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Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Dog Walker1 ()
Date: October 29, 2017 01:05AM

A man on the Cedar Lane overpass of I-66 fell (jumped or was pushed?) & landed on an east-bound vehicle on I-66.

The driver of the vehicle died, whereas the man who fell is in the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

This was reported to news outlets by the Virginia State Police.

That overpass of 66 is between Nutley Street and the Beltway.

News story here: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Impact-of-Mans-Fall-From-I-66-Overpass-Kills-Driver-453936723.html

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It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. - John Cassis on manners

Ignoring juvenile attacks and remarks on the internet for over two decades.

Arguing by deflection or name-calling is an admission that you don't have a rational argument.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: duuwd ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:01AM

One does not simply fall from a highway overpass that has fences on the sides.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: CXMKC ()
Date: October 29, 2017 03:35AM

I had to get off at Nutley St and fight my way through Vienna.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: saw this ()
Date: October 29, 2017 06:37AM

I saw 2 cops parked behind a bicycle at that overpass yesterday. The officers were looking over the edge of the rail. Guess i know what happened now

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Toll Operator ()
Date: October 29, 2017 07:13AM

One does not simply fall from a highway overpass that has fences on the sides.

NOT FULLY FENCED - THAT'S WHY

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Fuck yo fences ()
Date: October 29, 2017 09:11AM

Tax dollars should not be spent on fences to prevent stupid people from jumping.

They should be spent on suicide booths.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: 6hcbh ()
Date: October 29, 2017 09:17AM

Toll Operator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One does not simply fall from a highway overpass
> that has fences on the sides.
>
> NOT FULLY FENCED - THAT'S WHY

Metro more important than highway.

https://goo.gl/maps/SzZYUtFXjWQ2

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Mike_Hunt ()
Date: October 29, 2017 09:28AM

>
> Metro more important than highway.
>
> https://goo.gl/maps/SzZYUtFXjWQ2

Thanks for that pic ~ I always pictured them being twice as tall ~ I guess it was another county?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Bill Gates ()
Date: October 29, 2017 10:06AM

The suburban looked like it ran into a concrete wall at 100mph!
Whatever dropped from the bridge was MASSIVE!
I saw multiple cds around the body that dropped....they said “Meade something”

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Reddy Kilowatt ()
Date: October 29, 2017 10:30AM

Toll Operator Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One does not simply fall from a highway overpass
> that has fences on the sides.
>
> NOT FULLY FENCED - THAT'S WHY

The fence should have been electrified to keep people from climbing over it.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: VVGYT ()
Date: October 29, 2017 01:29PM

One less person clogging the roads.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: walker2 ()
Date: October 29, 2017 01:40PM

duuwd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One does not simply fall from a highway overpass
> that has fences on the sides.


Anyone can jump this motherfucker.
Attachments:
i66domen-727x485.jpg

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Lookup ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:13PM

So now we have to look up, along with in front, to the sides, and behind. Look up.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: The Weather Girls ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:27PM

It's Raining Men! Hallelujah!
It's Raining Men! Amen!
It's Raining Men! Hallelujah!
It's Raining Men! Amen!
It's Raining Men! Hallelujah!
(It's Raining Men! Hallelujah!)
It's Raining Men! Amen!

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Mike_Hunt ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:32PM

Many more details just came out:

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (ABC7) — Virginia State Police say a 12-year-old boy's suicide attempt has left a 22-year-old woman dead after the boy jumped off an overpass on I-66 and landed on the woman's car. The boy is now in the hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to officials.

According to police, the boy jumped off the Cedar Lane I-66 overpass near Exit 62 in Fairfax County at around 4 p.m. Saturday. Authorities say the boy landed on a car driving eastbound, and the driver of that car, 22-year-old Marisa Harris, was knocked out by the impact. A man, who police say was in the passenger's seat at the time of the collision, took control of the wheel and got the car to the shoulder.

When first responders arrived on the scene, they say Harris was already dead.
The boy remains in the hospital, according to officials, and the man who was in the front seat was not injured.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: PBGWH ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:37PM

22 years old, that sucks.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: KV9WY ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:38PM

I hope that little 12 year old dies.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Think of the children ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:40PM

Ban 12 year olds.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: CommonSense ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:41PM

KV9WY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hope that little 12 year old dies.

He clearly doesn't know how . . . .

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: CommonSense ()
Date: October 29, 2017 02:46PM

.
Attachments:
Write-Suicide-Note-On-Facebook-15-Likes.jpg
Suicide-Everybody-Has-Their-Own-Way-Funny-Cartoon.jpg

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Fyhfd ()
Date: October 29, 2017 04:20PM

Odds on the kid being a tranny ?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Common Cents ()
Date: October 29, 2017 04:25PM

walker2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> duuwd Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > One does not simply fall from a highway
> overpass
> > that has fences on the sides.
>
>
> Anyone can jump this motherfucker.

we need to erect higher barriers on our bridges to prevent these type of unplanned deaths

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Commoners ()
Date: October 29, 2017 04:25PM

Fyhfd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Odds on the kid being a tranny ?


