Gabby Petito’s parents sue Utah police, alleging negligence of officers and police department led to her death
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As much as I don’t agree with it,
I think they will win a settlement.
They will win because the police will be found to have a minuscule amount of blame and deep pockets.
This is they way our system works and they know it.
So I ponder who has more blame in this situation?
The police who after questioning them let them go on their merry way until she was murdered 2 weeks later?
Or,
Gabby’s parent’s for raising her her whole life without providing her with the skills required to make rational decisions and then basically sending her on her merry way?
I wouldn’t normally cast some blame on a victims parent.
I feel they are fair game once they started going after and blaming others that did not kill their daughter.
You know what they say about pointing fingers and all that.
I doubt it.
They'll settle out of court if they're not too greedy. In some ways a trial and $1 verdict would be the best outcome. There were shortcomings but legally the question whether the shortcomings were the proximal cause of her death. That's really an impossibility to prove given the distance of time and their ongoing history of domestic violence. Same time it's a sympathetic case so Moab isn't going to want to take it trial. Juries like emotional cases and are not predictable. It's civil case so majority and not unanimous verdict, not something you really want to roll the dice on.
Note that it's cite or arrest. There's no requirement of arrest in the Utah books as a lot of posters have implied, so that bit of misinformation needs correcting, me included there. Turns out not everything you read in a blog is real and sometimes you fall for it like I did. But yes, since Gabby admitted to the assault she should have been cited or arrested and was not. That or Brian should have been if the assessment of the officers was that Gabby was really lying to protect her man. But that wasn't the assessment of the officers. It's all fine and dandy to stand about later on our armchairs after the fact and decide how the officers (plural) should have thought.
So again, proximal cause. But for the lack of a citation or arrest of Gabby, would Brian still have killed her? I don't really see it. That doesn't mean there weren't mistakes made by Moab PD as there clearly were. They were required to arrest or cite somebody, either Gabby for admitting to the assault or Brian because in their assessment Gabby was lying to protect her man. That didn't happen. I just don't see that the fact that it didn't happen is the reason she was killed two weeks later. It's a weak case legally but also one that is a teachable moment, so perhaps the best outcome is one of those $1 verdicts.
It's a weak case legally but also one that is a teachable moment, so perhaps the best outcome is one of those $1 verdicts.
I agree with it being a teachable moment even if a verdict comes back for $1. The point is that the message needs to be sent that Utah law was not followed.
On a side note, when things escalated between my ex husband and I 30 years ago the police who showed up were very good at analyzing the situation. They asked questions and determined that strife had been going on for a while and they stated that the reason things had escalated is because we had continued to live together (out of necessity). There were no arrests made, but the police made an important point that we needed to be proactive even in the face of financial concerns. What ended up happening soon after was his fists went up in my face and I was determined my children would not grow up in that kind of environment. That's when I finally left, but it wasn't easy.
If Gabby had been willing to throw in the towel on their relationship much earlier (because he'd already been physical with her in the past), things would've had a better chance of turning out differently.
What if they'd identified Brian as the DV perp (based in part on witness reports), and detained him? I don't know what options LE has in DV cases. But after that incident, Brian returned to Florida to remove Gabby's belongings out of shared storage they had, didn't he? He was gone a week or more? It's entirely possible that he was stewing over their relationship and the incident with LE the whole time. He may have decided while in FL to kill her. What was his purpose in getting rid of her stuff, anyway? Did he do it in a fit of rage? Lots of questions we'll never have answers to.
In hindsight, it's easy to say LE should have prevented them from continuing their trip together, but how would that have been achieved in the absence of a crime having been committed? They couldn't require her to take a break from her trip (which she did anyway, while waiting for Brian to return), and get counseling.
What I'm getting at is, how would the ultimate outcome have been any different, if officer Pratt hadn't been there, influencing the proceedings?
If Gabby had been willing to throw in the towel on their relationship much earlier (because he'd already been physical with her in the past), things would've had a better chance of turning out differently.
She'd had a lot of opportunity to reflect on the relationship, which had been rocky at least since their first road trip together. I'm reminded by your point, also, that at some point during the second trip, I remember hearing her in a video snap at him, "why are you so mean". It seems there were red flags throughout the relationship. Was it Gabby's first relationship? Some young women can't discern between ordinary disagreements vs. emotional or physical abuse. They don't get the "this is not what love looks like" message.
The guy snapped and it was going to happen sooner or later. It was likely not premeditated. The main issue seemed to be his intense dislike of the social media goals she had. That's why things escalated so quickly on their final trip, whereas they had traveled together in the past without any violent incident (at least that we know of - again we'll never know).
I'd like to see laws changed where a couple in this situation can be detained and required to answer some questions about the history and condition of their relationship. Not guaranteed they would be honest but a competent mediator would be more likely to extract important information that could then lead to someone being proactive about ending the relationship. Gabby knew that he was cranky, controlling and violent. She thought she could deal with it and/or make him change.
And Gabby Petito was not an airhead. She was a young, inexperienced, idealistic young girl. The only good thing to come out of this is that more young girls will pay attention to extreme red flags and be proactive. Foundations like the Gabby Petito Foundation help with that. I don't know any information about whether or why they "haven't helped" anyone. It's only be a year, people shouldn't be so critical and dismissive.
