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twitterAccused driver’s attorney in fatal police crash speaks out
Calvin Darling now scheduled to appear in court on June 8
Published Monday, May 11, 2009 | 9:35 a.m.
Updated Monday, May 11, 2009 | 3:20 p.m.
Calvin Darling
Sun archives
The attorney representing a man accused in a fatal collision with a Metro Police officer is speaking out today and asking anyone who has information relating to the collision to call with information.
Attorney Sean P. Sullivan said 45-year-old Calvin Darling rushed to assist another officer in an attempt to rescue Officer James Manor, 28, from his patrol car. Darling also tried to extinguish the flames that started after the crash.
Darling was arrested on drunken driving charges after pulling his vehicle in front of Manor, who was responding to a domestic violence call at 1:49 a.m. Thursday when the crash occurred. Manor was pronounced dead at University Medical Center.
"Mr. Darling has no prior criminal record, has been a 36-year resident of Las Vegas, is a property owner within Clark County and has held steady employment in excess of 25 years here in Las Vegas," Sullivan said.
Darling and his family "send their deepest sympathy" to Manor's family for the loss of the officer, Sullivan said.
Darling told police that he had had "three or four" beers after getting off of his job as an engineer at the Bellagio, a police report said.
Darling was turning left onto Ravenwood Drive to go home from West Flamingo Road when he said he saw three vehicles approaching going east on Flamingo. He said he thought he had enough time to cross the road.
"At no time during this crossing of Flamingo Road did Mr. Darling either see or hear any emergency lights or sirens," Sullivan said.
In an interview conducted at the hospital, Darling said to a Metro officer that he had gotten off work about 11 p.m. Wednesday, stopped at a nearby bar and had the "three or four" beers before he began driving toward his home. The police statement said Manor and an officer in another patrol car were eastbound on Flamingo when Darling's pickup truck pulled in front of Manor's patrol car.
The statement said Manor braked and swerved to the right, but could not avoid the collision.
The arrest report states that, "Both of these patrol vehicles were heading eastbound on Flamingo with lights and siren activated and they were both en route to an emergency call when the accident occurred."
Darling was arrested on drunken driving charges and was scheduled for a show-cause hearing Monday, but District Attorney David Roger had not filed any charges against him. He is scheduled in court on June 8.
The law offices of Kelly & Sullivan, Ltd., ask anyone who has information or witnessed the accident to call 385-7270.
Discussion: 20 comments so far…
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Yet a witness..stated that the police lights were NOT on...sounds like another wonderful cover up for metro...
Even if the officers emergency lights and siren were in fact NOT on...this one fact remains, that it was night time and the officers HEADLIGHTS were on, and the man driving the truck turned in front of a vehicle(could have been ANY vehicle) which caused another persons death(could have been ANY person) because of his inattention. The driver is at fault. CHARGE HIM!
Headlights or not, if the flashing red and blues were NOT on (nor a siren), it isn't failure to yield if the oncoming traffic is going at an unreasonable speed. That becomes a comparative liability issue for the court to decide.
I am still concerned that the RJ is reporting witnesses as saying that the PO's car did not have sirens and emergency lights going, while the Sun is reporting only what the Metro spokesman (who was not at the accident nor an eyewitness) is claiming.
It is a horrible accident, but not all accidents have a villian. Don't villianize this citizen just because he was involved in a crash. It might be you next time.
This is going to get interesting. Not only are there conflicting reports about the lights/siren, but now they have delayed his hearing because the DA hasn't filed any charges.
Give this poor man a break! This was a terrible ACCIDENT that would not have happened if a 14 year old girl had not made that bogus 911 call. Mr. Darling was not drunk, he did not leave the scene of the accident, and he admitted to police that he did have a couple of beers before driving home. Mr Darling should receive no more than a ticket for not yielding the right of way, plus he has to live with this for the rest of his life. Maybe the 14 year old should be held responsible.
