Marines killed in car crash; justice demanded for off duty cop
A collision occurred on the 5 Freeway, Orange County, on November 5, 2022. Michael Miscione was driving after completing his shift at 3 a.m. He remembers driving onto the freeway before falling asleep. Miscione allegedly was going 90 mph in a construction zone when the collision occurred, leading to the deaths of the Marines in the vehicle that was hit.
From American Military News:
Michael Patton, still grieving the loss of his son, is determined to see the responsible party held accountable in the name of justice. “We are hoping to see that the district attorney does prosecute and that he does end up doing some time,” Patton told The Los Angeles Times. “The police are not above the law.”
For the grieving parents, the wait for justice after the death of their children has been agonizingly slow. While Nancy Berrios, Samantha Berrios’s mother, acknowledged that she does not believe the deputy’s actions were intentional, she explained that actions have consequences.
“It was a mistake — and there are consequences for a mistake,” she said. “In my heart, I know he didn’t mean to. But these are our children.”
According to The Los Angeles Times, Both Marines had promising futures ahead. Berrios, described as a determined and motivated young woman, joined the Marines in 2021 with aspirations of becoming a recruiter. James, on the other hand, came from a lineage of Army and Navy veterans and had been advancing in the Marine Corps.
Both of the Marine families are now seeking legal redress, having filed a lawsuit against Deputy Miscione, Los Angeles County, and others involved in the incident, according to The Los Angeles Times.
American Military News provides additional information.
What are the odds the deputy was working a 50 to 60 hour week due to the shortages at the department?
That’s actually, at least possibly, a valid point!
“I know he didn’t intend to hurt my kid, but he needs to be held accountable.”
Make up your mind. Either he needs to be held accountable, or it’s not his fault; it can’t be both.
If you want to take anyone to court, take the politicians who have been pushing the “Defund The Police” bullshit since 2020. The deputy was most likely covering all those shifts that can’t be covered because of all the deputies that QUIT, or the ones that can’t be hired because of the lack of support from the left wing idiots who have been trying to tell us that crime will go away if we get rid of the police.
Yep! And there are no winners here…everybody loses.
Sympathies to the families of the ones killed.
“it can’t be both.”
It can, actually. Lack of intent only means it could be a lesser crime; voluntary manslaughter instead of murder, for example.
California has a vehicular manslaughter law that can be charged either as a felony or a misdemeanor, depending on the level of negligence.
Lack of intent does not preclude lack of responsibility.
That he did not intend the outcome does not mean he is not responsible for the outcome.
LA County? There’s a 99.95% chance that Gascon will indict. Even if there’s no evidence of a crime, because…cops are bad m’kay?
Much like the military, law enforcement has been seeing a decline in both recruitment and retention for a few years now. I wonder why…
This deputy has no excuse for driving 90mph, especially in a construction zone, but having known sleep deprivation and the desire to simply rest up before putting a uniform back on for yet another long shift, I can empathize with his wanting to simply “end the day”. A lot of my sleep issues came from working 16+ hours, knowing I had 24-hour duty the following day, and being unable to really relax. Maybe that’s why I take regular naps on my days off nowadays in my mid-40s.
What turned me off from law enforcement was the low pay and long hours. The local municipal department I’m considering volunteering for pays under $16 an hour and works their officers 12 hours a day with every other weekend off. By my math, that’s 144 hours every two weeks, then after 28 days they swap day to night (or vice versa). The State Police pays better, but it seems they also have the 12-hour shifts. I’ll stick to my 40-hour weeks making $19 an hour managing guns and paperwork…
I feel for the families of the Marines as well as the deputy in this case. On a colder note, I think that maybe the local governments that employ law enforcement officers should be held liable for accidents or misjudgments made by cops. It’s dog eat dog in the end, and “Defund the Police” leads to longer hours, poorly maintained equipment, reduced manpower and training, and increased chances of negligence and poor decision-making. “Defund the Police” might fall out of favor when those diverted funds instead go to the families of people affected by defunded police departments. Reduce cops and incentives, heighten the risk factor for accidental deaths and injuries, and spend 10x more on liabilities than you would have an adequately staffed and properly trained department.
Our local police start at $24/hr and goes up from there. This is a lower cost area but the town council and the mayor have made a good faith effort to keep up with inflation.
Officer’s in LA start at over $100K and normally make around $115-135 their first year going up from there. Officers in Oakland CA have been known to make over $500K a year. $500K isn’t enough for Oakland.
