Police officers may be paid to protect and serve the public by enforcing the law, but that doesn't mean that they're immune to it. Law enforcement officers are just as capable of making the same mistakes that civilians do, especially when they're not in uniform. A former officer with the police department in Newport Beach, California, knows this all too well, having been sentenced in court last week.
The 51-year-old Winchester woman, who no longer works in law enforcement but has been working as a private investigator, was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter in connection with a fatal car accident that happened in November 2011. She was sentenced to nine years in state prison.
According to California Highway Patrol officers who investigated the crash, the woman was driving fast behind another car on Interstate 15 just before 2 a.m. one night when she rear-ended it. The impact forced both cars off the road, through a guardrail and hundreds of feet down a steep hill. The other driver, a 20-year-old man, was killed in the accident and his two passengers were seriously injured. The woman who caused the crash also suffered injuries.
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