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Edited Date/Time
1/24/2012 5:34am
Seems fair....
Doctor sentenced to 5 years in prison for assaulting bicyclists in Brentwood
January 8, 2010 | 11:05 am
A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road was sentenced today to five years in prison.
Christopher Thompson, wearing dark blue jail scrubs, wept as he apologized to the injured cyclists shortly before he was sentenced.
"I would like to apologize deeply, profoundly from the bottom of my heart," he told them, his right hand cuffed to a court chair.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a "wake-up call" to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with more bike lanes. He said he believed that Thompson had shown a lack of remorse during the case and that the victims were particularly vulnerable while riding their bicycles.
The case against Thompson, 60, has drawn close scrutiny from bicycle riders around the country, many of whom viewed the outcome as a test of the justice system's commitment to protecting cyclists.
Millington said he did not take into account more than 270 e-mails and letters from cyclists that were filed with the court urging a tough sentence.
The July 4, 2008, crash also highlighted simmering tensions between cyclists and residents along Mandeville Canyon Road, the winding five-mile residential street where the crash took place.
One cyclist was flung face-first into the rear window of Thompson's red Infiniti, breaking his front teeth and nose and cutting his face. The other cyclist slammed into the sidewalk and suffered a separated shoulder.
Doctor sentenced to 5 years in prison for assaulting bicyclists in Brentwood
January 8, 2010 | 11:05 am
A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road was sentenced today to five years in prison.
Christopher Thompson, wearing dark blue jail scrubs, wept as he apologized to the injured cyclists shortly before he was sentenced.
"I would like to apologize deeply, profoundly from the bottom of my heart," he told them, his right hand cuffed to a court chair.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a "wake-up call" to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with more bike lanes. He said he believed that Thompson had shown a lack of remorse during the case and that the victims were particularly vulnerable while riding their bicycles.
The case against Thompson, 60, has drawn close scrutiny from bicycle riders around the country, many of whom viewed the outcome as a test of the justice system's commitment to protecting cyclists.
Millington said he did not take into account more than 270 e-mails and letters from cyclists that were filed with the court urging a tough sentence.
The July 4, 2008, crash also highlighted simmering tensions between cyclists and residents along Mandeville Canyon Road, the winding five-mile residential street where the crash took place.
One cyclist was flung face-first into the rear window of Thompson's red Infiniti, breaking his front teeth and nose and cutting his face. The other cyclist slammed into the sidewalk and suffered a separated shoulder.
Last time I checked, the rules were if following a car and it stops, it is your responsibility to stop as well. Bike lane or no bike lane, bikes are subject to the same laws. Slamming on the brakes or not. What if he was doing it for a child in the street to stop from hitting the child? Were his brake lights not working? Seems like the cyclist were close enough to know?
Something is missing here.
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Some of these bikers have this "it's my road too so you can just idle along behind me for 5 miles" attitude. I can see why the guy got pissed because there's nothing you can do if the biker doesn't want to let you pass. I think I would have just found out where he lived and then called Dexter.
Hope the good doctor gets ass raped as a prison bonus.
It's a long slightly uphill - or downhill if you're leaving - residential road up the Mandeville Canyon floor, just off of Sunset Drive. Two lane. I normally drive up to the top well above the area and hit the trails for mtb but sometimes I do a huge loop and climb back up on the streets.
The problem in a nut shell is SOME of the roadies want to ride side by side ... and take up an entire lane ... or at least make it more difficult to get around them. I'm a rider - although mainly mtb - and it pisses me off too. All they have to do is ride single-file and this shite wouldn't happen. Cars could easily get around them.
They probably couldn't hit their brakes in time because they were busy flipping him off and only had one hand on the bars. That's what most likely triggered the brake check. Still doesn't justify what the driver did but fricking roadies have a seriously focked up attitude it seems. I've even asked them to go single-file as I ride by them and they just tell you to piss off. Makes all us riders look bad.
BTW - the infamous OJ mansion was just around the corner a couple blocks away from there.
It may be irritating and inconvenient to have to putter along behind a couple inconsiderate roadies for a half mile - but that doesn't mean this doc or anyone else is justified in physically attacking and injuring people that aren't surrounded by 2 tons of metal.
If these roadies were plodding along in a car and this doc cut them off and caused a rear ender, he would have likely got probation.
But he purposely made these guys crash and they could've been killed instead of just fugged up.
I don't like riding in bike lanes when you've got people texting on their phones and watching DVD's while they drift out of their lane.
Shit like this is why it's all MTB for me - I ride on the street just long enough to get to trails, or just drive to the trailhead instead.
Pit Row
Here are some pictures of the incident mentioned:
Post a reply to: 5 yrs. for taking out bicyclists