TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – A New Jersey police department might yet be found liable for the death of a man who wrecked his car and was left at the scene with a blood alcohol level of .209.
Rather than face arrest for drinking and driving, Hiram Gonzalez was permitted to wait on a highway bridge for a ride from his brother that did not come before another car struck and killed him.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Aug. 4 that immunity might not apply to the Jersey City Police Department. The trial court will have to decide whether the responding officers’ actions – failing to transfer Gonzalez to a safe place – were ministerial or discretionary, and then whether they were unreasonable.
“(R)esponding to the scene of an accident is a ministerial duty for police officers,” Justice Lee Solomon wrote.
“Thus, at least some of the officers’ actions such as moving Gonzalez’s car off the roadway and deciding to tow the disabled vehicle were ministerial, to which an ordinary negligence standard applies.
“However, the decision when to leave the accident scene and where to leave Gonzalez is a closer question; the officers maintain that competing demands caused them to leave Gonzalez on the bridge that evening.”
If the trial court finds that leaving Gonzalez behind was unreasonable, Jersey City PD will be liable for his death.
Gonzalez wrecked his truck around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 3, 2014, on the Lincoln Highway Bridge, and two Jersey City officers responded.
After the truck was deemed inoperable and towed, the officers offered Gonzalez a ride to a nearby gas station to wait on a friend to pick him up. However, Gonzalez refused – “I am not riding with no Jersey City cops,” he told them.
The officers repeatedly told him several times that the bridge was not a safe place to wait. One of them testified in a deposition that having the friend pick Gonzalez up from a poorly lit shoulder on the bridge would be dangerous.
Gonzalez eventually told them he would wait for his brother, who is a detective with the Newark Police Department. That detective was not actually his brother; he is a friend of Gonzalez’s sister.
That brother/friend testified one of the Jersey City cops told him that Gonzalez had been drinking and it would “be nice if somebody could come pick him up.”
The officers left Gonzalez on a pedestrian walkway behind a guardrail on the bridge to wait. He instead wandered into the road and was struck and killed by a car at around 3:42 a.m. on a dark area of the bridge about 1,500 feet from where the officers left him.
He had posted photos of alcoholic drinks on his social media earlier that night and opened a bottle of Hennessy in his truck after the accident. A toxicology report says his BAC would have been as high as .226 when interacting with the officers.
“The officers claimed, however, that Gonzalez did not appear intoxicated,” the decision says. “Officer Hashmi stated that he did not detect the smell of alcohol and Gonzalez was not staggering or slurring his words.
“Officer Tucker stated that he would have let Gonzalez drive away from the scene had his vehicle been working, and he expressed surprise when he learned the level of Gonzalez’s BAC.”