Lets Just Cool It For A Minute

Truck Driver Kevin Roper 35 employed to Mega Company Walmart appeared in a Middlesex County Court House Wednesday June 11^th. Mister Roper plead not guilty to vehic­u­lar homi­cide and assault by Auto.

Roper, the Walmart truck dri­ver involved in the New Jersey Turnpike car acci­dent Saturday morn­ing that claimed the life of one per­son and crit­i­cal­ly injured four oth­ers, includ­ing come­di­an Tracy Morgan, has plead­ed not guilty to vehic­u­lar homi­cide and assault by auto. He remains free on $50,000 bail. No new court appear­ance was sched­uled. Middlesex County pros­e­cu­tors accuse Roper, 35, of not sleep­ing for 24 hours pri­or to the crash. He turned him­self in to police imme­di­ate­ly after the acci­dent and has been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave by Walmart.The com­pa­ny has vowed “to take full respon­si­bil­i­ty” for the acci­dent if it’s proved that Roper caused it. http://​gma​.yahoo​.com/​t​r​a​c​y​-​m​o​r​g​a​n​-​c​r​a​s​h​-​w​a​l​m​a​r​t​-​t​r​u​c​k​e​r​-​k​e​v​i​n​-​r​o​p​e​r​-​p​l​e​a​d​s​-​1​9​5​9​3​6​516 – abc-news-celebrities.html

Laws gov­ern­ing Truckers are strict these days, in fact dri­ving with­out ade­quate sleep is tan­ta­mount to dri­ving while intox­i­cat­ed . It is trag­ic when mem­bers of the trav­el­ling pub­lic are injured or killed.. We pray for the fam­i­ly of the deceased as well as those injured, includ­ing Tracy Morgan 45, who con­tin­ue to bat­tle for life in a New Jersey Hospital.

Mister Roper is alleged to have bragged in a tweet quote: Trying to win more than lose, dri­ving trucks for a liv­ing, move or get hit! #Walmart.

This has set off a firestorm of hatred of mis­ter Roper in the Main stream Media .

Really?

Are we going to con­demn a man for a tweet he made which had noth­ing to do with the crash? Does any­one believe this dri­ver will­ful­ly crashed his rig into the vehi­cle trans­port­ing Tracy Morgan and others?

Does that tweet mean mis­ter Roper is a mani­ac who was a tick­ing time bomb wait­ing to take some­one’s life? So far there is no evi­dence of that. What we have is a hard work­ing man try­ing to earn a liv­ing. Sure he needs to face the Courts , that’s where inno­cence and guilt are decide.

In fact Fox news reports .Walmart released this statement.

“With regards to news reports that sug­gest Mr. Roper was work­ing for 24 hours, it is our belief that Mr. Roper was oper­at­ing with­in the fed­er­al hours of ser­vice reg­u­la­tions. The details are the sub­ject of the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion and we are coop­er­at­ing ful­ly with the appro­pri­ate law enforce­ment agen­cies. The inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing and unfor­tu­nate­ly we can’t com­ment fur­ther on the specifics.

“Federal law requires dri­vers to work no more than 14 hours for any shift and 11 hours of driving.” 

We sim­ply have not reached that stage where an informed con­clu­sion can be arrived at. This is not the case of a drug deal­er fir­ing a weapon, hit­ting an inno­cent bystander. What we have it seem, is a hard work­ing man who is involved in an auto­mo­bile crash. It behooves every­one includ­ing those in the Media to take a step back and let the sys­tem play out before they con­demn this man to be stoned to death.

As users of the road we should be care­ful how we react in con­demn­ing oth­ers. We nev­er know when we may be involved in a crash or acci­dent, find­ing our­selves accused of vehic­u­lar homicide.