The Village Voice reports on the action brought by attorney Steve Vaccaro against the NYPD for mishandling pedestrian and cyclist deaths.
On July 10, 2011, Clara Heyworth was walking to meet her husband when she was fatally struck by motorist Anthony Webb, who was driving with a learner’s permit, not a license. He also might have been drunk and speeding at the time of the incident. Webb was arrested at that time.
Stevens is filing a lawsuit against the NYPD today, alleging the department’s policies prevented adequate investigation of this and similar cases.
Stevens and his lawyer, Steve Vaccaro, claim that the NYPD’s “Dead or Likely to Die” policy — under which Accident Investigation Squad investigators get dispatched to a crash only when a victim has died or is likely do die — directly caused this situation.This Squad is made up of 19 investigators. They are the only ones who are allowed to say whether a driver broke the law. They dealt with 304 cases last year. However, the Squad does not investigate crashes that don’t involve actual or likely death — those just get a one-page report.
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