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Hold on just a motherfucking minute.
While I don't know Casey or his family very well I've talked to him every now and then, and he's a friend and coworker of Matt, who I've known for years.
Today before work I fire up my IRC client and hop on into my usual channel full of my oldschool BBS'er friends. One of the first things I see is Matt pasting the URL to a news article entitled 'Man Dies After Learning of Wife's Death' (or something like that). I'll refrain from pasting the whole article, but the gyst of it is:
Drunken 25 year old runs a stop sign and intercepts the Explorer containing Casey's mom on the way to work. Mom, who's not wearing a seat belt, is thrown partially from the vehicle and dies. Police knock on the door down at the homestead and give the grim news to Casey, his brothers, and his dad.
Dad, upon hearing the news, suffers a massive heart attack and dies at the hospital.
***Cloyd said (Chad E.) Sarmiento slurred his speech, smelled of alcohol and failed a sobriety test at the accident scene. It could take more than a week to officially determine if Sarmiento was drunk, Cloyd said. Police also are considering charging Sarmiento with Jerry Siens' death.
("He reeked of booze, vomited on my shoes, took a giant swig from his open whiskey bottle, melted the breathalyzer and started singing 'Fish Heads' instead of reciting the backwards alphabet. We're unsure if he was drunk at the time, but we should get the lab results back in a couple weeks.")
According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Sarmiento did not have any prior criminal offenses.
(Who gives a fuck?)***
What floors me about this is that anyone who's not in a coma should know that you don't get behind the wheel slammed, no matter how much of a superhero you think you are. Government tends to be unreasonable and slow, and I don't agree with a lot of the laws out there, but I *do* agree with laws that prohibit shit like this, which make perfect sense. I don't want every Tom, Dick and Sloshy driving through the neighborhoods leaving a wake of mailboxes, pedestrians, hubcaps and possible vomit (the drunkard on the go doesn't have time to stop and puke.. especially if law enforcement are after him/her!). I also don't want some dimwit government official telling me that a man reeking of alcohol, unable to speak clearly, who just killed someone, 'might not be drunk'.
Do all of us a favor, everythingians. The next time you see someone who's drunk, stoned, or otherwise inebriated, about to jump behind the wheel and go for a spin, punch him/her. HARD. Nobody should lose their life to an inconsiderate drunkard, nonetheless somebody they hold dear to them.
And to our friend Mr. Sarmiento, I have one thing to say:
You're now a bottom.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news1126g.htm | 
