Yeah -- that's it... Does ANYONE believe "Bishop" O'Brien? He thought he hit an animal, so he drove home with his window smashed in, never called the cops and oops -- low and behold - a dead person was found on the road.

It's a case of divine retribution. (ironic that it came against a bishop)

He managed to weasel out of being held accountable for the child sex abuse he helped perpetrate. This, he will not be able to talk down.

Coyote? there are no coyotes where he hit the dude, that is downton glendale...

PS the man was walking illegally across the road, so the only thing he would be charged with now is leaving the accident. Or so they say today, could change.

Dunno about Arizona, but in most states, "walking illegally across the road" is not an affirmative defense to a motor vehicle accident. Rationale: if you're breaking pedestrian laws, your expected penalty is a ticket, but if you're barrelling down the road and see a jaywalker, you don't then have the right to mow him down.

Even if you think that he'd make a cute altar boy. eek!

Added: If stoopid pedestrian sued for personal injury, his recovery, if any, would be reduced by the level of his own negligence, if Arizona is a comparative-negligence jurisdiction. If Arizona is a contributory-negligence state, though, pedestrian would be out of luck, since any stoopidity on his part negates the bishop's bad driving. That's a pretty draconian theory, thuogh, and I'd be surprised to see it followed if the area wasn't particularly pederstrian-friendly. It's one thing to jaywalk if there are sidealks, crosswalks, etc., but it's another if it's a pedestrian hell like Vegas.

(edited to give me the opportunity to spout on further)

[ June 17, 2003, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: GatorJamie ]

PhillyFan - I undertand about the charges BUT my main concern is the Bishop's actions after the fact. From the reports (recognizing that they are just that and unsubstantiated at this point) he drove home with a caved in windshield, called to have it fixed and may have dodged the police for a considerable amount of time. The guy is a skunk -- his actions regarding the child abuse (if true) should have landed him in jail for years. Since this is a Religion sub-board I guess it is appropriate to comment on how these guys "just don't get it". They really believe they are above the law and that they are covered with some kind of spiritual immunity. Totally disgraceful what they do in the name of Gee-zuz.

Even if he did hit a coyote, wouldn't your first inclination be to stop? I mean, the sheer impact alone would make my heart pound that I would at least have to pull over for a couple of seconds. the only reason I can think that someone who hits something or someone doesn't stop is if they are afraid of being arrested for something. Perhaps a little too much sacrificial wine? Or maybe he had a young boy in the car with him? Whatever, no excuse and shame on him.

I'm not sticking up for the guy, just giving you the commentary i heard. The police are also to blame, he did this on sat, and it took them till monday to bring him in. Why is that?

The man who was hit was jaywalking, so he will not be charged with that. Leaving the scene of an accident is his only crime. The guy is pushing 70, so there is absolutely no way they send him to jail. Like it or not that is what will happen.

Altho, the dude may be a scum ball for what he did with the priests... this is a separate issue. The man was not drunk, and the man had not been drinking. If it was a matter of him being scared, well that is being human. Something you or i might do when faced with the issue.

Then again, he could have just tried to cover this up like he did with everything else....

now your church nickle will go to the defense fund of driving school in az. Or the big time lawsuit the dead guys family is going to have for him runnin

A lady here in my town hit a bicyclist at about 4 in the morning. She drove home, didn't even stop to check on the guy. Then at home she called her boyfriend and they took the car to a field out of town where they covered the car with a tarp. All this time, the bicyclist was crawling about 200 yards from the street, across a parking lot, so he could lay down next to the mall. I think he died.

It took the police about 3 days to figure out what happened, and to locate the car, the driver, and her BF.

We too had a famous case in the DC area in which a yuppie lawyer (driving a benz, naturally) hit and killed a teenage girl out in the burbs. She claimed she hit a deer -- and didn't stop either -- but turned herself into the police the next day.

