Police report: Firefighter said he had three to four beers before crash
| Monday, Mar 15 2010 01:06 PM
Last Updated Monday, Mar 15 2010 05:25 PM
Images
Kern County firefighter Mitchell Green arraigned on charges of drunk driving vehicular manslaughter in the death of Michelle Maxwell.
Related Stories:
- Firefighter pleads not guilty to DUI, vehicular manslaughter charges
- Firefighter to be charged with DUI, vehicular manslaughter
- Firefighter suspected of driving drunk in deadly crash is recovering
- Pastor calls for healing at funeral of woman killed in crash with suspected drunken driver
- Businesses join church in raising money for crash victim's family
- Grieving husband plans funeral for wife killed in crash, puts matter in God's hands
- Family of crash victim thanks community for support
A Kern County firefighter charged in a drunken driving crash that killed a woman told police he had three to four beers at Hooters a couple of hours before the Feb. 2 crash at Panama Lane and Ashe Road, police investigation reports released Monday say.
The reports say Mitchell Green, 30, drove from Hooters on Rosedale Highway near Highway 99 to a friend’s house near Stockdale Highway and Renfro Road, his own home near Panama Lane and Buena Vista Road, and then to another friend’s house near Stine and Harris roads before the 7:52 p.m. crash.
He told police he didn’t drink anything else after he left Hooters. Police reported Green drove his Ford F-150 pickup through a westbound red light on Panama and crashed into the passenger side of a 2007 Hyundai Sonata that was turning on a green light from east to north on Ashe Road.
His blood alcohol level was measured at .13 percent, well above the .08 legal limit, police said.
A man of his size and body type would have to have the equivalent of 4.3 to 7 Coors Light beers (the brand Green said he drank) in his system at the time of the test, and he most likely would have to drink more than that, according to Dan DeFraga, a toxicology expert with the Kern County Crime Lab.
Green is 5-foot-8, 170 pounds, police said.
The reports, which reflect the initial investigation of the case, do not identify Green’s friends nor contain independent statements of how much he drank.
Green told police what he did that night as he was at Kern Medical Center, where he had been given morphine to deaden his pain and he was about to go into surgery for a broken ankle and other injuries.
Police asked him to talk to them again on Feb. 21, but he said he was represented by an attorney and declined further comment.
The victims in the crash were 41-year-old MIchelle Maxwell, who died at the scene, and her 15-year-old daughter, Michaela, who suffered a broken leg and other injuries. The daughter was driving on a learner’s permit.
Police reported that when they first arrived, Michaela was screaming that her mother was in the passenger seat. An officer said Mrs. Maxwell was obviously dead, the reports say.
A witness estimated Green was driving 70 mph or faster, but the publicly available reports have no reconstruction analysis to calculate his speed.
Green has pleaded not guilty to charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and drunken driving. The charges are punishable by up to 14 years in prison. He is on an unpaid medical leave from his job as an engineer in the fire department, county officials said.
Police investigators wrote that Green’s “employment as a Kern County firefighter gives him express knowledge of ... the consequences of impaired driving. (He) should have known that driving while impaired can result in his being responsible for the death of another person.”
Prosecutors have said there was not enough evidence to charge Green with second-degree murder, a charge that can be proven if a defendant has been specifically warned that driving drunk can kill someone.
The impact of the crash sent Green’s pickup into a power pole, which was severed and whose lines were snapped and fell to the street. Two men at a house nearby heard the crash and came to the scene where they saw the front of Green’s pickup on fire and Green struggling to get out, the reports say.
The men, Eric Atkinson and Ramon Cano, pulled Green out of his pickup onto the street just south of the northwest corner where the power pole is. A burst of fire then engulfed the entire pickup and the two men took Green to a field on the southwest corner of the intersection, the reports say.
