Posted on 02/24/2003 5:27:59 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The parents of two French sisters crushed by a police sports utility vehicle as they sunned in Miami Beach arrived in Miami from Paris late Sunday and rushed to the hospital to see their surviving daughter.
City officials greeted Claude and Marina Tunc at Miami International Airport and drove them to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Investigators, meanwhile, tried to piece together how the Miami Beach police SUV ran over the two sisters: Stephanie Tunc, 27, who was killed, and Sandrine Tunc, 26, who was in critical condition at Jackson.
Beachgoers who witnessed the incident said the women were visible before the SUV trampled them.
''I heard them scream . . . It was unreal. I thought the officer saw them and was going to stop. The girls didn't hear him coming,'' said one of the witnesses, a woman in her 50s from Cork, Ireland, who did not want her name published.
Both sisters, French citizens, lived in London.
The accident was at least the third incident in the past 10 years that a Miami Beach city vehicle ran over and seriously injured sunbathers.
In April 1999, another city vehicle ran over a pregnant woman on the beach at nearly the identical spot.
The woman, Lupe Eyde-Tucker, survived and gave birth, despite suffering a crushed pelvis, broken ribs and head injuries after being hit by a city beach patrol officer driving a Ford Bronco.
A Peruvian tourist was run over in November 1993 by a Beach Patrol vehicle while sunbathing near 74th Street.
At the heart of the police inquiry now under way is how Officer George Varon, 36, didn't see the sisters, who were lying on the sand near a lifeguard station off Ocean Drive in the vicinity of 14th Street.
It's unclear if the sun impaired Varon's vision or if the victims were somehow hidden from view. Miami Beach police spokesman Det. Bobby Hernandez said he could not discuss details of the investigation.
Varon is on administrative leave until the investigation is finished. There have been no internal affairs complaints made against the seven-year veteran, according to police records.
Witnesses and colleagues said Varon was distraught.
''It was a pure accident,'' one said. ``I feel really sorry for the policeman.''
Hernandez said that departmental guidelines allow police and rescue vehicles onto the area occupied by bathers during emergencies only.
Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez said Varon was responding to an alert for two men who robbed a man rollerblading at 18th Street and Washington Avenue around 12:30 p.m. Gonzalez said he did not know what was stolen.
Gonzalez said the perpetrators did not use weapons. He said police received two calls -- the first stating the men boarded a bus, the second stating they were headed toward the beach.
Police officials and lifeguards have an ''interlocking'' communications system using Motorola walkie-talkies.
When a lifeguard at 14th Street told police of subjects matching the robbers' description, police zeroed in on the scene. Varon was dispatched because he was the only officer driving a four-wheel drive vehicle, city officials said. Other police vehicles followed, but remained on the hard-sand area. Gonzalez said Varon was not in hot pursuit of the suspects.
A day after the accident, those who witnessed and returned to the beach Sunday were still shaken up.
The Irish woman and her husband were interviewed Sunday near the spot of the accident on South Beach, where they were the day before, they said.
The couple said the white SUV was moving slowly -- ''just a crawl'' -- when it sliced through the sands of South Beach, leaving the hard sand area and moving in a direct line toward the 14th Street life guard's tower.
The couple and a third witness said Sunday that the police vehicle was southbound when it hit the women.
All three said the sisters were clad only in swimsuits and were not covered by a towel. They were lying on their backs with their heads to the north and feet pointing south.
The third witness, Len Zaiser, questioned why the officer tried to negotiate the beach's sandy contours amid a gaggle of sunbathers.
''That was really sick,'' Zaiser said. ``When I saw it, I thought he was stuck in the sand and trying to get something from under the tires.''
Zaiser said that only when he got closer did he see the young women pinned beneath the vehicle. They made no sound, he said.
The women had been in Miami Beach a few days before checking into the Clay Hotel on Española Way late Friday.
On Sunday, city and police officials said they would help with funeral arrangements for the older sister.
Herald staff writer Elaine de Valle contributed to this report.