If you are going to make a left hand turn and there is a car half a block down the street do you wait? I DON'T THINK SO you have plenty of time to make the turn. I went to the scene of the accident the cop hit his breaks at least 80 -- 100 yards before the intersection that's a football fields length and even after colliding with the truck both vehicles still went 40 -- 50 yards past the intersection. If the cop had been doing the speed limit the truck driver would have had plenty of time to clear the intersection, but the truck driver didn't know and couldn't tell the cop was going 90+-mph. Until you go down there and see for yourself you have no idea what you are talking about. Its time you people stop defending the cop he was in the wrong. And metro knows it.
limomominlv, you are a funny man. as if headlights will absolve the police officer of wrongdoing for SPEEDING at a HIGH rate of speed and expect people to yield to him.
if that is the case, i can drive 100 MPH and then when someone misjudges the distance and my rate of speed, we can blame the other person for pulling out in front of me. i mean, he should have yielded to me right?
Its obvious Calvin wasnt drunk. It means everything if the officers lights and siren werent on. We see police speeding all the time without lights and sirens against department policy. Listen to the eyewitness accounts. Why hasnt the news or metro posted camera footage from the following police car? They are so quick to post Calvins picture from his police photo. The sherrif is an elected official looking for votes. He is the one in charge people. Maybe if all the police at Bellagio staff dining 24-7 feeding their faces for free were not there, an officer would have been much closer to the call. If you want to find someone drinking and driving...sit out front of the bar at Oakey and Rainbow. The same bar a person tried to rob and officers, probably intoxicated, pulled out their guns and ended the robbery before it was even called in. They have their special bars all over town. Maybe we should grab cameras and film them stumbling out. Then send them to a suitable third party who can investigate it without bias. And whats with mayor Goodman? The biggest promoter of drinking in town? I will just sit back with a vodka he promoted and see what truth comes out of it all. Props to the DA's office for not filing charges until all the facts are in. America is founded on the belief of innocence until proven guilty. If Calvin is innocent i can only imagine the lawsuits that should be filed for slander and deferment of charecter against the Metropolitan police department and the news media. All for votes and money...any officers reading this...we dont hate you. You help us all and we appreciate it greatly. We also feel your pain that you lost a brother and a valuable member of our community. Everyone stay safe, keep your eyes open, dont drink, text or argue while driving. Stay calm, cool and vigiliant. And above all...base judgements on the facts. And at this point we dont have them all.
Metropolitan Police Department has not yet completed fabricating their stories, they need more time to arrest and coerce the witnesses that steadfastly insist that it was the cop that could have prevented his own death simply by complying with Department Policy...of course the cop was probably in Metro's "shoot first and ask questions later mode."
It is incidents like that that PROVE that although Metro continues to fight it, cameras need to be installed in all vehicles.
We all know why Metro does not want cameras, cameras do not lie. We should demand cameras in all Metro and HP vehicles to protect ourselves from having to fight for the truth.
This was an accident, the officer was going too fast without lights and siren on. None of us would have been able to judge the speed of a car so far away as going 90+MPH.
DEMAND CAMERAS IN METRO VEHICLES!
This is what they call award-winning journalism?!?
Not only do they fail to mention other witnesses who also deny the lights and sirens, not only do they fail to mention the fake 911 call, but now they are leaving out how Darling was released ROR after his blood tests came back with less than 0.08% BAC. Yet they trumpet how he was arressted and charged with DUI, yet today's hearing has been delayed for lack of charges. This "update" should have gone into a new story instead of replacing the original one from this morning.
LV Sun, I call BullS**t!
I gotta agree with BofTX. I am calling Shenanigans on the SUN for this propaganda. Metro must have a old DUI they are blackmailing one of the Greenspun's with or something.
The SUN's heavily biased reporting towing the Metro official line is disgraceful.
Even the RJ is disclosing that witnesses saw no flashing lights and heard no sirens.