What if they'd identified Brian as the DV perp (based in part on witness reports), and detained him? I don't know what options LE has in DV cases. But after that incident, Brian returned to Florida to remove Gabby's belongings out of shared storage they had, didn't he? He was gone a week or more? It's entirely possible that he was stewing over their relationship and the incident with LE the whole time. He may have decided while in FL to kill her. What was his purpose in getting rid of her stuff, anyway? Did he do it in a fit of rage? Lots of questions we'll never have answers to.
In hindsight, it's easy to say LE should have prevented them from continuing their trip together, but how would that have been achieved in the absence of a crime having been committed? They couldn't require her to take a break from her trip (which she did anyway, while waiting for Brian to return), and get counseling.
What I'm getting at is, how would the ultimate outcome have been any different, if officer Pratt hadn't been there, influencing the proceedings?
They'd need some kind of probable cause to do that. That could either come from Brian or from Gabby. Instead they got a fairly consistent story from both of them separately that Gabby attacked Brian who pushed her back which more or less matches with the physical injuries he had. Of course the scratches on his face could have just as easily been defensive but neither of them spun the yarn that he was strangling her and she scratched his face in self-defense, nor was there any mention of bruising that would suggest he did.
DV cases are hell though. Just because they both more or less told the same story really does not mean it's what happened though. They could have come to the conclusion that they both were lying and cited Brian as the primary aggressor. It's unlikely they had time to come up with roughly consistent stories but they didn't necessarily need to. If Brian was reasonable sure he had her under his thumb and she would lie and say she attacked him without being coached specifically to do so, for example.
But really say they cite Brian instead of Gabby and off they go. In that case the law is followed. The law did not require the police to go find a hotel room for Brian so they could cool off for the night, that was above and beyond. All they needed to do was issue a citation and tell them to both have a splendid day, please wait until you're 50 miles outside Moab to kill each other so it's Utah Sheriffs mess and not ours.
But say they did cite Brian. Is that really going to materially change anything? Like you say, was he in seething rage over the incident? If so you'd think had he been cited that would just be another thing he'd be mad about. Or say they don't decide they're both lying and cite Gabby. With Gabby singing I attacked him, all Brian really had to do was say I want to press charges if that's what he wanted and off she goes for the parents to pick her up. I really don't think it was all a master plan and cooly calculated plot of how do I kill my girlfriend and get away with it... mostly because after he'd done it he drove back home with the girlfriend's van to mommy and daddy. He freaked out and ran home and then offed himself. There wasn't any master plan for kill the GF and get away with it.
The question we may never get answered is why did he go home and deal with her stuff? And why did he feel entitled to move and/or dispose of her stuff? My understanding is that her parents still have not gained access to her stuff. Why was it so important for Brian to move and/or dispose of her stuff? It doesn't seem to be only about finances. We'll never know what happened after he returned, what was said and done, only that she was soon dead.
I've always thought he realized after that plant trip that the gig was up and he was losing her. It's probably the trigger for his snapping and strangling her. I know it's not against the law, but keeping information from her parents is not right. They would like answers as to why he returned to FL and moved her stuff, why he went back, and what he told his parents, especially his mother. There's also the issue of the "burn after reading" letter. That's why there was so much outrage about this situation. It's just strange that his parents refused to cooperate. It's suspicious. https://7news.com.au/news/world/robe...wyer-c-7314076
Anyway I'm curious as to how the Moab Police Dept. is going to handle things going forward. Allusions have been made about further training, but of course with a lawsuit pending they're probably silenced.
The guy snapped and it was going to happen sooner or later. It was likely not premeditated. The main issue seemed to be his intense dislike of the social media goals she had. That's why things escalated so quickly on their final trip, whereas they had traveled together in the past without any violent incident (at least that we know of - again we'll never know).
I'd like to see laws changed where a couple in this situation can be detained and required to answer some questions about the history and condition of their relationship. Not guaranteed they would be honest but a competent mediator would be more likely to extract important information that could then lead to someone being proactive about ending the relationship. Gabby knew that he was cranky, controlling and violent. She thought she could deal with it and/or make him change.
And Gabby Petito was not an airhead. She was a young, inexperienced, idealistic young girl. The only good thing to come out of this is that more young girls will pay attention to extreme red flags and be proactive. Foundations like the Gabby Petito Foundation help with that. I don't know any information about whether or why they "haven't helped" anyone. It's only be a year, people shouldn't be so critical and dismissive.
I've read there are 20,000 calls per day to domestic violence hotlines. They couldn't possibly do mediation and counseling for all of them. And most taxpayers IMO would balk at the huge price tag that would be attached to it. The vast majority of DV calls the police answer a day are most likely much more violent than the one between Brian and Gabby was, this to them probably seemed like nothing compared to what they see on a daily basis.
What the living hell? He's now a detective?? The guy got promoted and is now also a school resource officer? What is wrong with that city??
Um, probably because of this....
Quote:
The Utah Department of Public Safety told Fox News Digital it had no record of any ethical, criminal or other complaints filed against him during his time as chief in Salina.
What exactly has the city done wrong in this situation?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
