nikki catsouras
Posted on 05/16/2009 4:17:49 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Online Photos Of Teen's Fatal Crash Spark Controversy Over Privacy, 1st Amendment Rights:A battle between a California family and the state’s legal system could see a resolution in the coming days, more than two years after controversial photos from a teenage girl’s fatal car accident landed on the Internet and sparked a heated debate over the right to privacy for someone who has died.
CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports a court ruling is expected soon in the case that’s exposed the dark side of the Internet and uncovered the pain of the Catsouras family, who say they’ve been forced to constantly relive the death of their 18-year-old daughter, Nikki, who was killed during a high-speed crash in 2006.
Nikki was driving close to 100 m.p.h. on Halloween night when she clipped another car, flipped across the median and crashed into a toll booth. Very little remained of the Porsche she drove and the condition of Nikki’s body was so disturbing that the coroner would not allow the Catsouras family to identify it.
However, days after the accident, millions of people saw pictures from Nikki’s crash on the Internet after at least one California Highway Patrol dispatcher allegedly e-mailed photos of the scene to friends. From there, the photos spread very quickly and landed on the Internet.
"I didn’t understand it initially," said Christos Catsouras, Nikki’s father. "I didn’t understand it…[I said] ‘what do you mean there are pictures?’"
The most disturbing photos were of Nikki’s nearly decapitated head. Catsouras said someone e-mailed him one of those pictures.
"Sick, just horribly sick," he said.
nikki catsouras
This has an easy fix but it would take a new law. Simply make any public rights to the use of crash photo that includes a victim be left to the heirs.
easy fix: don’t drive like an idiot, or drive with people who drive thusly.
“right to privacy” is just another chip at the armour of free speech
I was going to pronounce her NOT GUILTY - but driving 100 mph - GUILTY!
Clearly the CHiPs dispatcher is at fault here. That’s just plain sick.
And don’t give your 18-year old daughter (or son) a Porsche. Give ‘em a Honda... or a Yugo.
Realized she looks a little like Miley Cyrus, too.
Apparently a lot of officers are using their private cell phones to take pictures of crash sites they investigate. My husband was talking to a local deputy recently and they were discussing a very bad crash that involved a car vs deer that killed a 70 year old woman. He whipped out his cell phone and had a whole collection of crash pictures, including the car vs deer photo. The deer went through the windshield and completely obliterated the woman’s face.
The problem is not with taking the pictures because it’s a great way to document the crash. The problem is with irresponsible people that want to exploit the pictures. Leave the Internet alone but punish the officers that do this type of thing.
My dad’s had a 454ci, if I recall. (I was a youngster, but didn’t mind riding in it when I was late for school).
Yeah, if she was in that, she’d have had a couple of scratches and the poor schmoe in the toll booth would’ve been decapitated.
The act of emailing the crash pictures to the father with a disguised subject title was beyond vile.
Actually todays cars are much safer. Not the econo cars of today of course.
How is taking photo’s of accident scenes related to someones free speech?
It should only be done for investigation purposes. We as a society should respect the dead and their families.
Of course, as you know, it’s not the cars that are the problem, it’s the young people behind the wheel that are.
Indeed. And there’s no law that’s going to protect everyone completely from such vile actions. Unfortunately there will always be people who do cruel things to others. If we try to protect everyone from being affected by the actions of others, we’ll lose more of our freedom and evil people will still find ways to hurt others.
“least one California Highway Patrol dispatcher allegedly e-mailed photos of the scene to friends.”
That’s where the problem is, not the internet. Unless there is a valid legal reason, public officials should not be allowed to remove photographs from official networks.
“We as a society should respect the dead and their families”
Yes we should. And we should also respect the free communication of facts. Banning one kind of fact is just a doorway to banning more facts.
If society doesn’t want to see them then society doesn’t have to. It is society’s choice.
Almost all facts are good facts. This is a case in point. Car wrecks are nasty, icky things. Nothing like the movies. Just plastered over the road in a big pink mess. If 18 year olds are going to see something sick, it might as well be a cautionary tale.
I agree that this specific situation could have been avoided entirely if the girl had driven responsibly... and what do you want to bet alcohol was involved, given that it was an older teenager and Halloween?
Although in this case, the crash was probably entirely the result of the girl’s bad decision, but what if she had been brutally murdered instead of dying in a car crash? Then, it’s not her nor her family’s fault, but what would your suggestion have been then - “easy to fix, don’t get murdered”? Also, there has got to be some sort of ‘right to privacy’ - I bet you wouldn’t be happy if someone, without your knowledge or permission, took photos of you doing something you didn’t want the entire world to see you doing and then shared them with others. If it wasn’t for that concept, we wouldn’t be able to prosecute people who put hidden cameras in locker rooms or try to photograph up a woman’s skirt...
That said, what was the family’s complaint against the department when they sued? I’m pretty sure there would be regulations against sharing crime-scene photos with people who aren’t involved in the investigation, and I’m also sure it wouldn’t be too hard to have simply tracked down, via email, who initially shared the images and punished them appropriately... perhaps the entire controversy is because their lawyer tried to make it about ‘privacy rights’ when it should have been about the officer’s misconduct?
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