Either that, or the kid was teaching mom & dad a lesson for not agreeing with his Halloween costume.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Goat_Boy ()
Date: October 29, 2017 04:29PM

Mike_Hunt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Authorities say the boy
> landed on a car driving eastbound, and the driver
> of that car, 22-year-old Marisa Harris, was
> knocked out by the impact. A man, who police say
> was in the passenger's seat at the time of the
> collision, took control of the wheel and got the
> car to the shoulder.


So, the passenger had to take over for the driver who was knocked out and get the car to the side of the highway - with a 12-year-old body on the broken windshield / hood at the time? Sounds like a horror story.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Officer Friendly ()
Date: October 29, 2017 04:32PM

Goat_Boy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mike_Hunt Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Authorities say the boy
> > landed on a car driving eastbound, and the
> driver
> > of that car, 22-year-old Marisa Harris, was
> > knocked out by the impact. A man, who police
> say
> > was in the passenger's seat at the time of the
> > collision, took control of the wheel and got
> the
> > car to the shoulder.
>
>
> So, the passenger had to take over for the driver
> who was knocked out and get the car to the side of
> the highway - with a 12-year-old body on the
> broken windshield / hood at the time? Sounds like
> a horror story.


This smells like an insurance scam set up by the boy's family.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Dumbass shitlibs ()
Date: October 29, 2017 04:58PM

Boy must have been raised by lib parents. 12 yr olds usually don't think about suicide.

Probably being groomed as 'gender fluid' or some shit.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Mike_Hunt ()
Date: October 29, 2017 07:18PM

Another update about the driver ~ from CBS:

"Harris graduated summa cum laude from Towson before beginning her graduate program at Marymount University where she studied Mental Health Counseling.

Harris' mom called it "ironic" saying the 12-year-old boy who killed her is a kid she would've helped. "

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Libs hate children ()
Date: October 29, 2017 07:20PM

Dumbass shitlibs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Boy must have been raised by lib parents. 12 yr
> olds usually don't think about suicide.
>
> Probably being groomed as 'gender fluid' or some
> shit.


To a lib this was just like an abortion.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Dog Walker1 ()
Date: October 29, 2017 09:42PM

Here is the update from DC channel 4: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Police-Suicide-Attempt-by-Boy-Jumping-From-Overpass-Kills-Driver-Below-453994753.html

The family and friends of Marisa Harris, as well as the boy, his family, and friends, have my sympathy.

In situations like this, first reports are often wrong. Second and third reports can be wrong. Keep that in mind before hating on the boy.

==========
==========

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. - John Cassis on manners

Ignoring juvenile attacks and remarks on the internet for over two decades.

Arguing by deflection or name-calling is an admission that you don't have a rational argument.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Facacacc ()
Date: October 29, 2017 10:16PM

Libs hate children Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dumbass shitlibs Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Boy must have been raised by lib parents. 12 yr
> > olds usually don't think about suicide.
> >
> > Probably being groomed as 'gender fluid' or
> some
> > shit.
>
>
> To a lib this was just like an abortion.

...in the 39th trimester.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Teachr ()
Date: October 30, 2017 08:01AM

Did that kid have same teacher as the kid who killed himself few years ago?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: ...SAD... ()
Date: October 30, 2017 10:15AM

Dumbass shitlibs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Boy must have been raised by lib parents. 12 yr
> olds usually don't think about suicide.
>
> Probably being groomed as 'gender fluid' or some
> shit.

My first thought as well.

This is a disturbingly sad situation.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: mjs ()
Date: October 30, 2017 10:34AM

you must really suck at life if you can't even take your own life properly





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2017 10:35AM by mjs.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: nelhp ()
Date: October 30, 2017 03:44PM

I am always amazed that people dye when they fall in the shower, but this kid takes a dive off a fucking highway overpass onto a moving vehicle and survived.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: JudgeMeNot ()
Date: October 30, 2017 10:02PM

22 years old. She didn’t have a chance. This is truly the worst luck. My sincere sympathy goes out to her friends and family. I can’t imagine the nightmare her boyfriend experienced. I hope he seeks help. How do you ever get behind the wheel of a car again?

I’ve heard of very young kids drifting through life with depression including suicide attempts as young as 7. Probably even younger. If he lives we will probably never know what ignited his decision. At 12 kids are so unaware of what can happen to others because of their choices and actions. This kid may have been living a life of abuse, or worse. He may have been living with a mental illness. Who knows what his experiences were. One thing I can say with complete certainty, this kid was really suffering. I can’t imagine the torment he must have been feeling. Or, maybe the superpowers he thought he possessed. The whole situation is awful. My heart goes out to his friends and family too.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Teac connection? ()
Date: October 31, 2017 08:16AM

Is that kid from same school as teach who may be involved in other suicides?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Vince Foster ()
Date: October 31, 2017 08:18AM

Gotta wonder if the kid has dirt on the Clintons.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Need more information ()
Date: October 31, 2017 10:25AM

It would be nice if they included more information in these news reports, such as whether they were traveling in the HOV lane.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: hot dog vendor ()
Date: October 31, 2017 10:28AM

The 12 year old is a girl.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: In vienna ()
Date: October 31, 2017 01:26PM

All accounts say it was a boy.. why do you think it was a girl?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: mdukw ()
Date: December 13, 2018 06:55PM

Does this kid live in the Cedar Park apartments?


