Erin BrownShe probably thought she was doing the right thing. When 21-year-old Erin Brown was too wasted to drive her Toyota Scion home after a night out on the town, she gave the keys to her boyfriend, Trevor Bradshaw. Which would’ve been a responsible decision, except he was drunk too — and ended up hitting and killing two pedestrians as he swerved through the streets of Nashville. That’s tragic in and of itself.
But prosecutors are now dusting off a rarely used law to charge Brown with vehicular homicide right along with her man, citing that anyone who knowingly hands over their keys to an intoxicated person is just as liable for any damages as the individual behind the wheel. Now she’s facing 30 years in jail because she wasn’t astute enough in her drunkenness to realize that her boo was too tipsy to drive.
So what we’re basically saying here is that it was up to Brown to discern how far gone Bradshaw was rather than it being up to him to admit that he was too stewed to play chauffeur. Under that line of thinking, it must be a mugging victim’s fault for wearing a super snazzy handbag and tempting a renegade thief to steal it.
The sad fallout from their bad decision-making means two young men are now dead: Michael Brooksher, 22, and Tommy Allen, 23. The best friends both suffered injuries that killed them shortly after they were plowed down at 2:30 in the morning back in December. If the D.A.’s office has its way, this incident will also claim the lives of two more young people, with Brown and Bradshaw serving three decades behind bars, which puts them darn near in their golden years by the time they get out if they serve full sentences.
I’m not saying break out the violins and sad movie music for either of them, especially him. How many high school health classes and bad after school specials does someone have sit through before they get the message that driving drunk, bad; calling taxi, good? But I do think that, barring any idiotic new developments that confirm she was well aware of how inebriated her man actually was, prosecutors are trying — unnecessarily — to make an example out of her.
There are a lot of laws on the books that we all could be slapped with and long suffering because of. In New Jersey, cabbage can't be sold on Sunday, and in Missouri, a man must have a permit to shave. Yet we’re footloose and fancy-free when it comes to those rules. My point is, there are oodles of stupid, silly, downright foolish regulations that we don’t honor or observe. Why crank up this one?
Is Brown just as accountable as her boyfriend for the deaths?
The sad fallout from their bad decision-making means two young men are now dead: Michael Brooksher, 22, and Tommy Allen, 23. The best friends both suffered injuries that killed them shortly after they were plowed down at 2:30 in the morning back in December. If the D.A.’s office has its way, this incident will also claim the lives of two more young people, with Brown and Bradshaw serving three decades behind bars, which puts them darn near in their golden years by the time they get out if they serve full sentences.
I’m not saying break out the violins and sad movie music for either of them, especially him. How many high school health classes and bad after school specials does someone have sit through before they get the message that driving drunk, bad; calling taxi, good? But I do think that, barring any idiotic new developments that confirm she was well aware of how inebriated her man actually was, prosecutors are trying — unnecessarily — to make an example out of her.
There are a lot of laws on the books that we all could be slapped with and long suffering because of. In New Jersey, cabbage can't be sold on Sunday, and in Missouri, a man must have a permit to shave. Yet we’re footloose and fancy-free when it comes to those rules. My point is, there are oodles of stupid, silly, downright foolish regulations that we don’t honor or observe. Why crank up this one?
Is Brown just as accountable as her boyfriend for the deaths?
glitter-graphics.com
Unfortunately she is... her car is her responsibility. It is also unfortunate that we haven't held more people accountable. I have family members that were killed by a drunk driver who walked away free... while a young mother survived in a coma long enough to give birth to an orphan since his father was killed in the accident and she died 5 years later still in a coma. We forget that driving is a priviledge not a right. I am so sad for all of them. So young and so not intentional but because they didn't care enough to be responsible 4 lives are ruined.
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about this. I believe that if she was really, really intoxicated her judgement might not have been clear or not about how drunk her boyfriend was. I know that sometimes when I am really drunk I just volunteer my husband to drive not caring if he is drunk or not.
ReplyDeleteIt truly is a sad situation. I feel like laws are getting way to strict when it comes to drinking and driving, to the point where we should just outlaw alcohol because there are so many restrictions. Not only can the driver get in trouble, but also the person who sold the alcohol to the drunk person. And as a waitress, this is a very scary fact and I am surprised that nothing has been done about whomever served the couple the alcohol.