Inclusion Daily Express -- Second Charlottesville Jaywalking Charge Dropped

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Second Charlottesville Jaywalking Charge Dropped
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
January 23, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA--A jaywalking charge was dropped Tuesday against Deborah Hamlin.

Circuit Court Judge William Barkley dismissed the charge saying the state had failed to make its case against the wheelchair pedestrian.

Police ticketed Hamlin, who has cerebral palsy and a vision-related disability, on December 7 while her shoulder was being treated in a University of Virginia Medical Center emergency room. A dump truck had run into Hamlin's wheelchair when she tried to cross a street a block from the hospital.

According to The Hook, Hamlin testified that the sidewalk along that street "severely dips", forcing her to be "desperately focused on controlling my chair." She said that she did not see that there was a pedestrian signal at the crosswalk and that she would not have been able to reach the button anyway.

She added that she thought the dump truck had seen her and had stopped.

This is the second jaywalking charge against a Charlottesville wheelchair user that has been dropped in the past month.

On January 3, a jaywalking charge against 53-year-old Gerry Mitchell was dropped. Albemarle County Police Officer Gregory C. Davis ran his police cruiser into Mitchell on November 5, knocking Mitchell out of his wheelchair and into the crosswalk. Mitchell was given a ticket -- while at the same hospital -- for failing to observe crosswalk signs.

The state's attorney requested that Mitchell's ticket be withdrawn after learning that, while Virginia law makes it a crime to enter a crosswalk when the signal flashes the word "Don't walk", the law hasn't been updated to apply to signs that instead display the universal outline of a red hand.

A friend, who questions why Davis was not ticketed, has put together a petition calling for "Justice for Gerry Mitchell."

Related:
"Charges dismissed in second wheelchair case" (The Hook)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2008/red/0123g.htm
Petition -- Justice for Gerry Mitchell
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/justice-for-gerry-mitchell.html

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