Two fatal bike accidents in one county have very different consequences for the drivers involved.  One driver had been drinking, left the scene of the accident, tried to cover up the crime with the help of his friends for ten days, was unsuccessful and is now facing a sentence of one to five years.

The other driver was sober, believably unaware that a motorcycle had struck his trailer from behind under the cover of darkness, stopped and was fully cooperative with the police immediately thereafter.  Although his accident happened a year before the other, his trial will happen later this year.  He faces imprisonment for 30 years.

Both drivers were older white men, upstanding individuals who had no problems with the law before their respective accidents.  The differences in the punishments is hard to figure out, one would think that the former offense should be dealt with harsher than the latter.  Yet the police and prosecution have approached the latter with a zealotry rarely seen.  See whether you can guess why as we present that case first.

Victim MSP's Chad Wolf:  Cooperative, Sober Driver Involved with Crash May Get 30 Years

While most everyone else was mourning the death of Michigan State Police Motorcycle Trooper Chad Wolf due to a tragic traffic accident, and ready to lynch the driver of the other vehicle involved, the Ludington Torch was looking for the truth and Lessons from the Death of Trooper Chad Wolf.  As the founder of Bicyclists United with Motorcyclists and Pedestrians for Safety (BUMPS) who urges more protection for our vulnerable users of the road, I could only come to one conclusion with the information released:  the trooper was at fault for riding too close, and the driver was likely oblivious to any accident that occurred until his trailer began failing. 

The authorities do not wish to believe this, because they would rather put an otherwise innocent old man in jail for the rest of his life, rather than admit their own man was riding dangerously.  Thus, as related in the October 23, 2015 Oakland Press:

"Charles Raymond Warren Jr., 69, on Friday, Oct. 23, [2015] was arrested and charged in 52-2 District Court in Independence Township with reckless driving causing death and failure to stop at the scene of an accident causing death.  Both charges come with 15-year prison sentences upon conviction."

The charges are hard to justify.  In an early 2016 Mlive article titled "'Would we even be here' if Chad Wolf weren't a police officer" it was learned the district court judge, who attended the funeral of the trooper yet waived her disqualification to judge the case, ruled that there was enough evidence to bind Warren over for the two 15 year felonies.  The evidence amounted to inconclusive conjectures and evidence investigated and compiled by the agency Trooper Wolf worked for. 

Warren's attorney, Neil Rockind put forth:  "Leaving the scene of an accident was basically that Warren felt a bump and discovered that his trailer was dragging a bit-- and that was evidence-- he should have known he was in an accident...  There isn't a shred of evidence to support the prosecution's "theory all along" that Warren switched lanes, and his client never told investigators that's what happened.

His attorney further said after the ruling was turned over to Oakland Circuit Court to be tried later this year:  "This was one of the most inexplicable rulings that I've witnessed in 23 years.  Other than to say that I'm stunned and disappointed, there isn't much to say.  We proved that the charges were unwarranted and without basis and the judge found probable cause anyway."

The State's expert was forced to concede in the hearing that: “there isn’t a single shred of evidence that supports the theory that Warren changed lanes cutting off Trooper Wolf.”  Nor was any evidence or witness that shown there was any other traffic violation or negligence by Warren--  a wild theory put forth by the MSP that seems to contradict the state's arguments. 

Pictures of the scene show the major damage is on the driver's side of the trailer, the article tells us that prosecution stated the initial impact was with the passenger's side (and it hasn't since been corrected in nearly a year). 

If the motorcycle was sideswiped when Warren changed lanes as per the theory, how was such damage made to the driver's side when the impact was on side of the passenger's side?  This prosecution appears strictly a means of misdirected vengeance for the pointless death of Trooper Chad Wolf by the MSP and their 'more than happy to prosecute a case like this' friends in the Oakland County Prosecutor's office.

Victim Cordie Howlett:  Impaired Hit and Run Driver Who Took Steps to Avoid Detection Faces a Year

At around 11 PM on October 3,2016, another bike accident occurred in Oakland County in the city of Highland Park just north of the intersection of Woodward Ave. and John R Road.  Unlike the Wolf incident, the accident was not only witnessed but recorded on area security cameras. 

