GUILTY KS - Ramon Martinez-Limon, 32, killed in hit & run, Wichita, 10 June 2011

[wfgodot]

Wichita doctor arrested in connection with Friday's fatal hit-and-run accident (Wichita Eagle)

WICHITA - Investigators arrested a Wichita doctor, Mohammad Sarrafizadeh, on Friday night on suspicion of failing to stop at an injury accident in which a 32-year-old man was killed Friday.

Police say Sarrafizadeh, arrested at his home in the 1500 block of Krug, according to jail records released early this morning, drove for three miles with the man's body on top of his van after crashing into him on Greenwich Road near Douglas early Friday.
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more at link above with pictures, video

A witness to the crash called 911 and followed the doctor all the way home. According to 911 dispatchers, they got several calls from people who saw the van rolling down the street with a busted windshield and a body on its roof.

Van kills worker, goes 3 miles with victim on roof (with video)

 

[norest4thewicked]

Oh no...how tragic!

 

[myownlady]

Terribly tragic accident involving both parties. My stepfather works with the Dr who hit this man. He said is very out of character for him to do something so horrid. I've also heard that the Dr will not be charged with homicide but they have not yet said what his charges will be. I read on KAKE news that the Dr bonded out on a $2400 bond for the 10% last night.

 

[Charlie09]

I don't see alcohol mentioned - to keep driving though after your windshield broke you'd have to be impaired in some way.


ETA - I didn't see 7:15 am probably not alcohol, but an all night shift.

 

[wfgodot]

Terribly tragic accident involving both parties. My stepfather works with the Dr who hit this man. He said is very out of character for him to do something so horrid. I've also heard that the Dr will not be charged with homicide but they have not yet said what his charges will be. I read on KAKE news that the Dr bonded out on a $2400 bond for the 10% last night.

Hi myownlady, and welcome to WS.

A bit surprised bond was so low - there's failure to stop and render aid, and, well, there's hitting the guy in the first place.

 

[Nova]

I don't see alcohol mentioned - to keep driving though after your windshield broke you'd have to be impaired in some way.


ETA - I didn't see 7:15 am probably not alcohol, but an all night shift.

Certainly possible. But I think panic can impair people as badly as alcohol or drugs. Obviously, the doctor wasn't thinking rationally that nobody could see the broken windshield and the dead man on his hood.

 

[wfgodot]

The dead man somehow wound up on the roof of the car.

So perhaps it wasn't as egregious as if the body was right there on the hood.

 

[Nova]

The dead man somehow wound up on the roof of the car.

So perhaps it wasn't as egregious as if the body was right there on the hood.

Sorry. That's what I meant.

But I wouldn't drive around with a broken windshield unless I were out of my mind, would you?

 

[wfgodot]

Sorry. That's what I meant.

But I wouldn't drive around with a broken windshield unless I were out of my mind, would you?

No. The guy must have freaked. Here's all the damage:

The minivan had damage on the driver's side front bumper and headlight assembly. The hood was caved in. The windshield was smashed in — broken through in at least one place and densely cracked.
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http://www.kansas.com/2011/06/10/1886399/pedestrian-killed-when-hit-by.html

The dead man still has not been named. Comments on various Wichita media sites show populace generally enraged, feeling if some average person had done this, bond would be exorbitant and they'd still be behind bars.

 

[Nova]

No. The guy must have freaked. Here's all the damage:



The dead man still has not been named. Comments on various Wichita media sites show populace generally enraged, feeling if some average person had done this, bond would be exorbitant and they'd still be behind bars.

I'm not surprised people are outraged. I don't know how the accident happened and I didn't mean to defend the doctor.

 

[tapu]

Terribly tragic accident involving both parties. My stepfather works with the Dr who hit this man. He said is very out of character for him to do something so horrid.

Well, everyone is nice up until they're not. This guy is a bad person. A very bad person. He just didn't have a big chance to show it until now.

If you (or I) would not do this, then you are probably not a bad person in this way. But you must believe that some are. And that you don't necessarily know "what is in the hearts of men."

 

[tapu]

Distantly related personal experience:

I hit a cat once. The front of the car swerved over to the left from the force of the impact, and I nearly lost control.

(I stopped of course!)

I never saw the cat before the end, but there was no doubt whatsoever that I had hit something... and it felt like something alive.

