We still don't treat DUI offenses as if they're too seriousBy
Reach Roberts It's said that you could smell the alcohol on 22-year-old Muneerah Ali Al-Tarrah from five feet away. Her eyes were watery and bloodshot, and she swayed as she stood there, insisting that she only hit a light pole. In fact, police say she was drunk twice over when she hit Todd DeGain and left him there to die on a Mesa street. For that, I'm betting she'll get probation. Just because she was stinking drunk when DeGain's head crashed through her windshield doesn't mean she bears any responsibility for his death, at least, not the way prosecutors see it. They place the blame for DeGain's death entirely at DeGain's feet. As for hit and run, well, that isn't so much a crime around here as a way of life.
In fact, there is something lacking in a community that allows this sort of thing to so often happen with nothing more than a collective shrug of its shoulders. It's routine anymore to hit someone and leave them in the road, to die or not. In Maricopa County, 11,693 drivers cut and ran last year, leaving 3,872 injured people in their wake and 33 dead. Better to run, they reason, than to be held to account. Besides if they're lucky, and most are, they're never caught. Al-Tarrah and Bishara weren't so lucky. According to police, they met outside a Scottsdale bar early on Sept. 14 and drove to Mesa, with Bishara following Al-Tarrah. Todd DeGain, 35, had been at a lake that day and hadn't |
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yet unhitched his boat from his car. When a friend called with computer problems, DeGain hopped on his motorized skateboard. He was headed home at 2:30 a.m. when he was hit and killed while illegally crossing Alma School Road. According to witnesses, Al-Tarrah stopped briefly then accelerated away, smashed into a nearby light pole and again took off. Bishara also hit something and left, police said. Al-Tarrah blew a .159, nearly twice the legal limit, after police found her a few blocks away. Both women have been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and Al-Tarrah also faces extreme DUI. But she won't be charged in DeGain's death. Glenn understands that his son bears some of the blame. What he can't understand is how the drunk who hit him, who had his son's blood on her face yet denies hitting anything more than a pole, bears none of it. "I'm stunned that they don't associate that level of drunkenness with cause," he says. "If she had not been drunk to that level, my son would not be dead." Under Arizona law, being drunk isn't enough to hold someone responsible for a death. DeGain hopes to change that. He'd also like to see the penalty for hit and run stiffened beyond the three years that Al-Tarrah could get. "Personal responsibility," he says, "seems to be a lost virtue." And societal responsibility? Let's be honest, we don't take DUI seriously. If we did, we wouldn't pass tough DUI laws then reduce every penalty by 90 percent. If we did, we'd make it painful for bar owners who unleash drunks onto the streets. If we did, we'd consider extreme DUI at least as big a crime as obtaining cable TV illegally. As for hit and run, watch and see. Al-Tarrah will never see the inside of a cell. And we wonder why this stuff keeps happening? This information is courtesy of http://www.azcentral.com/ |
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