The answer is that the Constitution is a list of things the federal government may (not must, but may do), and a shorter list of things the government may not do, because it was deemed especially important that the government not do those things.
The XIVth extends the list of "may nots" to state governments.
If it's not on the list of "may dos" it is an unconstitutional usurpation of the rights of states and individuals.
Why is this a bad thing? As you say, there were about 30,000 murders last year. Police are there to solve these murders. (I hope you understand they cannot prevent these murders.) The solution rate for murders and rapes is falling. (And the solution rate for property crime just plain sucks.) The historic standard is 80% of murders are solved. Every dollar spent on an unconstitutional federal deptartment of education is a dollar taken away from states and localities to do the basic fundamental work of policing. Not to mention the politically correct pollution of the schools. So now, in some cities, you have a better than even chance of getting away with murder. Murderers (with the possible exception of drug trafficers whacking each other, which is a problem that could be solved much the same way the problem of Prohibition-era gang wars were solved) are the same as ever. The police are not as effective as before. That problem can probably be traced to too much federal fingerpoking in business of state and local authorities (e.g. DARE and other time-wasters). THAT is why good policing depends on polce being aware of the Constitution.
Police costs go up. Police effectiveness goes down. Police errors pile up. Something has to change.
Yeah, I'll do that. You go back to reminding yourself that your government is your enemy.
I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose, but I agree,he still needs to be prosecuted for just the same as anyone else who runs over and kills someone. The problem is the it's extremely unlikely that he will ever come to trial for it.
I don't think they are out to get me. I DO think way too many are incompetent money-grubbing corrupt boobs on the same road as public education.
If someone gave you Chief Moose's resume and told you he was an inner-city high school principal, I bet you would believe them: lifetime of sucking at the governmetn teat, union man all his life, cheap Ph.D., and a total boob when the crunch comes.
Is that the future of policing YOU want to see?
I'm ready to be convinced: Show me the police that are supporting RKBA, opposing the Drug War and the corruption of seizure laws, opposing red light cams and random stops, and working to keep their PDs free of federal intrusion.
Good you found one instance where due to the "race warlords" getting into the act police faced personal consequences. This was one instance in what, 10 years? I'll even give you another for free. The cop who sodomized Abner Louima with a broomstick lost his job and was threatened with jail time, (I believe he didn't actually serve any time, but was on probation) but again, only because the race baiters got into it.
These are two and only two extremely scare exceptions to what is a growing problem in that a number of innocent people are killed by police every year either maliciously like in the examples of Brega and Hourichi or incompetently like the case of this boob. But, they face no consequences for their actions.
Oh come on...wondering why it is that police officers never seem to be held accountable for their negligence is a far cry from an "attack on our police officers."
In fact, holding police officers to the highest standards of professional conduct benefits the cause of law enforcement, and most LE professionals I've had contact with want the inept and unsuitable purged from their ranks as much as any evil anarchist libertarian.
Not only did the FBI grant these agents a license to kill without any career consequences, their ethnic minority status protected them from much media scrutiny. (Brega is of Hispanic and Hourouchi of Asian orgin)
On another note, I find anarchists very confusing, and I suspect they themselves are confused. Anarchists always show up at protest marches with the leftists, which seems to me a complete contradiction in goals. Why would they want to support the authoritarian, statist left?
Ignored black muslem men and concentrated on whites for one thing. Baltimore police had the shooters in their hands and let them go because of the overwhelming desire of Moose, the rest of the "law enforcement" community and the media for the shooter to be a white male.
Do you think that because someone's diction is not shakespearean, that they are incompetant?
Moose is supposed to have a PhD. Unless his PhD is in ebonics he damn well ought to be able to use proper grammar and diction.
In most jurisdictions, I would be allowed to shoot and kill the criminal. I'd probably even get my gun back.
Are you saying that you are more afraid of the random criminal (most of whom are criminals because they're not very bright or motivated or courageous) than you are of a police officer backed up by the entire weight and influence of his government?
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