There were all sorts of questions about whether she was using a cell phone at the time or whether she was DUI. The victim's family tried suing the woman's law firm (if she was talking business on the phone at the time of the accident, they might be liable). Can't remember how it was all resolved.

Isn't that everyone in the DC area wink

Recalling the incident, I Googled for ("hit and run" korean reston lawyer). This is the first of several hits.

http://www.washingtonian.com/people/twotruths.html

Curious, I dug out the rest of this sad story from the Helena Independent Record. The 41-year-old victim lived, although he'll never be well again. Turns out the driver was drunk and talking to her boyfriend on her cell phone at the time of the accident. "He said he heard a thump on the other end of the phone and (her) making a comment about a bicycle before the phone went dead." eek! He later helped her hide her car under a tarp in his yard.

The driver finally turned herself in, and plead guilty to criminal endangerment and tampering with evidence. (At least she didn't blame it on a coyote or a deer.) She was sentenced to 10 years probation, 1200 hours of community service, and, in a glaring miscarriage of justice, is forbidden from "owning or using a cellular phone for the period that she is under state supervision."

There are fifty thousand stories in the Queen City. This has been one of them.

Program note: ABC News Nightline tonight will "look back at the past year in the Church" and ask "What has changed?"

What are they going to talk about after they say the truth "nothing"? It is shocking how silent the majority is about the continuing stories of child molestation, abuse and otherwise atrocious behavior by many so-called "spiritual leaders".

I agree with mdphl's statements wholeheartedly....even if someone believed his weak \"alibi\" that he thought he hit an animal the obvious attempts to avoid responsibility and cover up the heinous crime that he had committed deserve severe punishment -- not that anyone should be surprised by the Bishop's lack of integrity given his recent past transgressions.

One of the reasons for the delay (and I don't consider Saturday night to Monday to be an exorbitant length of time) is due to the fact that the witnesses only were able to get a PARTIAL license plate number of the Bishop's vehicle (and thank goodness they did or else he clearly would have gotten away with this completely), which even with the technology in effect today clearly took some time to identify the list of possible vehicles -- unlike if the witness had been fortunate enough to retrieve the entire plate number immediately.


Does the fact that he is a senior citizen make this scum immune from punishment for his actions and relieve him of any responsibility to adhere to the laws -- particularly those involving manslaughter, hit and run/intentionally leaving the scene of a (deadly) accident, and then attempting to cover up the evidence and avoid the police? -- geez, using this logic if only OJ had been a few years older I guess he would not have been subjected to such a stressful criminal trial.


Speak for yourself PhillyFan....most of us may have done some regrettable things over the course of our lives but thankfully not many of us have been guilty of running down an innocent pedestrian and leaving the scene like the spineless thug that this Bishop is....he may be 70 but I, for one, would be glad to see him spend spend quite a few (if not all) of his remaining years behind bars where he cannot cause irreparable harm to any more innocent victims than he already has.

[ June 17, 2003, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: gamecock ]

Bishop- "...but officer, I couldn't stop. The young boy in my car would have been tramatized for life by seeing a dead body..."

there are many parallels between the Virginia attorny story and the Arizona Bishop story.
Both feature a high powered well connected driver who killed someone and claimed thinking they hit a deer.

The main difference between the two cases is the victims' wealth.

In the Virginia case, the victim was the daughter of a multi-millionaire korean immigrant. They had the financial resources and political connections necessary to pressure the prosecutors both in criminal court and civil litigation.

Had it not been for their wealth, what little time Mrs Wagner got for killing a girl while drunk would never have happened.

No one should forget that a bishop is a senior leader in the Roman Catholic hierarchy and as such is expected not only to promulgate the Church's morality, but to lead by moral and ethical example. This lousy, sleazy scumbag is Exhibit A in why the Catholic Church needs to be utterly scrubbed clean from the top down. There is little that is Christian about this man's behavior, and zero that could stand as any kind of positive example for either his fellow clergymen or for Roman Catholics in his diocese.

