Woman Accused of Killing Pedestrian in DUI Works as Sobriety Counselor

A 51-year-old woman from Torrance, California was recently arrested and charged with involvement in a traffic accident that took the life of a 31-year-old male pedestrian, also from Torrance. Police charged her with DUI, asserting that she was intoxicated at the time. Ironically, she work at a facility dedicated to sober living and has served as a counselor for others attempting to battle problems with alcoholism and drug abuse.

The accident, which occurred on a Saturday night, shocked onlookers who reported seeing the pedestrian being struck by the woman’s car as he tried to simply cross the street adjacent to some railroad tracks on his way home from a social gathering with friends. The impact reportedly flung the man up onto the car’s windshield bleeding and dying. Eyewitnesses stated that, rather than stop or even slow down, the driver drove on with the dying man on her windshield painfully dying in front of her eyes for over two miles.

An Internet page written by the driver states that she used to be involved with drugs, but claims that she found her sobriety and now works to help others. When her car came to a halt finally miles from the accident scene, a number of bystanders gathered around her car and the police arrived to place her under arrest. The injured man was rushed to a local hospital but was pronounced dead shortly thereafter when efforts to save him failed.

Officers who took her into custody asserted that her blood-alcohol level registered at double the legal limit in California. Police speculated that she continued to drive after hitting the man because she panicked. She stated that she has a diploma in drug and alcohol counseling and manages a sober living facility after being drug free for approximately eleven years.

She is facing criminal charges of drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter and was being held after failing to post $100,000 in bail. She claimed to have been driving home from work at the time of the accident. She was previously charged with drunken driving, being under the influence of a controlled substance and leaving the scene of an accident in an incident that occurred two years ago. Charges in that case, for some reason, were ultimately not brought to trial.

At the facility she worked at, one of her patients previously had been the brother-in-law of the man killed in the accident. Because he currently works for the city of Torrance, he was sent to the scene of the accident to erect barriers to facilitate the police investigation. He was shocked upon arriving there to learn that the dying man was his brother-in-law, and the driver an employee of the sober living facility he once attended.

Intoxicated drivers who kill or injure others through reckless behavior are often repeat offenders who have exhibited a callous indifference to the lives and safety of others, concerned instead only with their own momentary pleasures and their desire to quickly drive to their destinations in disregard of speed limits, traffic lights, and stop signs. Such motorists need to be taken off the roads and are justly targeted by the families of their victims for wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.

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