The boy on the bridge
A 12-year-old tried to kill himself, police say. Instead, he killed someone else.


Story by Jessica Contrera Video by Joyce Koh
December 13, 2018

There was no way she could have seen him, the boy on the bridge.
Marisa Harris was driving her Ford Escape down a Northern Virginia highway, heading home after a peaceful afternoon hike at Burke Lake.
Her boyfriend, Perry Muth, was stretched out in the passenger seat as they cruised east on Interstate 66 toward the bridge, an overpass suspended across the busy highway.

Above the freeway
Traffic heading east on Interstate 66, as seen from the spot where the boy jumped off the Cedar Lane overpass.
It was October 2017, their first fall since graduating from college. She was in graduate school, and he was working at a nonprofit organization for veterans. They spent Saturdays together.
It was a day off for the boy on the bridge, too, but from Thoreau Middle School. He was in seventh grade, in a building with nearly 1,000 students, where for the first time he had a short blue locker he had to find between classes and more homework than ever before. He lived in a cramped Fairfax County apartment just a 15-minute walk from the Cedar Lane overpass.
Marisa, 22, was on her way to spend another evening with Perry, watching Season 2 of “Stranger Things” and studying. She was always studying. She had a plan: earn her master’s degree in clinical mental-health counseling and become a child psychologist.
She’d be joining the field at a time when the number of children hospitalized for thinking of or trying to kill themselves has more than doubled in the past decade, even for kids under the age of 14. The boy on the bridge was 12.
What led him there would always be a mystery to Marisa’s family, even after police and prosecutors came to their conclusions. There was no fence on the part of the bridge he’d reached. There was a pedestrian sidewalk, and beside it, a three-foot, two-inch-tall guardrail. But there was nothing to stop the boy from climbing over it.
And nothing to stop him from jumping — just as Marisa’s car reached the spot below.

An hour later, her parents were accelerating down the highway, too, desperate to reach Inova Fairfax Hospital. Marisa was their only child, their brown-haired, dark-eyed daughter, who laughed at scary movies, who baked cheddar biscuits three times bigger than the ones at Red Lobster, who volunteered with children who bit her and pulled her hair, then came home talking about how much she wanted to help them.
Her parents knew only that there had been an accident, which later, wouldn’t seem like the right word for it at all.
At the hospital, the 12-year-old was being treated for life-threatening injuries in the ER. His family, who did not respond to repeated requests to participate in this story, would soon find out how they were caused.
Behind another door, Perry, who was somehow uninjured, pleaded with a police officer for information about Marisa.
“What’s going on? Is she okay?” he asked. “Just tell me she is breathing. Just tell me something.”
Marisa Harris during her first semester at Towson University in 2013. Harris, 22, of Olney, Md., was killed on I-66 when a 12-year-old boy crashed through her car in October 2017. (Family photo)
Marisa was brought to the hospital, too, he’d been told. Perry, 22, had frantically called his mother and Marisa’s mother, telling both to come right away.
He couldn’t explain what happened. They had been on the highway, about to emerge from beneath an overpass. It felt to Perry as if he had blinked, closing his eyes for just a fraction of a second, and when he opened them, everything was wrong.
The SUV was like a convertible. Glass from the windshield was everywhere. The roof was partially collapsed in. The top half of the steering wheel had snapped off.
Behind it, where Marisa should have been, was a boy, covered in blood, with a bone sticking out where it shouldn’t have been. Police would later conclude that he had been trying to kill himself. Now he was staring at Perry, terrified.
Marisa, Perry suddenly realized, was beneath the boy. Her seat had been knocked flat back. Her eyes were closed. Perry shook her, trying to wake her. Nothing.
The car, which had been going 55 miles per hour, was still hurtling down I-66.
“I reached over to grab one of her legs and tried to put it on the brake,” he would remember later. “Then I was like, okay this isn’t going to work, so I grabbed the steering wheel. I waited for a long, straight stretch, and I just rammed it into the Jersey wall.”
Just tell me she is breathing. Just tell me something.
Perry Muth, Marisa Harris's boyfriend
The rest happened fast. Pushing himself out the passenger side door. Waving for help. Strangers telling him to calm down. A firefighter leading him to an ambulance. He was put into a waiting room and told, “When we can update you, you’ll know.” Then the minutes turned agonizingly slow.
After an hour and a half, Perry grew furious and started to yell. The officer with him sent for another officer, whose job it seemed to be to tell him: “Okay. Yes. So. She has died.”
Sometime after the dizziness and the black spots in front of his eyes, after feeling that he would vomit or pass out, or both, he was moved into a different room, one with tiny tables and tiny chairs. A room for children. His phone buzzed.
A text from Marisa’s parents: “We just pulled up. Coming in now.”
A state trooper was waiting to talk to them. From where Perry sat, he could hear Marisa’s mother start to scream.

