Beaverton man held by police in Dominican Republic
A Beaverton man was placed on house arrest in the Dominican Republic after police accused him of hitting and killing a motorcycle rider.
Lori Breeden and John Ekman of Beaverton said they actually stopped to report the death to police. But when officers got there, they took the couple into custody.
"It's terrifying, we have no resources to be doing this. We're on vacation, but we're not wealthy people," said Dreeden.
In a Skype interview with KGW, Breeden and Ekman said they had rented a car to visit a friend in La Romana on Nov. 8. They said the drive home was dark and rainy when they saw an unoccupied motorcycle lying in their lane.
"I hit the motorcycle and air bags went off, smoke filled the car," said Ekman.
The couple pulled over and saw a man dead on the side of the road. Ekman said other people had already pulled over.
"I speak fluent Spanish, so the few people that were there were talking about it," he said. "And they said that the man had been hit by a truck."
Eckman said onlookers started to leave and urged him and Breeden to do the same.
"Our friends told us later that the Dominicans don't like to stay around an accident for fear of being (implicated)," said Ekman. "We were offered a ride to get away and we said, 'No, we're going to stay until the police get here.' We had no fear that we had done anything wrong."
When police arrived, they separated the couple and took Ekman to jail.
"The jail cell smelled of urine," Ekman said. "We had to pee in a bottle and throw it out the window."
Breeden said officers released her from custody and let her keep her passport, but they confiscated Eckman's. She said family and friends of the crash victim showed up to the jail where Ekman was taken.
"A mob of angry family members was yelling, 'Killer' and wanting John to be in jail for the next three months," said Breeden. "There was no consideration ... or reconstruction of the accident scene."
A representative from the U.S. Embassy got Ekman out of jail and into house arrest, where Dominican police say he could stay for six months if he's not cleared of the crime.
"Be very cautious driving in any third world country," warned Ekman. "This is a lesson to everybody."
The offices of Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley were in touch with Ekman and Breeden. In separate emails to the couple, representatives for the senators said they would be working with the U.S. Embassy in an effort to move the case along.
Video and story:
http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local...by-police-in-the-dominican-republic/75912984/
While airbags do not need a specific speed to deploy, the air bag sensors need to be triggered.
The gentleman indicates he ran over the vehicle, yet the sensors were triggered. Since we don't know if it was the typical motorcycle found all over, one can only speculate.
Depending on the vehicle he was operating and the type of motorcycle, it would be possible for the airbags to deploy.....but he indicated the motorcycle was laying on the ground....making it difficult for anything but handlebars to reach the height necessary to trigger the sensors.
If the DR had a decent accident reconstruction person they could confirm or debunk the story. Additionally, the airbag control module (think black box for cars) would yield a myriad of data to either support or refute the story.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2