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 ...
Well, we’ve got to have some way to put an acceptable degree of diligence into things like this ride.
I’m concerned about perverse incentives. Suppose Schooley feared a new failure mode. He might want to improve the product to address it. But that might be taken in court to be an implicit admission that the product wasn’t safe enough. If slamming into the guard bars killed someone, then perhaps they could be padded. But then the lack of padding before could be taken as evidence of bad design. That’s the kind of no-win game we get when the lawyers rule the roost!
Post the rest of the text, please.
Aw that’s not relevant. /s
(j) A person acts "recklessly" or is "reckless," when such person consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that circumstances exist or that a result will follow, and such disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in the situation.
Again we have the weasel words. How bad is too bad? How reasonable is reasonable? These things will morph on you. Even the lawyers will tell a client that juries are crapshoots.
Manslaughter, not murder. Murder is intentionally or knowingly.
Further, if many people used the slide or ride without harm, there was not a “substantial AND unjustified risk.” Nor was there a “gross deviation” from an undefined standard of care for water parks as it relates ot criminal activity. I’d bet money there has never been a criminal conviction for homocide for a water park operator based solely on the operation of a slide/ride in any state in the US. And I would make that bet knowing full well the crazy shit some states have allowed in civil and criminal prosecutions historically.
Dude, I asked you to look up the Kansas statutes. Quit making a fool of yourself! I just wonder since you have been following my posts how you could have missed this since I have posted it several times. Or are you related to the other fool on this thread?
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21-5403. Murder in the second degree. (a) Murder in the second degree is the killing of a human being committed: (1) Intentionally; or (2) unintentionally but recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.
I an so sad for the child and the parents but I have to ask; is it an “assault” slide? Does it accept more than 10 sliders at a time? Is it one of those evil “bump slides” that allows the attendant to send kids down it one after another by punching just one ticket? Is Hogg boy denouncing and threatening anyone who supports the park?
“I’d bet money there has never been a criminal conviction for homocide for a water park operator based solely on the operation of a slide/ride in any state in the US.”
An amusement park manager was found guilty Monday of reckless homicide in the death of a woman who was thrown from a ride last year, but he avoided a murder conviction.
” I’d bet money there has never been a criminal conviction for homocide for a water park operator based solely on the operation of a slide/ride in any state in the US. “
Dude, these weren’t the operators. They were the owners, ‘designers’ and ‘builders’.
Sadly it could get that bad. It cut or knocked a politician’s kid’s head off. That’s about as close to lese majeste as we can get in the USA.
What society will tolerate is up to it to choose. It’s sad when anybody is killed. The famous St. Louis Gateway Arch was marred by the deaths of several construction workers. I’ve wondered why no memorial on the site. It would only be respectful. A video shown there does mention the deaths.
But life is not one dimensional. We choose risks. I did when I got a motorcycle and jolly close got killed once. Do you see me being Carrie Nation in Harley dealers? Nope.
I saw a computer simulation of the accident, and it was horrific.
I don’t know if I would classify this as murder, but the reckless lack of testing by engineers certainly put this as reckless endangerment could be said to be criminal, but does it satisfy the criminal definition of homicide?
They deserve time in jail.
Mark
The devil’s in the details and then the jury will throw its crapshoot.
Were I Mr. Schooley, I’d ask a bench trial.
” but the reckless lack of testing by engineers “
There were no engineers involved. Just some crazy dudes that wanted fame. And they got it.
I agree. Negligent homocide is bogus.
And as your car mechanic, I only filled your brake lines half full to save some money.
Here’s where the manner in which the decedent died will doubtless inflame.
Others got banged up but nobody died till him — and it was a doozie of a death. And it was a politician’s kid. What are the odds of that bifecta?
Maybe now there will be tighter oversight of the design, testing, and operation of such rides. And that’s great. But it seems something is lost when we can’t agree to treat something that looks obviously dangerous as dangerous.
They’d never work then.
“Do they even charge drunk drivers with this crime? I’m not sure I’ve heard of this charge before.”
YES! I have already posted a link to multiple examples.
Build the park in D.C. Then invite all Congressmen to take a ride.
“People have died on Disneyland roller coasters, and I don’t recall murder charges being filed”
Disney doesn’t design the rides to kill.
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