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Man charged with June deaths of two pedestrians
By adamg on Mon, 08/18/2014 - 8:57am
Updated with arraignment info.
Mohamed Alfageeh of Allston faces arraignment today on two counts of motor-vehicle homicide for the deaths of two pedestrians in the Back Bay in June.
A Suffolk County grand jury indicted him last week, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
Bail was set at $10,000 at his arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court today, the DA's office says:
[Assistant District Attorney Gregory] Henning told the court that Campbell, 27, and Lanzillotti, 28, were together at the intersection of Beacon and Fairfield streets shortly after 9:00 p.m. on June 21. He said Alfageeh was travelling westbound on Beacon when the light at Fairfield turned red. Alfageeh allegedly continued through the red light, struck the front end of another vehicle in the intersection, spun through the intersection, and came to rest on its roof after hitting two parked cars.
Both Campbell and Lanzillotti were struck by the Explorer as it skidded through the crosswalk, suffering injuries that claimed both their lives.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
It's about time
.
They weren't sure who was driving
So, an investigation was required first, adding to the delay. The DA has some stabbings and shootings keeping the office busy too.
I disagree
Not about the indictment. I am as happy as everyone else for that. My belief is that the indictment has been issued in due time.
Grand Jury indictments are not spur of the moment things. They meet periodically, look at the evidence and testimony, and eventually decide whether or not to indict. Since the BPD wasn't even sure who to arrest after the incident, I will assume that the Grand Jury did a good job in working out who was at the wheel.
Now, we wait for the trial (or guilty plea.)
Misinterpreted
I'm sure the DA and police did their due diligence, and my comment wasn't necessarily in relation to their work-just a general "it's about time." Though I do still question how there aren't any charges related to giving a false statement, etc. since the accused allegedly providing false information was the cause of the uncertainty about who was driving, from what I understand.
Regardless, it seems like the most this guy can get is 5 years, assuming drugs or alcohol weren't involved, and also keeping in mind innocent, etc.
My bad
I do agree with the false statement point. It makes me wonder if the woman in the car might get charged with something.
I would also agree that 5 years isn't that much. Of course, if it is 2 charges and if they were consecutive sentences, it adds up. Of course, I wouldn't want to be in prison for 5 days.
2 charges of 2.5 years each = 5 years
As per the linked table
My worse
It is also written below, which I did see only after posting.
Imagine my right hand by my forehead, with only the thumb and index finger extended, to express my loserness at this.
Still, I don't want to be in jail for 2 and a half years.
Where did you see something
Where did you see something about the accused providing false information?
In the initial reports
a few months back
The authorities believed there was conflicting information about who was driving coming from the suspects. Apparently they convinced police that he was indeed driving, so I guess there is no cause for those charges after all.
Questions about who the driver was originally
So, someone said something false to the investigators.
Of course, if neither would say at first who was behind the wheel, that's obstruction.
On the other hand, perhaps a witness thought the woman was driving, but it was the guy all along and the couple both said that, in which case it was just poor identification by a witness.
I guess I'm confused enough that I would be a good juror on this case. When am I due?
Really?
Really? Exercising one's right to avoid self-incrimination by refusing to answer questions from the police now constitutes obstruction?
Only one of the two
could possibly self-incriminate. Unless they had one of those fancy cars with 2 steering wheels.
Pointless to debate this anyway. One of them (allegedly) killed 2 people with a car by blowing a red light, and might see a whopping 5 years for it, the end.
True, but
If you ask A if B were behind the wheel and ask B if A were behind the wheel, and both said "I don't know" or "no" when A and B were the only two people in the car, that could be obstruction. Yes, the universe is small, but it would be akin to asking witnesses in a barroom where someone was shot if they saw the shooter and everyone said "no" to that. It's not like there's another possibility. There were only 2 people in the car.
