“We should all be asking what can we do to help this family”

That’s a nice sentiment. But I think they just want privacy, respect for the dead daughter and their lives back.

“the cops need to be fired”

Sure, once it can be proven WHO leaked the pictures OUT of the department with e-mail headers. E-mailing the pictures internally probably does not call for dismissal so long as the recepient normally received such photos and had a use for them in the course of their duties.

“and the guy in the Honda needs to drop any law suit on this poor bereaved family sham on you just shame”

Horsecrap. Damages to his vehicle and to his person were a direct result of gross negligence on the part of Nikki Catsouras and probably her parents too (if the lawyer is worth his salt he’ll be sure to drag mommy and daddy into it.)

Besides. They’re rich. Papa Catsouras could probably settle with the guy out of court. It’s not like the family is going to be destitute if they get sued.

C’mon. What did the guy in the Honda do to deserve getting smacked and ran off the road and why is he not entitled to compensation? I bet ya $10 if YOU WERE the Honda driver Mr. Roscopuppy you would be suing like nobody’s business. Let’s get real here.

Cheers,
Irony Man

RIP Nikki.

Oh well. I haven’t exceeded the speed limit since seeing these photos. So at least its doing some good somewhere.

she really was a beautiful girl.

I read an article explaining that the “leak” started with one of the responding officers sending the photo’s to another officer to use for a DWI class that he teaches to teenage drivers. Then it was sent to a family member of another officer with a teenage child, just to show the family member what can happen in an instant with a teenager behind the wheel of a car. At that point they had no toxicology reports, no family history, and no idea what events led to the accident. All they knew was that she was 18, going to fast, and now she’s dead. I don’t believe for a moment that their intentions were anything other than moral and upstanding. I also know that the responding officers were scarred for life by having to respond to that horrible scene, and that often the only way they can work through the tragedy is to share the experience and talk about it. I am not a police officer, but I do work very closely with some. First Responders deal with these situations regularly, and as shocked as the public is to see the photo’s, imagine being the first one there, and finding her battered body in that kind of wreckage. The first 3 seconds on scene when they realized what they had come upon were probably the worst seconds of that persons life, and they have to suppress their feelings and emotions while they are expected to deal with it in a calm and professional manner. They didn’t take the pictures out of some twisted perversion, they have to take the photo’s to document the incident and to reconstruct the scene. How would you like to be the person REQUIRED to stand there and take pictures of that incident? At every angle, from every side of the car, in close up and panorama? And to do so without reacting the way every ounce of your humanity tells you that you should be reacting? At the end of the day, you have to reach out to someone to help you deal with it, and describing what you saw is nearly impossible. The next logical step is to show the photo’s to your support network, whether it is other officers, supervisors, the police chaplain, or a close friend or relative. When you walk in the door and your spouse asks “How was your day?” how would you respond? As gruesome as the photo’s are, answering that question is not really possible without sharing the images with someone or there’s no way that someone could be expected to even try to comprehend what you are going through. Having access to the photos also allows the first responder to revisit the scene when they have some time alone, and to finally allow the emotional response to be appropriately expressed, which is essential for dealing with it and avoiding other problems like PTSD. If anyone for a minute thinks these officers meant to inflict harm on the family, you are sorely mistaken, and need to take another look at our men and women in uniform.

Don’t blame people for sharing the photos… our morbid curiosity is part of what makes us human and separates us from all other forms of life. We can all look at these photo’s and our hearts ache for the family… if we didn’t run across a tragedy every once in a while, we would lose that empathetic connection that defines humanity.

As for the idiot’s sending vulgar messages to the family, and tormenting them- they have no sense of humanity. Sue them all.

But don’t blame the officers who spent their day cleaning up the mess on the tollbooth, who had to analyze every minute detail of the accident, and piece together a tragic sequence of events. Their job was to figure out what happened, so that the family could understand the tragedy and have some closure. Now one of them has no job, the other was suspended for 25 days, and the family is suing and people all over the country are calling for the second officer to be fired. Is that what police officers should expect when they go to work each day? And lets also not forget that they too will remember that day and what they witnessed, every day for the rest of their lives and they will forever feel pain for the family and loved ones of Nikki.

Some of the pictures ARE being used in presentations against drunk driving. If you were to google accident photos, you would come up with thousands of similar photos, and videos just like hers. When I was in high school, MADD put together a slide show of crunched cars, damage from accidents, and pictures of mangled people recovering from accidents that we all had to sit through, then hear tragic stories of people who’s family members were killed, or they themselves permanently injured by drunk drivers. They did not show us corpses of course since we were children, but the intent was the same. The only difference is that we now have the internet, and the photos can be disseminated much more broadly and quickly. Hopefully there are more people out there that will learn a lesson by seeing the photo’s than there are people that just want to make rude comments and in the process make idiots out of themselves. If just one person see’s the photo’s and makes a life changing decision for the better based on them, then I say the photo’s have served a purpose, and Nikki will have a positive impact on life in this world, and that should be her legacy.