About the coverage of the July 4 quadruple-fatality accident

The reaction to the coverage provided by the Turner Report and Inside Joplin on the July 4 quadruple-fatality accident continues to pour in with more comments both on the blog posts and on my personal Facebook page and the Inside Joplin Facebook page.

First, the coverage itself.

A subject that was brought up by driver McKay Harris' mother in her post on my public Facebook page, which was also posted Thursday on the Turner Report, was the cause of the accident that claimed her son's life.

My original Inside Joplin post noted that Harris had been arrested for driving while intoxicated. Harris's mother says that it was a phone that distracted him and several commenters have accepted that as fact.

There also have been commenters who have said this blog should check its facts, giving the impression that I made up the DWI off the top of my head, or that it should not have been written about in the first place.

While I am sure many readers are aware of this, the Highway Patrol DWI Arrests that run on a daily basis on Inside Joplin come directly from the Highway Patrol. The people who are listed on those reports were arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

While this is not a 100 percent guarantee that the drivers were intoxicated and there have been instances where the troopers have been mistaken, the listing of a name is a guarantee that the trooper who investigated an accident or who stopped a driver found evidence that indicated that the driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

This is not a responsibility that troopers take lightly.

The information is turned over to county prosecuting attorneys who make the decision on whether official charges will be filed. 

In this case, no prosecuting attorney will ever have to make the decision.

Results of blood tests will determine in a few weeks whether alcohol was truly involved in the accident. I would be surprised if the decision to cite the driver for DWI was based solely on tests that would not be thoroughly evaluated for weeks.

I am not going to speculate on what that evidence may have been because I don't know.

The Turner Report and Inside Joplin were not the only news sources to note the DWI arrest. The Springfield News-Leader, KOAM, and KZRG and the Zimmer radio stations, as well as other media outlets, all noted the DWI arrests in their coverage.

Whenever there is a multiple fatality accident, the public has an intense interest. And there are valid reasons to know as much information about it as possible.

In this case, the accident involved a teen driver and two teen deaths, as well as two respected members of the Neosho community.

People want to know how and why the accident happened. Was there any way it could have been prevented? In this case, the accident occurred at a dangerous location. Coverage may remind people of the need to exercise caution in that area and people may see a need to try to do something to make the location less dangerous.

Was there a societal problem or a law enforcement, judicial, or legislative problem that contributed to what happened July 4?

While the Turner Report's examination of public records involving McKay Harris showed absolutely no sign of any instances of driving while intoxicated, Joplin and Neosho Municipal Court records indicated that he had been charged two previous times with driving without a license within the last couple of months.

Whenever a fatality accident occurs and a driver is cited for DWI, I automatically check to see if there is anything in the driver's background that shows there were indications that something like this could happen.

Most of us feel a need to understand how four people who were living, breathing, vital members of our community can be here one moment and then gone in a heartbeat.

That is the function of news.

Please do not tell me that it is nobody's business. It is everybody's business.

Now about the comments:

While I have sympathy for the families and friends of those who lost their lives as a result of the July 4 accident, I have no plans to start eliminating comments that someone may consider hurtful. While it had to be hurtful to read readers' negative comments about McKay Harris and their comments saying that he should receive a long prison sentence, those comments, while obviously hard for someone who knew Harris to read, are legitimate.

Just as legitimate are those who defended Harris, pointed out his good qualities and disagreed with those who wanted to see him harshly punished.

While some people did not express their views in the politest fashion, both sides helped contribute to a discussion about the kind of accident that should never happen to anyone.