Driver (w/chl) in officer-involved wreck charged

[roff]

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?secti ... le-8018269" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A charge has been filed against the woman who slammed into a DPS deputy's patrol car while he was conducting a traffic stop on Saturday.

Kimberly Woods Shipper, a nurse at Hunstville Memorial Hospital, was arrested at work Thursday evening on a charge of intoxicated assault on a peace officer and unlawful carry of a weapon by a license holder, according to a statement from the Department of Public Safety.

Duck was parked along the shoulder of highway to issue a traffic citation to another driver. He had just gotten back into car when Shipper crashed into the back of the officer's car.
. . .

[gemini]

How stoooopid. This type of foolishness shames our community. Not the
kind of news I like to hear. Hope the trooper is Ok.

[TexasGal]

If you are going to drink, don't drive. And for sure don't drive with your gun in the vehicle.
This does not make CHL holders look responsible. I hope her judgment as a nurse was better.

[longtooth]

We certainly dont need any of this & especially at this time.

[jmra]

I bet she is one of those CHL's who believe there is nothing wrong with having a drink or two while you are cc'ing or driving. Depending on her BMI, 2 drinks might have been enough to severely impair her abilities.
Drinking (at any level) and cc'ing/driving don't mix. Anyone who thinks otherwise is only fooling themselves.

[Kythas]

What a poorly written story. I would have received no better than a D on that in my journalism classes in college.

One thing mentioned in the story was she (or is it he? The pronoun changes several times during the story) was on her way back from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I'm curious as to whether or not she attended the rodeo while carrying, which we all know is a huge no-no.

My prayers go out to Trooper Duck for a swift and complete recovery.

[HankB]

"Kimberly Woods Shipper, a nurse at Hunstville Memorial Hospital, was arrested at work Thursday evening on a charge of intoxicated assault on a peace officer . . . "

Collision on Saturday, and arrested at work on Thursday, most of a week later?

Is it SOP to let drunk drivers leave the scene of the accident and then go after them afterwards? If taken for medical treatment, wouldn't there be an LEO waiting right there to slap cuffs on as they're released, especially when another LEO has been injured? And the charge is assault on a peace officer, not just DWI?

Needless to say I have no personal expeience with getting busted for DWI, but something sounds fishy . . .

[boba]

And the charge is assault on a peace officer, not just DWI?

Needless to say I have no personal expeience with getting busted for DWI, but something sounds fishy . . .

Running over a little old lady is not as big a deal.

[ELB]

...Collision on Saturday, and arrested at work on Thursday, most of a week later?

Is it SOP to let drunk drivers leave the scene of the accident and then go after them afterwards? If taken for medical treatment, wouldn't there be an LEO waiting right there to slap cuffs on as they're released, especially when another LEO has been injured? And the charge is assault on a peace officer, not just DWI?

Needless to say I have no personal expeience with getting busted for DWI, but something sounds fishy . . .

I don't know if it is "SOP," but I have attended to accidents involving persons thought to have been drinking, and in my limited experience, no it is not necessarily straight to jail. In particular, with injured people who are taken to the hospital and treated, I would suppose they (the cops) do not necessarily hang around waiting to see when someone is going to get out. Once the have the demographics (name, etc) and cause to obtain BAC, they can put the information together any time and go get the driver later. Someone like that nurse, with an established job, residence, etc, would not be hard to find again (say...at work).

I attended (as a first responder) to one incident where it seemed possible two people in a wrecked car might have been under the influence of something. The passenger went to the hospital, and the driver waited for a wrecker. The trooper investigated and went on his way long before the wrecker arrived. Weeks later I got a call from the trooper, who told me I was one of his witnesses for a driving-under-the-influence case he was trying to make against the driver. He told me that if it went forward, I would hear from an investigator for the DA's office. It has been several months now, maybe half a year, and no call.

So no, things do not necessarily happen as quickly as on the TV shows...if they happen at all.

On the other hand, the seemingly drunken 15 year-old who ran over some mailboxes and told the deputy there was nothing illegal in the car just before the deputy found a handgun under the front seat -- yeah, he got an express ride to the pokey.

[VoiceofReason]

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?secti ... le-8018269

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A charge has been filed against the woman who slammed into a DPS deputy's patrol car while he was conducting a traffic stop on Saturday.

Kimberly Woods Shipper, a nurse at Hunstville Memorial Hospital, was arrested at work Thursday evening on a charge of intoxicated assault on a peace officer and unlawful carry of a weapon by a license holder, according to a statement from the Department of Public Safety.

Duck was parked along the shoulder of highway to issue a traffic citation to another driver. He had just gotten back into car when Shipper crashed into the back of the officer's car.
. . .

“Intoxicated assault on a peace officer”??

Are they hoping she will plead out on this?

Seems to me they might have a rough time getting a conviction on this one.

[srothstein]

"Kimberly Woods Shipper, a nurse at Hunstville Memorial Hospital, was arrested at work Thursday evening on a charge of intoxicated assault on a peace officer . . . "

Collision on Saturday, and arrested at work on Thursday, most of a week later?