Amazing how quickly The Sun had this guy charged with DUI when the prosecutor hasn't opened his mouth yet. Does the editor of this rag remember the word "ALLEGEDLY" or did you redact that from your vocabulary?
For Metro to sacrifice honesty in order to position themselves to defend against the inevitable civil lawsuit is very sad.
Limo Mom is just a little fanatical. Remind me never to ride in her Limo. At best this is a comparative liability situation. There is no clean cut fault here.
Just a very sad and horrible accident.
LVRJ has this story front and center on it's web page. Las Vegas Sun has already buried it as much as possible. Greenspun, can you be a little less obvious?
LVMPD will do a first class job of a cover-up, like they always do. Hopefully Gillespie will step up to the plate and do the right thing. At least things aren't as bad with Metro as it was under Keller, when the criteria for being a cop was a GED and a willingness to shoot people in cold blood! Has a cop in Las Vegas EVER been found of wrong-doing? Don't rack your brains; the answer is a resounding NO!
I still think Darling should be charged with a failure to yield. If you aren't sure how fast an oncoming car is going, wouldn't YOU wait? if only to save your own life is what I'm saying. I didn't mean that there was no fault on the officer, except that if I'm not sure how fast the oncoming car is going..I'd rather wait. I don't have time to die to save a few seconds. His judgement WAS impaired, and yes the officer was going too fast, no matter how we all see it.
Even though he was not over the legal limit of a.08 he can still be charged with a wet negligence. Reckless driving is an operation of an automobile in a dangerous manner under the circumstances, including speeding (or going too fast for the conditions, even though within the posted speed limit), driving after drinking (but not drunk), having too many passengers in the car, cutting in and out of traffic, failing to yield to other vehicles, and other negligent acts.
Just heard about the story this AM. A total tragedy. I too feel that this sounds like a horrible accident. I drive Flamingo every AM and thought some kid was killed crossing the street. Also, I have notice cops flying down Flamingo quite a few times. I pulled out onto Flamingo and some young police officer, wearing driving gloves, was far exceeding the speed limit moved out of my lane, stared me down, and the proceeded to a convenience store near Flamingo/Rainbow. For the past two days, I have seen two police cars sitting at the site and the makeshift memorial for their colleague. Listen, accidents/tragedies happen all the time. Sounds to me like this is just that. I hate to see the media and police department make it into more than that. What a shame. The guy is obviously not some dead beat repeat DUI offender. Didn't something like this happen a couple years ago with the Highway Patrol man that was speeding on I-15 and killed that family. I respect police officers as well, but some do drive recklessly at times.
And now the RJ has pulled all the comments on their copy of this story. I will grant that some (many?) of them were not kind, but rather than pull them all I would think they could have used a scapal instead of a meat cleaver.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/44775237.html?n...
Will the D.A. present Mr. Darling an honorary Good Samaritan award for his immediate rescue attempt in saving the life of the speeder that nearly killed him?
Area commuters are a little safer today by the unfortunate death of Mr. James 'Speedy' Manor.
Yes, it was a horrible ACCIDENT and eventually the whole story will come out. Up to this point, everybody is speculating. I'm sad for Officer Manor's family and for the police department in their loss of an officer. It's never a good day when an officer is hurt or killed. In the same sense, I'm sad for Mr. Darling. Although this is a very sad incident and I think the Las Vegas Metro Police is a great agency, I don't like what I'm seeing in how metro is handling this. I think it's a noble thing to want to back your people, but when it's at the cost of a person's reputation before you yourself know all the facts, you as an agency have just opened old wounds of conspiracy theorists, and cover up stories all over again. How are we supposed to trust you if this accident in fact turns out to be the fault of your own officer? It's hard not to look at it that way with everything the media is reporting. One thing I would like the media to report on is which agency is handling the investigation? I certainly hope it's not Metro. It's clear they lack public support and trust at this point.