A rush to judgment?

Department of Public Safety’s rush to judgment in its pronouncement of guilt in the recent lower Dandan fatal traffic accident leaves me to question whether a thorough investigation was carried out. What bothers me most is the fact that the accident occurred in the middle of a village, an area of every community on the island, where children frequently roam on a daily basis. It is an area where I believed every driver knows to take extra precaution to stay alert and be on the lookout for children. Faulting the child solely by a strict adherence to the laws of CNMI is, in my mind, a scapegoat and a flat out excuse not to do a complete and thorough investigation. If speeding was truly ruled out and extra precaution was exercised then why did the accident occur, especially in the middle of a village where speed limit should be kept to a maximum of five miles per hour?

I am troubled by the extent of the injuries sustained by the child because even without a proper formal professional investigative training I can easily tell that the seriousness of the victim’s injuries was the cause of a speeding motor vehicle. Obviously, it appears that DPS did not look into other factors such as driving, medication, and cell phone records of the driver of the vehicle that tragically claimed the life of the young victim. Its apparent prompt judgment convinces me that those records were never a part of their investigative plans.

The secondary road (Holiday Street) from the main road does not have speed bumps, but that should never be an excuse for any vehicle to drive at a higher speed especially when the stretch of the road is only about 500 feet from the main road. Given that short distance, I am not sure it requires any speed bump at all.

DPS owes to the parents, friends and relatives, and the community of lower Dandan as well as the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands a complete and thorough investigation. I pray and hope that contrary to reports in the local media that the department had reached its conclusive findings, DPS continues to maintain an open investigation and will eventually get to the bottom of this tragedy. If safety of our children is the paramount concern of every one of us, perhaps the CNMI Legislature should consider rewriting the laws to ensure that drivers of moving vehicles on village roads do not get away with recklessness and negligence.
[B] Jayson Flores[/B] [I]Dandan, Saipan[/I]