This is what Leigh Miller and Patrick Harris remember being told: The 12-year-old who crashed through your daughter’s windshield is alive. Because he is a minor, that is all we can say.
Marisa was not at the hospital, it turned out. She’d died on the highway. There was nothing to do, the couple learned, but go home to the Olney, Md., townhouse where they raised Marisa, and face all that came next:
Talking to reporters, as the story of such a bizarre crash spread from local reports to sensational tabloids, People magazine and viral news sites in dozens of languages.
Fielding messages from strangers who wanted to send them money and setting up a fund for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Collecting Marisa’s personal items from her totaled car. Jumper cables. Flashlight. The emergency kit they had given her so that she would be safe on the road.
Gathering photos, each a memory of who she had become: Here was Marisa reflected in her bedroom mirror, from those middle school days when they worried about the way she was bullied by other girls. Here was Marisa at a Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe powwow, from the high school years when she began to embrace her Native American heritage and her middle name, Wenona. And here was Marisa at Towson University, where she met Perry, the first and last boyfriend she’d bring home to meet her parents. And here was Marisa in Guanajuato, Mexico, volunteering at the domestic violence shelter where she decided she was going to pursue a career working with traumatized children.

“It is never too late for someone to seek services that help them improve their mental well-being, but working with children allows the healing process to begin earlier,” Marisa wrote in her application to Marymount University’s graduate program.
So much life in her 22 years, and somehow her end could still be reduced to a five-page crash report, sent to her parents by police about a month after her death. To categorize the collision, the state trooper could choose from 20 brief descriptions. He picked “other.”

A diagram indicated that the boy was facing east when he jumped, the same direction that Marisa’s car was heading when it emerged from beneath the bridge. He fell just under 17 feet. The physics of it — his weight, the speed at which he fell, the distribution of force that left only one of them alive — was not explained. Marisa’s death certificate said “blunt force trauma.” Her mother had come to call it “the laws of gravity.”
“I see how it happened,” she said.
“I try not to,” her father said.
On the last page of the report was the name of the boy on the bridge, described as “Pedestrian #1.” When Leigh and Patrick returned to work — she as a purchasing manager at Edison Electric Institute, he as an operations supervisor in video services at Gallaudet University — people asked about the boy. Had his family reached out? Was the prosecutor going to press charges?
Is he getting help now? Is he in treatment? Or did they just do the bare minimum and then just put him right back in school?
Leigh Miller, Marisa Harris's mother
But after the crash report, Marisa’s parents stopped hearing from Virginia State Police. What they knew about the boy came only from old photos on his mother’s private Facebook and Instagram pages, a few of which Leigh could see. Here was the boy from the bridge, brown-haired and dark-eyed, standing beside his sisters. In one photo, his mother’s arm was wrapped around him. He looked as if he was just about to giggle.
Leigh worried about this child, as Marisa would have.
“Is he getting help now?” she would ask again and again in the coming months. “Is he in treatment? Or did they just do the bare minimum and then just put him right back in school?”
This is what she did not know: When a 12-year-old tries to die, and doesn’t, what happens to him next?

But at Thoreau Middle School in Vienna, Va., it wasn’t at all clear that the boy on the bridge had intended to kill himself.
News reports identified him only as a Thoreau student. But on the Snapchat and Instagram accounts of preteens across Northern Virginia, his name was spreading fast. The boy’s classmates posted folded hand emoji beside messages encouraging each other to #pray for him.
Their school was the kind that parents move to be near: low poverty rate, high test scores and a challenging curriculum. For the 475 seventh-graders in the boy’s class, that meant learning about cell mitosis, calculating linear equations and reading “The Giver.”
Their curriculum also includes extensive discussions about mental health. What once might have been relegated to a lesson or two has burgeoned into a rigorous preventive plan: Students are taught the signs, symptoms and stigma of depression. They are screened for mental-health issues. Their parents have access to training on how to watch for signs of distress in children. They can text a 24-hour crisis line that will immediately identify them as Fairfax public school students.
Prevention efforts like these are appearing in schools across the country, fueled by social media pressures, grueling academic expectations and a suicide rate for kids ages 10 to 19 that has been steadily rising since 2007.
If you're thinking about suicide
or worried about someone who might be, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifelinee at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to connect with a local crisis center. You can also text a crisis counselor by messaging 741741.
In the Washington suburbs, there has been one or more high-profile student suicides nearly every year for the past decade. Football players. AP students. Boy Scouts. At W.T. Woodson High School, located just five miles from Thoreau Middle, seven students have died by suicide since 2011.
In response, Fairfax County opened up a same-day walk-in mental-health clinic for youths. It began training librarians, firefighters and church group leaders on warning signs and what to do about them. The school system created an annual mental-health and wellness conference, touting sessions on “mindfulness” and “self-care” and “fostering resilience.”
And yet, when faced with a real, high-profile mental-health crisis with deadly consequences, the Fairfax community was, at least publicly, circumspect.
The school system sent its middle and high school principals a letter they could share with parents but didn’t require them to do so, a spokesman said.
“The safety and well-being of our students are always our primary concerns,” the letter said. “In light of events locally in the news, I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge our students and thank them for the many ways that they are actively caring for one another and looking out for each other’s safety and best interest. In any crisis situation, students experience a variety of reactions at different times, some requiring very little support and others requiring much more. It’s important to know that resources and support are available.”