It isn’t always about the money. Often, it is about working for people that openly despise you on the city council and in the mayors office as well as the bureaucracy. They denigrate the police all day, throw political privilege in their face, scream for help at the first sign of trouble and then complain about the help they get. The whole thing is pretty thankless.
The pay is relative to the area. South LA (Louisiana) ain’t exactly South L.A., but I get what you’re saying. The $55k or so (unless they get overtime, I’m not sure) a cop makes down here probably affords about the same quality-of-life as an LAPD or LASD has making double that.
The military was bad enough, with ticket punchers and suck ups ready to throw you under the bus to make them look good and/or get that next promotion. At least senior NCOs and officers in the military have come up through the ranks, the culture is similar across each respective service, and there are a number of barriers between the average Service Member and the politicians running things. Cops have to deal with a microcosm of this, with an elected mayor and appointed commissioner and/or chief. Perhaps worse are the deputies who work under an elected sheriff. When you’re the rank-and-file but your actions and inactions affect a politician (elected or appointed) at any level, you’re going to be disposable if deemed a risk to reelection. It doesn’t help that the leadership in many larger departments is often recruited from other large departments that have different criminal tendencies and demographics. A successful Atlanta PD Chief is not necessarily going to be effective running NYPD.
“This deputy has no excuse for driving 90mph”
Indeed. My experiences with sleep deprivation did not involve involuntarily accelerating to that speed.
I would assume the investigation into the accident would ask how he came to be going that fast.
I feel for the parents, and for the cop. Fell asleep while driving? Did he perhaps have his foot on the accelerator and was not aware of how fast he was going, much less in a construction zone due to being asleep/nodding off?
As I’ve said in other posts, I hope the cop is a bad person. Living with having killed two people is a weight I wouldn’t wish on a good person.
I’ve worked construction jobs on highways and the only protection you have is an reflector vest and orange barrels separating you from active travel lane(s). The vests we jokingly called crash protection devices because if you got hit or killed, not having one on could mean you or your family being denied a claim with insurance, whether medical or life. Seeing or watching someone knock over cones or barrels so they can get in front of 1 more vehicle is always entertaining. The sound of squealing tire, smoke from brakes locked up and the smell of hot brakes from big trucks just adds to the excitement.
These families should do as I’ve told my wife if I got killed at work was to not leave those involved any money to afford a van to live under a bridge by the river. I guess a gun and a badge gives license to ignore traffic laws.
Odie – Any potential empathy is because he is a cop, someone one hopes chooses to do the job despite the policies and politics, out of a sincere desire to help their community. If that is the case with this cop, the horror of the whole situation is compounded. If this one potential circumstance of being required to put in 80-90 hours a week is not the prime causative agent, because of the gun and badge, there is a higher presumption of responsibility and there should be a more severe punishment.
An alleged 90 mph in a construction zone leaves me with little to no empathy. That’s twice the limit in my state for construction zone speed limits.
Sorry for the families who lost loved ones, for sure. No sympathy for the one who knows the law and has more than likely responded to high speed crashes in the past.
Point taken
Sad.
No winners here.
Was this cop working overtime?
I hear cops get paid a lot of dope for parking their squad cars on night clubs after their shift is over.
Generally speaking, I don’t like cops. The only thing they do is to give me tickets. I understand police work is a necessary service for the community, since society has to be organized and the gruberment should have monopoly on violence, otherwise it would be Lord of the Flies, but for every good cop there is a negligent cop, to be kind and give them the benefit of the doubt, since I know people don’t join the police to become rich on the public dime, unlike politicians.
Anyway. I always had on the back of my mind that nagging question, about cops that might join for the thrill and the power high. Don’t get me wrong, if all they did was beat up antifa I would wholeheartedly support them. But if a cop makes a mistake, the dead are American citizens as in this case. If we in the military make a mistake and drop some unarmed locals while deployed to the sandbox, it is just some bad guys we just happened to encounter unarmed. Yet there will be hell to pay. So I think cops should be held to a much higher standard.
“The only thing they do is to give me tickets”. Did you ever stop and think, maybe after your first ticket or the 10th, that if you changed your driving tendencies, you wouldn’t get tickets? I doubt that ever occurred to you, right?
I am not a bad driver. I just drive with a purpose and have very little tolerance for people that drive while texting or talking with a handheld device. Can’t wait for self driving cars. That way they can’t give me tickets. Brilliant!
One thing I have learnt, if you see more than one person in the car, they are going to drive slow. Like, under the speed limit. My heads blows up.