Accountability, Six Months Later

[XLFD]

On October 10th, 2021, Gloria Trent and two other middle-aged women from Grand Rapids were crossing James Street in the southern crosswalk of Loomis Street after dining at one of Ludington's downtown restaurants.  They made it more than halfway when a truck driven by Joann Rogers of South Dakota, formerly of Scottville, plowed into them killing Gloria Trent and injuring her two friends.  

The incident was witnessed by multiple individuals and footage was caught by a local jeweler's security camera.  Rogers claims she never saw the women, the footage and witnesses indicate she never slowed down.  We have displayed the footage, the investigation and the aftermath in this article from November.   

Consequently, this author has made it known at several Ludington City Council meetings (in the process of getting all relevant records for journalistic purposes) that the driver deserves repercussions for driving negligently, especially when that carelessness resulted in a death and serious injuries.  When an SUV ran into an elderly man on North Jebavy Road yesterday, apparently returning to his house after getting his mail across the road, this author noted that October incident and how it would be unlikely that anything would ever be done legally against any careless drivers in this county who run over folks that should have been visible for five seconds or more to all alert drivers. 

Imagine my shock then when I was combing through court records and found that at perhaps the same time the Jebavy 'accident' was occurring, a complaint was filed in the local district court concerning the 'accident' caused by Joann Roger's inattentiveness.  I was able to inspect the only document filed so far, a one-page complaint looking at two counts, both misdemeanors:  moving violation causing death (of Gloria Trent) and moving violation causing serious impairment of a bodily function (of Rebecca Stockton, one of the two other woman who had significant injury)

We are hopeful that such actions by the prosecutors of our laws will encourage drivers in this area to drive responsibly and without undue distraction, and that they consider the same charge (Count 1) against the driver in the Jebavy Road incident should there continue to exist no rationale for why the driver wasn't able to see the pedestrian other than by the operator's distraction or neglect.