The spokesman would not say whether Thoreau Middle School Principal Yusef Azimi sent the letter, and Azimi declined to discuss the school’s response. Beyond the letter, no other Fairfax official, including the superintendent and school board members, made any public mention of what occurred.
According to last year’s president of the Thoreau Parent-Teacher Association, they had good reason not to: The boy, she said, had not jumped from the bridge.
Beth Bradford Eachus said Azimi informed her that the boy’s fall was not a suicide attempt.
“The family and the young man both said it was an accident,” Eachus said. “And that is the school’s opinion.”
Media accounts that the boy was trying to kill himself, she said, were “additionally devastating” to his family.
The Cedar Lane overpass is fenced only where Metro trains run beneath it. The guardrail that runs along the rest of the bridge is three feet, two inches tall. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
What happened, she said, was that the boy was riding his bike across the overpass when he dropped his cellphone. He reached down to pick it up and flipped over the guardrail.
This denial was relayed to the boy’s classmates, who had spent the weekend under the impression that he had tried to take his own life. One then-seventh-grader, who spoke to The Post with his parent’s permission, described discussing the boy’s suicide attempt with friends on the Monday after the incident.
But then a teacher told his class that the boy merely “fell” onto the road and was hit by a car.
This version of events is not supported by the Virginia State Police or Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh, Fairfax County’s lead prosecutor.
A state police spokeswoman declined to answer questions about the specifics of the incident, but she said it is still being treated as a suicide attempt.
Morrogh quickly concluded that no crime had occurred; he would not press charges against the 12-year-old. Still, he said he felt obliged to find out what drove the boy to the bridge.
“We wanted to make sure someone was not molesting this child or bullying this child,” Morrogh said. “If there was anyone down the stream who was somehow at fault, on behalf of the victim in the case, we wanted to find out.”
But the boy’s family wouldn’t allow him to be interviewed. The prosecutor suspected his relatives were just being protective. He couldn’t compel them to answer questions or seek mental-health treatment for the boy. Investigators did obtain search warrants for the 12-year-old’s cellphone and computer.
They found no answers.
“There just wasn’t anything there,” Morrogh said. By February, his office felt it had done everything it could.
A few months after the boy jumped, he returned to school. He was on crutches. But his classmate said no one brought up his injuries or how he’d gotten them.
“It was like nothing even happened,” the student said.

Another brisk fall weekend, another day good for hiking. On Oct. 28, 2018, the first anniversary of Marisa’s death, her parents and boyfriend thought about going to Burke Lake, where she had spent her last afternoon. The lake’s serene waters and color-changing trees were the last picture she took on her phone.
A painting of the photo now hangs in her parents’ living room. But they’ve never visited the place, and decided not to go on this day, either. Instead, her mother invited Perry over to watch the Ravens game.
For a while, Marisa’s boyfriend had to drive down I-66 beneath the Cedar Lane overpass every day to get to work. No additional fencing has been added. The Virginia Department of Transportation plans to replace the overpass before the end of 2022, and the new bridge will include an eight-foot fence on each side.

Perry moved to Alexandria, allowing him to avoid the overpass — one way of coping in a year where they had all tried to figure out how. Marisa’s father made a 15-minute slide show of pictures of Marisa, then refused to watch it. Her mother watched it constantly.
Leigh Miller had formed a habit of searching online for inspirational quotes to get her through the day. On the anniversary of Marisa’s death, she chose, “Put it to the stars and let it go.”
That was what she had tried to do each day, even as she kept leaving messages for the Fairfax police and Virginia State Police. She hadn’t received an update on the investigation since the crash report, and in the month before the anniversary, she had started asking for one.
She did not know whether the case was closed. She did not know that the prosecutor had already decided not to press charges. She found herself constantly worrying about why the boy had jumped. Did he know that, in trying to kill himself, he had killed someone else?
After more than a month of leaving messages, Leigh received a call from the state trooper in charge of the case the week before Thanksgiving. He told her the investigation was not over yet, she said. He offered her no indication of when it would be. He made it sound — falsely, she would learn later — that the commonwealth’s attorney had yet to even look at the case.
Two days later, the trooper sent her a short email: he’d learned that a reporter had already spoken with the commonwealth’s attorney. Only then did he tell her that the state would not be pressing charges against the 12-year-old.
“This whole process, it has felt like we were an afterthought,” Leigh said. “We weren’t looking for charges to be brought. We didn’t want that. But it would have been nice to know. What’s the harm in telling us if you have made that decision?”
Marisa and her dog, Max, during Christmas in 2016. (Family photo)
As Christmas approached, she began to realize that her only update on the boy might be a photo his mother briefly posted on Instagram earlier this year.
It’s gone now, but Leigh saved a screen shot of it to her computer.
In it, the boy sat at a table in a black V-neck T-shirt, his expression somewhere between a smile and grimace. Behind him, a pair of crutches leaned against the wall beside golden helium balloons. A frosted cake was on the table, topped with two candles in the shape of the number 13.
Here was the boy from the bridge, living to see another year.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Who is he? ()
Date: December 13, 2018 07:18PM