The Pope has "accepted" Bishop O'Brien's "resignation". CNN

Meanwhile, let's have a thought for the victim, and for our Roman Catholic friends, who are surely heartsick at this latest tragedy involving their Church's heirarchy.

redsoxbreath -- very well said. Thanks for the perspective.

So much for the "sanctity of life" (as to the victim)...

Thanks for sharing that terrific column from the Arizona Republic, RedSoxBreath....as the writer, E.J. Montini, accurately summarizes when quoting the father of a 12 year old boy who was killed in a hit-and-run a few years ago, "How can you not stop?"....I'm sure that is the one question that this scoundrel Bishop will not be able to answer.

I guess if he would have hit a pregnant woman he would have called 911 on behalf of the fetus (or adult stem cells.)

Look, I was baptized and raised Roman Catholic, and long ago I said I'd had enough of this duplicity. O'Brien is only the most recemt and blatant of the hypocritical monsters running and ruining the world's largest and one of its oldest Christian churches. Why on earth would he protect all these men abusing children and adult faithful? Why? What possible excuse can there be? What was Christian about that?

I really do feel for the poor man who was killed. Yes, he was jaywalking, but would it have been that tough for a man of God, an ordained BISHOP no less, to stop his damned car, read this man his last rights, and pray for and with him until the medics arrived? Isn't that the minimum expected of a someone following Christ's example?

[ June 18, 2003, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

fan,

Reading your post just breaks my heart. You hit the nail on the head. Take this as your comfort, though - all of those years of Catholic education did not go for naught, because you learned the important lesson.

gj

It is a cesspool - I was also raised and schooled in "the Church". Escaped pretty much unharmed with the operative word there being "escaped"

It is my understanding that an alcohol connection has not been ruled out (even though PhillyFan reports otherwise).

drunk driving is very often the main reason why hit and run drivers do not summon help.

I don't know how it can be ruled out since they didn't nab him for several days. Though that will also work against them trying to prove he was drunk. Have they said where he was coming from or going to at the time of the incident?

Anyway, I have a hard time believing most people, especially a man of the cloth, would leave such an incident unless he had something else to hide. As a priest, if he were sober and doing nothing illegal, he certainly had to know he'd have nothing to fear from the police or people in the community.

In an earlier post, the link to the Virginia attorney story spoke about this.

In that case.... they were able to determine that the driver in question had a history of coming into work at the lawfirm "hung over"

They established that she had visited a couple of bars prior to the accident via witnesses and credit card transactions.

and they produced witnesses who saw her weaving on the road for "several miles" before the accident.

It's still early but similiar stories may emerge about Father O'Brien.
preliminary reports say that he was at a party or something prior to the accident.

I read a report that the prosecutors are interviewing people who were with the Bishop that day to determine if and how much he had to drink. He apparently has admitted to a "sip" of wine that day (how many people only have a sip?).

I have to believe he was drunk, or was with someone he did not want to be seen with (girlfriend, boyfriend, illegitimate child?) because you are all right - anyone who is involved in this kind of accident just doesn't blindly keep driving ("oh, I hit an animal and totally destroyed my windshield - no biggie"). I mean, I've hit ice patches in the winter and skidded, and that caused me to pull over for a second.

I have often lamanted the state of my church on this board. I was raised to believe that any man of the cloth was a example to the community and would always accept responsibility for his actions - what a crock as far as this guy is concerned.

Hooray!

The smarmy little Bishop was found guilty Tuesday on charges he fled the scene of a fatal hit-and-run accident last June.

The bishop faces anywhere from probation to 45 months in prison.

The one thing that really appalls me about this case is that apparently O'Brien is the first American Bishop ever convicted of a felony. Now I have no problem with his conviction, but to realize that every Bishop who aided and abetted criminals, defrauded their congregations and obstructed justice by buying off and otherwise silencing victims is walking free - hell, Bernard Law is hiding out in the Vatican right now, a relatively free man. It's just incredible.