A cop fatally struck a nurse. His actions after the crash shock the victim's loved ones.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

A cop fatally struck a nurse. His actions after the crash shock the victim’s loved ones.

Jan. 23, 2022, 4:30 AM EST
By Rich Schapiro

A silver Honda Accord zoomed past exit 150 on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey just before 3 a.m. The driver was an off-duty Newark police officer, Louis Santiago. His cousin Albert Guzman was in the passenger seat. ... It was the night of Halloween 2021, and Santiago was drunk, according to Essex County prosecutors.

He was staring at a cellphone when his car allegedly drifted into the shoulder and struck a man who happened to be walking along the darkened stretch of highway, prosecutors say.

Santiago, 25, initially thought he may have hit an animal, according to his lawyer, Patrick Toscano Jr. The victim, Damian Dymka, 29, was still in the costume that he had worn out that night: a black mask with gold antlers and brown fur covering his shoulders.

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Dymka would be pronounced dead at the scene — but not until more than two hours later. ... Louis Santiago, a New Jersey police officer who was off duty, is accused of loading Damian Dymka's body into his car and bringing it home.

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[exboyfil]

1. The cops that "caught" him should be fired and charged as well for official misconduct

The troopers found Santiago standing beside his car and Dymka’s body in the back seat, according to the affidavit. Santiago described what happened and admitted to hitting the victim with his car, police said in the affidavit filed in Bloomfield Municipal Court.

He appeared intoxicated and was taken for blood testing, the affidavit says. But Santiago, despite appearing drunk and having admitted to moving a dead body, was not arrested at the scene. He was not charged until more than three weeks later.

Policing experts said it was curious that the troopers did not give Santiago a breathalyzer test on the scene. Had they done so, and had Santiago failed, he may have been arrested on the spot.

“If they have no good explanation, like the breathalyzer did not work, or they didn’t have it for whatever reason, then the only explanation that comes to my mind is that they engaged in what we refer to as ‘professional courtesy,’” said Nancy Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

She described that as “wrong, unethical and quite possibly in direct violation of their departmental SOPs,” or standard operating procedures.

[NanananaFatman]

2. The thin blue line

Needs to be broken and shoved in the garbage.

That professional courtesy should cost those officers to be on the midnight shift provided no security for a garbage scow and it should open them personally to civil law suits.

Or being fired after being charged with attempting to cover up a crime. All of them did, after all, engage in a conspiracy to cover up negligent homicide.

What say you?

[vanlassie]

3. Clean up that precinct in one fell swoop.