The irony here is that the actual driver would not be obstructing: they would be exercising their rights. Meanwhile, the passenger, essentially a bystander, would be obstructing.
To be fair, the driver was IDed, so the issue has gone away. And it's not like we're talking about the destruction of evidence or anything like that.
The wheels of justice turn
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.
unless you're a cyclist
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/02/15/cyclists-react-with-anger-af...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/06/30/boston-globe-c...
Grand juries don't give two shits about cyclists being killed. It's all our fault, we're all reckless, that poor driver, etc. etc.
Guess what anon
That was a collision between two vehicles (yes, a bicycle is legally a vehicle). Because of the circumstances of the collision, and this fact, the grand jury obviously determined there was no evidence that the garbage truck driver deliberately ran into the cyclist with the deliberate intent to hurt or kill them.
But I guess in your mind, cyclsts can do no wrong and all drivers are evil.
Doesn't have to be deliberate
Doesn't have to be deliberate, it can be negligent, just as this case. The charge against the driver in Back Bay wasn't that he deliberately ran into the pedestrians, neither was the charge against the dump truck driver (who fled the scene, btw).
no, bicycles are not "vehicles"
" (yes, a bicycle is legally a vehicle)."
Find me the MGL where it says that bicycles are vehicles.
Go on. You won't find it.
MGL ch.90 §24G (b):
MGL ch.90 §24G (b):
"...or whoever operates a motor vehicle recklessly or negligently so that the lives or safety of the public might be endangered and by any such operation causes the death of another person, shall be guilty of homicide by a motor vehicle and shall be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not less than thirty days nor more than two and one-half years, or by a fine of not less than three hundred nor more than three thousand dollars, or both."
Note that this doesn't require "deliberately" killing someone; simply "recklessly or negligently."
So apparently, there are enough grand jurors who don't believe that there's enough probably cause that someone who overtook a cyclist on a straightaway, killing them, was reckless or negligent, when there is a video of the act, eyewitness testimony that the driver was in the wrong, and it was a hit and run accident.
From one of the articles: 'Video footage, captured by a traffic camera, showed McCoomb’s truck attempting to overtake Motsenigos, striking him from the side, and driving off without stopping. A woman who was one of several witnesses, defended the cyclist at the scene, shouting: “It wasn’t his fault! He didn’t do anything wrong! He was just coming down the hill, and the truck hit him! The truck was going way too fast!”'
Now, I wasn't on the grand jury, so maybe it's more ambiguous from the actual video than that description. But that sound pretty damn like the probable cause bar that is necessary for a grand jury to indict someone.
However, from the article, it sounds like the grand jurors don't really understand the obligations of a driver to yield to a cyclist on the road: "Cunningham said that he initially felt confident the charges against the truck driver would stick, but that he grew concerned when he heard that a member of the grand jury had asked a question of a Wellesley detective that suggested the juror did not understand the truck’s obligation to yield to the bicycle."
It's not about
you bikers so get a grip.
What it is about
Driver's license = license to kill.
Drivers acting negligently or recklessly killing yet more people, and facing very little consequence because car.
Drivers not being held accountable for their behavior that is potentially fatally dangerous to others on a daily basis.
I could go on - but the long and short of it is that the laws need to be changed to remove driver privilege and create driver responsibility. It matters not that this particular alleged manslaughterer hit pedestrians and not cyclists - what matters is that they will get off very lightly for doing so because killing people with motorized vehicles is special in this state.
hmm.
if a driver's license is a license to kill, i wonder what he's being charged with? maybe he forgot to renew his license or something?
indictments
The correct quote from a Ben Ames Williams short story whose main character was Hazen Kinch is: "The mills of the gods grind slowly but they grind exceeding small. That being said, is the defendant a citizen, is he a fight risk. Bail seems to be minimal.
different strokes
If it's another drunken Saudi prince, get that room ready at the Dukes County House of Correction.
If it's a Moroccan illegal, 20 years at Souza.