If someone’s gonna post this little shit’s name, this would be the place to do it.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Odd route ()
Date: December 13, 2018 08:11PM

Why didn't they take Burke Lake Road to Braddock to 495?

A juvenile who is most likely an immigrant or anchor baby....you will never find out his name.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: WP reader ()
Date: December 16, 2018 12:00PM

I just learned of this story today from the WP website. Oddly, this was the first place I thought to visit to try to find out more information. I'm shocked that the prosecutor decided not to press charges.

If I were the victim's family, I'd hire a lawyer and file a civil suit against the boy's parents. No, they probably don't have any money, but it sounds like taking them to court is the only way the victim's family will get some kind of explanation from the family.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 16, 2018 05:09PM

How could the prosecutor PROVE BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT that the kid intentionally jumped? "Probably" and "most likely" are not close to good enough.

A civil suit is another matter because in that case "probably" IS good enough. But unless the kid's family has major cash, no lawyer is going to take it on contingency and so the deceased's family would be out big bucks for . . . something that is not going to bring back their loved one anyway.

People die all the time and we often don't find out for sure why. It's not a perfect world.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Every little bit helps ()
Date: December 16, 2018 05:35PM

Insanity Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How could the prosecutor PROVE BEYOND ANY
> REASONABLE DOUBT that the kid intentionally
> jumped? "Probably" and "most likely" are not
> close to good enough.
>
> A civil suit is another matter because in that
> case "probably" IS good enough. But unless the
> kid's family has major cash, no lawyer is going to
> take it on contingency and so the deceased's
> family would be out big bucks for . . . something
> that is not going to bring back their loved one
> anyway.
>
> People die all the time and we often don't find
> out for sure why. It's not a perfect world.


"It's not a perfect world."

No, no it's not. But we can do a little here and there to try to make it that way.

https://churchsetfree.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/justiceequalizer.jpg

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Not happy ()
Date: December 16, 2018 07:09PM

I’m sure there are kids on this site who know who the jumper is and his background. I’d welcome some more details, and I hope If the family is here illegally, ICE pays them a visit.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 16, 2018 07:23PM

Not happy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’m sure there are kids on this site who know
> who the jumper is and his background. I’d
> welcome some more details, and I hope If the
> family is here illegally, ICE pays them a visit.

How do you know he was a jumper??? You don't. Nor any reason to believe his family is here illegally.

Anyway, sounds like it is none of your business. I'd "welcome" a blowjob from Jessica Biel, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get it.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Chris X ()
Date: December 16, 2018 11:18PM

The railing on that Cedar Lane overpass bridge is absurdly low and useless. It's barely higher than my knee when walking. If someone lost control when biking on that narrow sidewalk full of debris, sand, leaves, and junk they could easily fall toward the low railing and tumble over it onto the freeway in a split second. The roadway is very narrow and curved, so it *seems* safer to bike on the sidewalk, except for the minimal/useless railing.

WMATA put a fence directly over the Metrorail tracks, but there is NO fence over the I-66 lanes.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: WP reader ()
Date: December 17, 2018 03:11PM

The family refused to let police question their son. Why? The whole thing was swept under the rug because of technicalities surrounding the kid's age.

The police still say it was suicide but then the Fairfax school system said it was an accident? How did the school come to that conclusion?

I get the point about a civil suit being too expensive. So, I'd take the family to small claims court and sue for $2000. Then if you lose, you only have to pay $70 or so? A $2000 win would be symbolic. Make them show up and acknowledge that they destroyed your family. They probably won't show up to court. In their absence, the victim's family would probably win, especially with the police report. Invite the press to the courthouse, and get yourself interviewed so that the kid's family sees your anguish on the news. If the family doesn't pay up, put a fucking lien on their house. Or, tell them you'll accept one dollar a week addressed to "the deceased _victim's name______". Someone in that family needs to acknowledge what happened.

Can the victim's family sue the school for misrepresenting the incident as an accident? Again, small claims court, and tell the district you'd settle for a retraction...to be published in the Washington Post.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: WP reader ()
Date: December 17, 2018 03:24PM

Not sure why I feel so strongly about this case.

