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Ex-deputy gets 18 years after detainees drown in locked van


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Ex-deputy gets 18 years after detainees drown in locked van
2022-05-21 16:43:17
#Exdeputy #years #detainees #drown #locked #van

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A deputy in South Carolina whose police van was swept away by floodwaters within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women looking for psychological health treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury found former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was only seeking drugs for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of family of the ladies said his determination to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson informed the decide. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on every reckless murder cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it in opposition to a guardrail, stopping the ladies from with the ability to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising before it acquired too dangerous and rescuers could not hear them.

“How terrible must which were to sit down there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply exterior Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he might now not see the sting of the freeway and was apprehensive about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his satisfaction or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him though taking the ladies to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," protection lawyer Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced informed the decide he tried everything he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and different those that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were finally rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities said. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, nevertheless it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water bought greater and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to learn to comply with the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I cannot forget. Happily, I nonetheless remember my mom as a contented girl, a joyful lady who loved her household," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.


Quelle: abcnews.go.com

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