Is this the type of case where the DA will present all of the evidence to a grand jury and see if they indict?
"I didn't see him until the car in front of me swerved and by then it was too late." Prove it wasn't so.
I'll let the professionals handle that. I don't think I can prove or disprove anything from here in Portland.
Re: Tony Stewart hits walking driver with sprint car, witnesses say The article now says that Ward was 20. Stewart is 43. I used to follow a lot of sports, but work forced me to specialize on the NBA. When I stopped watching car racing in the early 70s, drivers didn't gesture at each other, much less loiter on the track. They would climb the fence to escape the potential fire. If Stewart isn't prosecuted, then racing organizations should ban him to make an example of him. Maybe they should hire Stern to stop the dangerous near-fights.
If perspective is needed to explain that it happens all the time in racing, then to me it sounds like a frakking change is needed in racing. Sad a life had to be lost due to machismo dipwits, who need to prove a point.
Re: Tony Stewart hits walking driver with sprint car, witnesses say If you really watched racing in the 70s you would remember it was a lot rougher. That was before restricter plate racing. They would intentionally wreck a person who pissed them off.
If another driver was alert enough to avoid killing someone, then Stewart should have been, too. Witnesses say that Stewart gunned his engine to answer Ward's gestures, flaring his car way out from the inner painted line that all other cars were following. Ward had gone a third of the way down the track width, relying upon the drivers having been ordered to adhere to the painted line. Had Stewart done what he was supposed to, he wouldn't have come anywhere near Ward. If a black guy did this, he'd be up for murder.
That is why you have an investigation and why I personally thought it was way too early to say no charges will be brought. Someone died because the actions of someone else, one would hope law enforcement would put more than 24 hours of investigation into the situation before making any decisions, and it sounds like that is what they are doing. Stewart certainly has a defense, but let's hope law enforcement doesn't just stop at what Stewart said happened.
Okay, how bout this. Nowadays, it's common for the driver to get out and gesture angrily. (They should hire disciplinarian Stern, or his slave refs.) In hundreds of angry situations similar to this in other races, the driving driver didn't hit the walking driver. In fact, only seconds earlier in exactly the identical standing position for Ward, many other drivers didn't hit him. So much for the "dim lighting and dark uniform" defense.
Two bad decisions, Ward's would be pretty harmless to Tony, Tony's had the potential and happened to kill.
Just seconds before he was hit, another driver blocking Stewart's view swerved at the last second. That's on the video. What you say of Stewart should be true of the other driver. Beyond a reasonable doubt.
Yes beyond a reasonable doubt but the act doesn't have to be intentional to be a crime. Beyond a reasonable doubt that Stewart was reckless is the question i think needs to be answered (as well as intentional, but that is much harder to prove) My big question was why did Stewart accelerate? It caused his car to fishtail and hit Ward. I don't know enough about car racing and what a driver would do in a situation like that (believing that Stewart saw Ward at last second), but it is strange that Stewart accelerated in that situation and that is what caused the contact.
A giant curtain could have blocked Stewart's view and it would be no defense. If Stewart had driven where he should have, on the painted line (under yellow flag, you're not allowed to pass anyone), he wouldn't have come close to Ward. Ward came a third of the way down, relying on Stewart to follow the yellow flag rules. Whether another driver also disobeyed the rule is irrelevant. Whether he blocked Stewart's view while Stewart disobeyed the rule is irrelevant.
It was reckless to walk halfway down the track in the dark in a dark suit. http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/witness-tony-stewart-hits-driver-at-ny-dirt-track-1.9015143 David S. Weinsten, a former state and federal prosecutor in Miami who is now in private practice, said it would be difficult to prove criminal intent. "I think even with the video, it's going to be tough to prove that this was more than just an accident and that it was even culpable negligence, which he should've known or should've believed that by getting close to this guy, that it was going to cause the accident," he said. The sheriff renewed a plea for spectators to turn over photos and videos of the crash. Investigators were reconstructing the accident and looking into everything from the dim lighting on a portion of the track to how muddy it was, as well as if Ward's dark firesuit played a role in his death, given the conditions. Driver Cory Sparks, a friend of Ward's, was a few cars back when Ward was killed. "The timing was unsafe," he said of Ward's decision to get out of his car to confront Stewart. "When your adrenaline is going, and you're taken out of a race, your emotions flare."
Whether he is or is not guilty, I really hope the police/DA give it its due diligence because someone is dead and someone killed them (even if by accident.) It will be interesting to see if there is a civil case, and what the outcome of that case will be, because the burden of proof is much different in that arena.
It will be settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Too much money and sponsors to risk a public trial.
Tyler Graves, a sprint-car racer and friend of Ward's, told Sporting News in a phone interview that he was sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands and saw everything that happened. "Tony pinched him into the frontstretch wall, a racing thing," Graves said. "The right rear tire went down, he spun on the exit of (Turn) 2. They threw the caution and everything was toned down. Kevin got out of his car. … He was throwing his arms up all over the place at Tony for most of the corner. "I know Tony could see him. I know how you can see out of these cars. When Tony got close to him, he hit the throttle. When you hit a throttle on a sprint car, the car sets sideways. It set sideways, the right rear tire hit Kevin, Kevin was sucked underneath and was stuck under it for a second or two and then it threw him about 50 yards." You have to consider the source as a friend of Ward has some bias, but I believe the law enforcement has their work cut out for them as this is anything but a cut and dry case on either side. Why did Stewart accelerate? If he did, does that prove beyond a reasonable doubt he was reckless in this situation? This is Stewart's profession, his craft . . . he is considered an expert at driving yet it seems he handled that situation about as bad as a novice would, worse. Maybe at those speeds and in those conditions (dark, dirt track) it was just an unfortunate accident as Stewart didn't see Ward, but I'm skeptical.
You say that darkness and dirt track caused Stewart, but no other drivers, to aggressively gun his engine and kill someone. Can you explain how the darkness got control of Stewart's adrenaline, then travelled from his brain to his foot?