You'd have to be near-unconscious drunk not to know you hit somebody given the details of the articles. Even if some details are wrong; some must be right: daytime (a.m.); on way to work; man hit hood then windshield then flew off; windshield crazed; guy turned around and went other way.....

No, this guy may have panicked and pulled a hit-and-run without thinking... but that sort of is what a hit-and-run is all about. Charge him.

 

[southcitymom]

I don't think there is near enough information to call the man that hit the man a bad person. The driver could well have been in shock.

 

[Betty P]

He could have still been alive, but unconscious. Its horrible to think a doctor wouldn't bother to stop and render aid or at least see if the guy was still alive.

There was a doctor in our area a couple of years ago who hit someone and kept driving. He wasn't pulled over until a cop heard the bulletin and stopped him about 15 miles away. The guy claimed he didn't know he hit the man, though his car was badly damaged. He claimed he thought it was a "pothole in the road".

Sadly, the doctor's hospital kept it out of the papers and hired expensive attorneys who got him off with unsupervised probation. Really tragic. Not all doctors are good people.

 

[tapu]

I don't think there is near enough information to call the man that hit the man a bad person. The driver could well have been in shock.

How do we figure in all the many many more people who hit and don't run? They're not "in shock"?

What kind of person who does a hit and run is a "bad person," and what kind isn't? I'm not saying that hitting a person makes you a bad person--I'm saying that running off afterward makes you a bad person.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but hit-and-run is right up there on my Bad Behaviors list.

This doctor wasn't under a compulsion to take off. Anyone in this situation could help himself. What possible circumstances ? What acts--incl. being drunk or driving while exhausted--could diminish the responsibility of someone in this situation? Nothing mitigates running off after hitting someone.

 

[wfgodot]

Police: Van appears to have gone over curb; worker who was struck likely died on impact (Wichita Eagle)

WICHITA — A minivan apparently went over a curb and struck and killed a lawn service worker on impact — throwing the man onto the roof before the van drove miles with the body before stopping at the driver's home, police said today.

A child, possibly 12, was riding in the van, Wichita police Lt. Joe Schroeder said.
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Investigators are still trying to pinpoint a cause of the accident.

It could be five to six weeks before a determination is made on whether charges could be filed.
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more at Eagle link above; name of victim still unreleased

ETA update

The driver's daughter, 22, was riding in the van, Wichita police Lt. Joe Schroeder said. Earlier, Schroeder had said he thought the daughter was possibly 12.
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Schroeder said he couldn't say why the driver continued driving after striking the 32-year-old worker, who was a Mexican citizen.
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[Nova]

Just to be clear, my point was merely that the driver wasn't making rational decisions. Apparently, he turned around and headed home out of instinct. To me, panic/shock seems likely, but as it does with suspects who lead the police on high speed chases on TV. When do such suspects ever get away? Yet they keep running.

This isn't to say the driver was in such a state of shock that he isn't legally culpable for his actions. I don't know enough about the law or psychology to have an opinion on that subject.

 

[LadyL]

people who leave the scene usually do so when they have something to hide or are afraid b/c of prior convictions/bad acts

so if it's simply a car accident, even if he's at fault, why run? people genuinely in shock usually just sit there or wander around the scene not knowing what to do while bystanders spring into action

of course, that's all my own experience and shock can be a strange animal but I'll be interested in the details when they come out as to why he jumped the curb in the first place and what his passenger/daughter was doing/thinking

 

[tapu]

But he was such a nice doctor....


I ask, of anyone, is this the attitude you would take toward every hit-and-run?

And, if not all hit-and-runs would be received by you this way, what is the difference?

Please explain to me why this hit-and-run seems possibly justifiable.

I hope someone can take one or more of those and explain it to me. I'm bewildered by this thread.

 

[Kimberlyd125]

The first thing I thought of when reading this was shock.

I don't know why. But it's what I thought of first.

Maybe it's because the body was still on the top of the van as he drove 3 miles. Surely he wasn't trying to HIDE it. If that was the case, he would have stopped and got the body off of the van. A body on top of a damaged van is very noticeable.

JMO

ETA: I'm interested to know what the daughter was doing as he hit/drove home. She's in her 20's. Wonder what she said about it???