, providing a stark distinction to what unfolded when deputies investigated one in all their very own this previous autumn.
“It’s type of unlucky that this unhealthy expertise displays on an entire bunch of excellent cops,” she added.
This story is a part of Driving Power, a police accountability venture meant to show and doc the prevalence of police car accidents in New York.
This joint investigation between USA TODAY Community-New York and Syracuse College’s S.I. Newhouse Faculty of Public Communications was supported with funding from the Information-Pushed Reporting Venture. That venture is funded by the Google Information Initiative in partnership with Northwestern College-Medill.
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