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It turns out police are not immune. Although the almost inhumane treatment you may have been given while you were incarcerated made you feel like you were dirt on the shoe of the police officers, it is not unrealistic to assume that many of them have been guilty of at least the crime you are charged with. While there will likely never be statistics to prove it, a good number of police officers drink alcohol when off duty and some of them, feeling immune to the law, may even choose to drive.

In the case of a promising MIT student in New York, one off-duty officer’s alleged hypocrisy cost the young student his future, and not with a far-reaching criminal charge. No, the police officer allegedly took the life of the young man and seriously injured his friends when he drove after drinking and ran into them on a sidewalk.

While this did not happen in Virginia, the tragic accident demonstrates that erring is human and that even those given the task of keeping the streets legal are sometimes the ones causing the greatest havoc. In fact, an investigation by the New York Daily News yielded surprising results. It showed that in a span of just more than a decade there were 55 or more incidents of New York Police Department officers actively on duty who were charged with drunk driving who later took plea deals and were not handed any felony charges.

The police officer in this case was scheduled to go to work within hours.

If you have been charged with vehicular assault or homicide stemming from a decision to drive drunk, you are going to need a good defense and the assistance of a Virginia drunk driving attorney can be an invaluable resource to employ. Don’t feel like you are the only one to ever make a mistake. In truth, many of your arresting officers may have made similar decisions without the deadly consequences.

Source: WashingtonPost.com, “MIT student killed when allegedly intoxicated NYPD officer mows down a group of pedestrians,” Lindsey Bever, July 19, 2016

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