A press conference was held today announcing that Agron Seiko, the asshattraffic enforcement officer who got involved in a police pursuit and ended up killing my long time friend Bill Owen, has been charged with manslaughter:
As a traffic enforcement officer, Seiko had no police powers and was not to be involved in police enforcement activities, Duggan said.
“Mr. Seiko was not a sworn officer, he was a traffic ordinance officer,” Duggan said. “His job was to write tickets and impound vehicles.”
If convicted, Seiko faces up to 15 years in prison.
Assuming the trial doesn’t drag on for months on end and that he ends up being convicted with a maximum sentence then he’d be right about the age I am now when he gets out. Right about the age of the guy he killed for that matter.
I have seriously mixed feelings about all this at this point. Part of me is quite pleased with this announcement and hopes he ends up getting the full 15 years. Part of me wonders if it’ll make any difference if he gets 15 years or 5 years or any time at all. Sure, it gets him off the street for awhile, but it doesn’t bring Bill back and prison isn’t known for actually rehabilitating anyone. It’s doubtful he’ll come out any wiser than he did when he went in, especially if the sentence is light. It won’t begin to make up for the loss he has caused so many people.
The real hope you have is that his conviction would work as an example to others about why they need to think before they act, but that won’t happen either. I thought about that this morning as I drove to work in some of the thickest fog I can recall and watched as vehicles doing at least 20MPH over the limit weaved through traffic as if on their way to a police chase themselves despite the fact that visibility wasn’t even a quarter mile or so.
I wasn’t even on the freeway. This was surface streets with a max speed limit of 40 MPH on a school morning.
What if a bunch of kids were crossing the street at that red light I saw that SUV blow through because he didn’t see it changing in time? What if someone else’s best friend, son, father, brother were in the process of making a left turn in that fog while these people were zooming along as if they owned the road?
How many more Agron Seiko’s do we need to experience before people start using the gray matter between their ears when driving? Regardless of whether Seiko learns anything from the experience he’s about to go through it seems no one else is bothering to pick up on the lesson.
No matter how late you may be for work nothing is so important that you have to risk your lives and the lives of everyone else on the road by driving 10MPH or faster over the limit.
