Once again, another case of Boats, Booze, and Corruption
The 19-year-old South Carolina woman died after a boat she was a passenger in crashed into a bridge piling on a Beaufort County waterway in the early hours of February 24…..five other surviving passengers were described by local law enforcement as being “grossly intoxicated” and all were under age at the time of the incident. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources took over command of the investigation because it was a waterborne incident. But responding offices [sic] failed to the test the sobriety of the two people believed to be driving the boat when it crashed… TheState.com reports that the sobriety tests never happened because the grandfather and father of one suspect showed up, telling officers they were lawyers and stopped all interviews and sobriety tests.
Back on May 2, 2006, on Clearlake in Lake County California, Lynn J. Thornton died in a boating collision that had a similar post-incident dynamic. The Thornton case involved some obvious mendacity, indeed travesty, involving officials in the local Sheriff’s Department and Prosecutor’s office.
There is no way to sweep messes like these under the rug. Everyone who tries to “engineer the facts” winds up looking like the fool's that they are.
Rule 6 aside, booze and boat’s don’t mix very well—especially at night!
/fl