If I were the victim's family, I'd seriously consider a "three billboards" approach. Rather than installing signs, though, I'd make a sign, and go to that spot on the overpass, and sit there holding my sign...all day, every day: "My child died here a year ago. The police say it was manslaughter caused by a suicide attempt. I still have no answers. I still can't sleep at night."

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 17, 2018 05:24PM

WP reader Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The family refused to let police question their
> son. Why? The whole thing was swept under the
> rug because of technicalities surrounding the
> kid's age.
>
> The police still say it was suicide but then the
> Fairfax school system said it was an accident?
> How did the school come to that conclusion?
>
> I get the point about a civil suit being too
> expensive. So, I'd take the family to small
> claims court and sue for $2000. Then if you lose,
> you only have to pay $70 or so? A $2000 win would
> be symbolic. Make them show up and acknowledge
> that they destroyed your family. They probably
> won't show up to court. In their absence, the
> victim's family would probably win, especially
> with the police report. Invite the press to the
> courthouse, and get yourself interviewed so that
> the kid's family sees your anguish on the news.
> If the family doesn't pay up, put a fucking lien
> on their house. Or, tell them you'll accept one
> dollar a week addressed to "the deceased _victim's
> name______". Someone in that family needs to
> acknowledge what happened.
>
> Can the victim's family sue the school for
> misrepresenting the incident as an accident?
> Again, small claims court, and tell the district
> you'd settle for a retraction...to be published in
> the Washington Post.

Sorry, but in the Commonwealth the parents are not going to be liable. So the deceased's family would have to sue the kid.

Anyway, why do you ask how the school came to its conclusion but you accept the Police's conclusion on its face? You seem to have a bias about what happened here even though you really do not know the facts.

BTW, can't sue the school either.

Even assuming (as you so clearly do) that the kid jumped, why are you so intent on punishing the parents who did NOT jump, and AFAIK did not encourage the kid to jump, did not have knowledge that he was going to jump, or in any way are responsible for the kid jumping (which, again, we do not even know that he did). If your 13 year old tried to kill himself, don't you think you would already be feeling pretty miserable about it and trying to do everything you can to protect your kid and get him help (assuming, again, that he jumped which, again, we do not even know that he did)?

Finally, why are you so sue-happy? Professional victims instigating needless lawsuits that clog our courts are a big problem in this country. I hope you are not "one of those people."

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 17, 2018 05:27PM

WP reader Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not sure why I feel so strongly about this case.
>
>
> If I were the victim's family, I'd seriously
> consider a "three billboards" approach. Rather
> than installing signs, though, I'd make a sign,
> and go to that spot on the overpass, and sit there
> holding my sign...all day, every day: "My child
> died here a year ago. The police say it was
> manslaughter caused by a suicide attempt. I still
> have no answers. I still can't sleep at night."

If I was the deceased (why do you keep calling her a "victim?") and you were my family member. I can tell you that I damn sure would not want you to completely lose YOUR life too by sitting on an overpass "all day, every day." It would not bring me back and it would only double the lost lives.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: WP reader ()
Date: December 17, 2018 05:47PM

Why sue? Because sometimes potentially taking money out of someone's bank account is the only way to get them to answer your questions...and to answer the police's questions.

You're questioning whether the police actually knew more about the incident than the school system did? Well, did the school "investigate" and prepare a five-page report like the police did? The court system will believe the police over the school system. And rightfully so.

And if I couldn't sue the parents, then I'd sue the kid. If he didn't want to talk to me, fine, but he better talk to the police, and let the police record his explanation so that I can see it. You can blur out his face and alter his voice if that's necessary to protect his identity. If the kid says that it was an accident, fine, then say it UNDER OATH on ON CAMERA.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: yipeekayay ()
Date: December 17, 2018 10:27PM

The article makes it seem the parents have something to hide. Their son, either through negligence or accident, caused the death of another, yet they don't even show the decency to apologize to the parents. As a neighbor I'd like to know what that is.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 18, 2018 09:49AM

WP reader Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> And if I couldn't sue the parents, then I'd sue
> the kid. If he didn't want to talk to me, fine,
> but he better talk to the police, and let the
> police record his explanation so that I can see
> it. You can blur out his face and alter his voice
> if that's necessary to protect his identity. If
> the kid says that it was an accident, fine, then
> say it UNDER OATH on ON CAMERA.

Maybe you should read the article at this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 18, 2018 09:58AM

yipeekayay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The article makes it seem the parents have
> something to hide. Their son, either through
> negligence or accident, caused the death of
> another, yet they don't even show the decency to
> apologize to the parents. As a neighbor I'd like
> to know what that is.

Aren't you old enough to understand that articles can make just about anything "seem" like just about anything? And it is usually not even intentional agenda-drive "fake news" stuff - just plain ol' fashioned incompetence. Most people who have ever read an article by a "reporter" about circumstances of which they have firsthand knowledge discover how riddled with errors these articles are. These writers are not the Valedictorians of your high school - they are mostly folks who were not good enough at math to go into a more lucrative line of work. You're really getting worked up over what some half-ass reporter wrote in a local fishwrap?