Cordie Howlett, (pictured left) a 54 year old resident of the city was riding his bicycle home, and went to cross the five lane John R Road in front of the Ace Hardware Store on the corner of the two roadways.  After waiting for a car in the near lane to pass and believing he could make the trek across, he set out, the videotape (see the video here starting at 1:12) shows it took him six seconds to cover the 60 feet width of the full road.  The video also shows a car on the rightmost lane travel without variation of their speed plowing into the back of Cordie's bike. 

From the video it is clear that the driver should have seen the cyclist in the bright lights for at least five seconds, another driver to their side actually yields four seconds before the impact, having seen the rider.  Cordie would later die from the injuries caused by the collision, the driver seemed to think they should stop, but continued, speeding up dramatically and turning off the road. 

Fortunately, a Detroit Police officer in his POV was behind the hit and run driver.  Faced with a dilemma of whether to pursue or render aid to the prone cyclist, he wisely chose the latter.  He later related, confirmed by another witness with effectively the same view, that as the light turned green at the south of the intersection, he saw the bicyclist begin to cross the street, and the SUV driver in front of him just drove right into him.  The map below shows the bicycle's path in red, and the SUV's path in black.

 

Detectives later arriving at the stabilized scene noticed there was a camera in the area that may have caught the incident and others that may help an investigation.  The footage indicated the SUV was blue and had one brake light that did not work, and that the driver may have been at a bar up the road.  A parking lot video from that bar showed a SUV fitting the description with a matching inoperable brake light, it also allowed the detectives to verify it was the SUV they sought by comparing other videos. 

Internal video and employee verification had indicated that the two people who were traveling in the van were Brett Booth, who owned a local business called Booth Automotive, and somebody nicknamed 'Jojo', who did the driving that night.  They visited Booth at his business and conducted an interview, where he lied to the police several times, but provided information of them going to another bar that night.  The detectives went a circuitous route from that bar, to a local high school, where they found a likely suspect, but Booth called them back to give a much different story and verified that 'Jojo' was Joe Dunning, the baseball coach they had found on their own initiative.   

Brett Booth went on to tell everything.  How he had saw Cordie's Trek bicycle helmet hit the hood, how he had urged Dunning to "take off and get the f**k out of here" when he had slowed, how they had parked the SUV at his business out of sight, how they had both been drinking, and how he hadn't wanted Dunning to ruin his life too.

Booth's advice, inhuman as it sounds, was good counsel.  Had Joseph Dunning actually stopped, rendered aid and contacted authorities and they determined he had been driving drunk he would have faced much harsher penalties.   Causing a death while driving drunk is a 15 year penalty, a 20 year penalty if super-drunk  (see MCL 257.625(4))

Not stopping at the scene of a fatal accident (see MCL 257.617 ) is only a 15 year felony if the driver is deemed to have caused the accident.  If not, it is only a 5 year felony.  Although it is clearly debatable that Dunning (who had admitted to having a couple of drinks and who must have had diminished perceptions in the lead up to the crash) helped cause the accident, a reasonable jurist might also conclude the bicyclist failed to yield to oncoming traffic.  Add to that, it was determined at Cordie's autopsy that he was legally drunk that night.

So while Dunning admitted his guilt under police questioning, admitted he had hid his SUV at Booth's, admitted he had went out of the county to get a replacement hood that Booth installed, admitted he had the second bar's owner dispose of his damaged hood, and admitted he had kept his dirty little secret for nine days, the maximum five year hit-and-run charge was all that was sought against him. 

A mere two months later, Joseph Dunning was sentenced to 1-5 years in prison.  Brett Wallace Booth is scheduled for court later this month for the charge of lying to a police officer for his initial prevarications, a potential two year misdemeanor (see MCL 750.479(2)(c)). 

Different Scales of Justice for the Victims Chad and Cordie Appears Due to their Status

Trooper Chad Wolf and Cordie Howlett were fathers of four and two respectively.  They both had several brothers and sisters.  They both have been noted as honorable men at their respective funerals.  But one had to set up a gofundme page to afford the ceremony, the other had a lavish one in honor of their position.

The funerals would not be the only difference in what would happen to these two guys from similar backgrounds who similarly suffered the same fate on their bikes in the dark, victims who may have had some of the blame for their demise, but who shared that with the drivers that came out of the crashes alive.  That difference would surely be the fate of those drivers, and how the Oakland County police agencies and prosecutor decided to dispense justice.