Is it SOP to let drunk drivers leave the scene of the accident and then go after them afterwards? If taken for medical treatment, wouldn't there be an LEO waiting right there to slap cuffs on as they're released, especially when another LEO has been injured? And the charge is assault on a peace officer, not just DWI?

Not SOP, but almost that. In any case where a person is seriously injured or killed, the law allows a mandatory blood draw for evidence. As a general rule, you want the best evidence in any case, and cops will do so even more when one of their own is the injured party. So, they drew blood the night of the accident and then released her while they waited for a crime laboratory to process the blood as evidence for a BAC. They could have booked her at the time, but without the blood test results, it would have been dependent on other statements and is generally not a good idea, tactically. So, they wait for the lab results of the blood test and then get a warrant and arrest her.

For VoiceofReason, as well as your second question, the charge is not just DWI because of the changes a few years back. When the legislature moved DWI from the Transportation Code tot he Penal Code, they created the new offense of Intoxication Assault (PC 49.07). This section states it is a specific crime if a person has an accident while intoxicated and causes serious bodily injury to another person. There is another section for Intoxication Manslaughter for cases which cause death. These were done in aprt because of the rise in injury/death DWI accidents and because DAs were losing cases for assault when the injured party was a passenger (the consent defense to regular assault confused the issue slightly).

Intoxication assault is normally a 3rd degree felony (significantly higher than a starting DWI). But PC 49.09 increases the grade of offense to a 2nd Degree felony if the injured person is a peace officer or fire fighter in the line of duty. This was a response to just this kind of accident (and like the San Antonio officer killed a few days ago in another DWI accident). The hope is not nearly so much for a plea bargain (though that is always easiest for the DA) as that the possible punishment will deter DWIs. My biggest fault with the law is that I don't think any law like this works to deter nearly as much as its proponents would hope. I don't think anything other than a major shift in society's beliefs on drinking and alcohol in general, as well as on DWI, will really change what is happening.

[Embalmo]

There are several things that don't add up here. When her blood alcohol level was finally checked, it was .11. Now if she traveled between Huntsville and Houston, and slammed into a vehicle with a hard enough impact to flip her truck, she was probably well above .11 when she got in her truck and still over .11 when the accident occurred; and she likely carried illegally at the rodeo and got hammered while carrying. This doesn't sound like the the behavior of someone who would qualify for a CHL. I'm thinking that the gun was probably "legally" owned by he/she and the special needs individual who wrote the story assumed that people need a license to own a gun. Plus, I believe that anytime a gun is involved, reporters always try to involve CHL carry.

Embalmo

[HankB]

"Kimberly Woods Shipper, a nurse at Hunstville Memorial Hospital, was arrested at work Thursday evening on a charge of intoxicated assault on a peace officer . . . "

. . . Intoxication assault is normally a 3rd degree felony (significantly higher than a starting DWI). But PC 49.09 increases the grade of offense to a 2nd Degree felony if the injured person is a peace officer or fire fighter in the line of duty.

Thank you for the explanation . . . I don't like drunk drivers, especially when they hurt people.

BUT . . . were I on the jury, there is NO WAY I would convict someone of "enhanced" charges because the person injured happened to be a government employee. If a 3rd degree felony is a sufficiently serious charge to prosecute when a drunk runs over Joe Taxpayer, it's also sufficiently serious if the injured party draws a government paycheck.

[ELB]

This appears to be an example of what srothstein was talking about:

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/ ... 126576.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Accident occurred 6 Nov 2010, two children killed.

Toxicology report on driver released 19 Jan 2011.

Subsequent to that, indictment and arrest warrants issued.

Driver arrested for intoxicaton manslaughter approx 14 Mar 2011 (at least that is the date of the news article, and it appears that the arrest was on or just prior to that date.

Note that this was not about drinking and driving -- the toxicology report showed the driver had a mix of prescription drugs in her blood.

[The Mad Moderate]

"Kimberly Woods Shipper, a nurse at Hunstville Memorial Hospital, was arrested at work Thursday evening on a charge of intoxicated assault on a peace officer . . . "

. . . Intoxication assault is normally a 3rd degree felony (significantly higher than a starting DWI). But PC 49.09 increases the grade of offense to a 2nd Degree felony if the injured person is a peace officer or fire fighter in the line of duty.

Thank you for the explanation . . . I don't like drunk drivers, especially when they hurt people.

BUT . . . were I on the jury, there is NO WAY I would convict someone of "enhanced" charges because the person injured happened to be a government employee. If a 3rd degree felony is a sufficiently serious charge to prosecute when a drunk runs over Joe Taxpayer, it's also sufficiently serious if the injured party draws a government paycheck.

Im inclined to agree, I am not ok with enhanced charges just because he is a police officer, now had she done it BECAUSE he was a police officer I could see justifying the greater charges, I do no like elevating anyone to a higher class regardless of occupation. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, its a sad but true reality that people die from intoxicated drivers every day, a police officers life is no more valuable the anyone else's, transgressions of the law should be treated equally under the law, regardless of who the victim was;