Anyway, why should the PARENTS apologize? Did they fall on her car? And if your 13 year old kid fell off an overpass onto someone's car, you would be protecting him, too. And you know it.

You're just looking for a pound of flesh - any flesh - and it's unseemly.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Don't count your chickens ()
Date: December 18, 2018 10:20AM

Insanity Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These writers are not the Valedictorians of your high
> school - they are mostly folks who were not good enough
> at math to go into a more lucrative line of work.

LOL! Many people realize far better than you apparently do that the important thing in life is to do something you love, not something you think will somehow make you a lot of money. It's not that money is unimportant, but that unless you love your work, you will never become good enough at it to earn anything close to the top dollars available in the field. Instead, you will become bitter, angry, and disgusted with your work and will come to drown your sorrows in drink, thereby earning such bonuses as one or more divorces and an early death. That's a pretty lousy path to travel down.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: WP reader ()
Date: December 19, 2018 03:01PM

So, according to Insanity, the dead woman is not a "victim", the police are wrong, and the newspaper reporters are biased/incompetent. Everyone is wrong here, except for the kid, who either jumped or fell, and killed someone. And his parents who are pretty much saying "oopsie. too bad. not sorry. deal with it."

If my 12-year-old kid caused someone to die, I'd at least make him tell the police what happened. So the police can tell the victim's parents. It's basic human decency. Even if the kid jumped, he doesn't have to go to jail. But he should at least be getting some kind of treatment. The victim's parents would want to know that steps were taken to avoid the kid putting some other person's family through this again in the future.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 19, 2018 03:05PM

What's wrong with looking for a pound of flesh when your loved one is ripped away from you because of someone else's irresponsibility? Do you think we should just get rid of the whole court system and prison system...because, you know...pound-of-flesh vengeance?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 19, 2018 03:22PM

WP reader Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, according to Insanity, the dead woman is not a
> "victim", the police are wrong, and the newspaper
> reporters are biased/incompetent. Everyone is
> wrong here, except for the kid, who either jumped
> or fell, and killed someone. And his parents who
> are pretty much saying "oopsie. too bad. not
> sorry. deal with it."
>
> If my 12-year-old kid caused someone to die, I'd
> at least make him tell the police what happened.
> So the police can tell the victim's parents. It's
> basic human decency. Even if the kid jumped, he
> doesn't have to go to jail. But he should at
> least be getting some kind of treatment. The
> victim's parents would want to know that steps
> were taken to avoid the kid putting some other
> person's family through this again in the future.

1) Dead woman may or may not be a "victim." We don't know. She might be an accident victim. In which case you need to call her an accident victim.

2) Never said the police are wrong. Said YOU are wrong for assuming that the police are right. I do not know. YOU do not know. The difference is that one of us is willing to admit that.

3) Yes, most newspaper reporters are biased and/or incompetent.

4) I never said "everyone is wrong." Never said the police were wrong - just do not assume they are right, either. Never said the school is wrong - YOU just assume they are.

5) Parents never said "oopsie. too bad. not sorry. deal with it." But you have not explained what they did to be sorry for. Did they push the kid? Did they fall on the car? AFAICT, they did not cause this kid to fall on that car.

6) You say that "If my 12-year-old kid caused someone to die, I'd at least make him tell the police what happened." Actually, until you are in that or a similar situation, you do not have the FIRST damn clue what you would really do. It is so cheap and easy to sit oneself up on a high horse and say that NOW. But you don't KNOW what you would REALLY do. Unless you have been there, you can't know.

7) "The victim's parents would want to know that steps were taken to avoid the kid putting some other person's family through this again in the future." Again, you are ASSUMING he jumped. What if he tripped and fell? Exactly what "steps" would you propose to make sure the kid never trips and falls again?

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Insanity ()
Date: December 19, 2018 03:29PM

FAKE IMPOSTER Insanity Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's wrong with looking for a pound of flesh
> when your loved one is ripped away from you
> because of someone else's irresponsibility? Do
> you think we should just get rid of the whole
> court system and prison system...because, you
> know...pound-of-flesh vengeance?

Our civil courts are NOT intended to extract vengeance. Never have been.

The point of a civil lawsuit is to settle disputes, and in the case of a tort case like this one would be, to make the parties whole. Money can never do that when one has lost a loved one, but that is all that the civil courts are empowered to provide so that is what they do.

Even worse than seeking personal vengeance in a civil suit, is seeking vengeance against someone who did not even cause your damages (or in this case, lost loved one) just because they are related to the person who did.

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Re: Impact of Man's Fall From I-66 Overpass Kills Driver
Posted by: Big Gun ()
Date: October 20, 2021 12:53PM

Anyone know the kid’s name? Just found out he still goes to JMHS as a sophomore

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