For Cordie's killer Joseph Dunning knew he hit a biker, the soon-to-be-lifeless body cascading over his hood until coming to rest on the pavement behind his SUV speeding off, then parked the murder weapon in a hidden, locked lot, purchased a new hood while ditching the old one, and took nine days (when a closing police dragnet was about to summon him) to finally come clean.  For that ten day period, he actively pursued courses of actions to totally remove himself from any responsibility, and for that will likely serve a year.

For Chad's killer Charles Warren no statement, witness, or proof has come forward to suggest he knew a collision ever happened from behind his trailer in the predawn hours.  Nothing in the records indicate he acted reckless or even just careless.  He pulled off the road when his trailer was having issues, saw the damage, waited for the police, cooperated fully with them, and two years later there is still no evidence saying he had any bit of blame for the collision or avoiding the authorities. 

He faces thirty years, because more than likely, MSP Trooper Chad Wolf was not driving his motorcycle defensively.  Chad was a youth pastor and nothing suggests he wasn't an exemplary trooper, but does that mean we should stone the unwitting driver whose trailer he rode into?  Especially when one considers that Cordie Howlett's killer and his accomplices got off so easily from the same local justice system, who now wants to hold Charles Warren's rights to a much lower standard than Joseph Dunning's.

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After further research and review of the camera footage, I verified that the direction Cordie was traveling across the street more resembled the orange line in the above diagram. 

This is a salient point since it indicates that Cordie was looking to ride on the road, not just cross it, otherwise he would have just did that where the sidewalk is uncurbed at the intersection.  Hopping curbs on a busy road at an oblique angle is not something an experienced bicyclist would do when he had extra stuff at hand. 

So whereas the prosecutor made the decision to put the fault of the accident on Cordie because he did not have the right of way when he was hit, a good case could have been made to show Cordie did have that right-of-way since he was traveling legally down the lane he was hit from behind in. 

The attached state police report verifies the physics behind that presumption.  Cordie's belt, bag and body was all in the lane of the road, the belt and bag were in the center of that lane.  If he had been travelling due east (or mostly east) those items would have continued traveling east, with a bit of a north vector of momentum also. 

Attachments:

In the Chad Wolf case there is clearly two victims of the accident that took place, one who died, and one still living.  In reading through the news concerning Warren's legal odyssey, it's scary the way the prosecution persecutes him, saying he is violating his terms of his bond by his wife stopping at McDonald's on his way home from a court hearing. 

In Cordie's case, it's nice that the police were able to figure their way through this (with plenty of prodding from your family, I understand) to make arrests.  I grieve for your loss, but I hope you can at least appreciate that the local police carried on a thorough, continuing investigation that brought the killer to justice and put him behind bars for at least some time. 

It is a lot more solace than almost all families of bicycle/motorcycle/pedestrian deaths get around Mason County.  Houstonian Cassidy Kozminski violated Scott and Melanie Butler's right-of-way when they were cruising down the road legally on their motorcycle.   To my knowledge, she didn't even get a ticket for causing two deaths, but I couldn't tell you because I've had a FOIA appeal going on for nearly 18 months trying to get just the accident report from the local sheriff. 

So sorry to hear of the loss of your brother and how it happened! Prayers to you and your family and glad to hear you got "justice" and the murderer is in jail! As for the HPPD chief he is an acquaintance, lives in the same area as us and same aged kid. Always seemed a straight up guy but now I question that, although I should not! Why are politics and politicians  so damn corrupt!

Ok, I apologize, I read as Harper Woods, not Hazel Park so please retract my comment about the chief!

Earlier today, Charles Warren was found not guilty of any crime in the part that he played in the death of MSP Trooper Chad Wolf.  A jury of his peers found that he did not engage in reckless driving causing death and did not fail to stop at the scene of a crash.

As a proponent for motorcycle safety, I would be remiss in saying that when a death like this occurs, it is often the case that the motorcyclist is not at fault.  In this case, the evidence pointed away from that.  Instead of all the official resources used to incarcerate and prosecute in this case where the evidence clearly fell short in the first place, ask yourself why officials don't use the same initiative when cars turn in front of motorcycles travelling lawfully down the road causing the death of the biker when evidence and witnesses abound. 

Or ponder why somebody who was on camera taking several drinks shortly before he hit a bicyclist also travelling lawfully in the road, killing the rider, then sped away from the incident should not be pursued with as much vigor by the authorities. 

Glad he was found Not Guilty!  

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