Mount Pleasant, Texas — A pickup truck crashed into and ran over a Kia this past Sunday in Mount Pleasant on Highway 271, leaving the Kia’s driver injured. Police said that Stephanie Thomas, 28, was charged with intoxication assault after her truck crashed into Nieves Goydoy-Ledesma’s Kia on Sunday evening, March 29, 2015.
Allegedly, Thomas was under the influence of alcohol at the time, police said. She had been driving her Toyota pickup truck along Highway 271 at about 6:45 p.m. that Sunday while Nieves Goydoy-Ledesma was driving her silver Kia, possibly in the opposite direction.
As Goydoy-Ledesma slowed down to make a left turn into her driveway, she was hit by Thomas’s pickup truck and badly injured. Paramedics too Goydoy-Ledesma to a hospital and Thomas was arrested on suspicion of intoxication assault.
Update: Stephanie Thomas has been identified as a Titus County Correctional Officer and has since been released from jail, but terminated from her job.
Map of Mount Pleasant, TX
Commentary:
If this woman had been drinking at her house (assuming that alcohol is a factor at all), then she’ll be the only person responsible for what happened here. However, if she had been drinking at a bar or a restaurant, then it’s a different story. What I’m talking about here is the fact that it’s against the law for licensed providers of alcohol to serve customers who are either already intoxicated or underage.
If a nearby bar, for example, lets a customer out on the street while knowing they’re intoxicated, and that person gets into an accident, the bar is on the hook as well. They can be both criminally punished (just like the driver) and can also be named in a civil suit (just like the driver). Think of them as accomplices to the same crime, because that’s essentially what happens when someone gets drunk at a bar and then is allowed to leave and drive home.
Obviously, there is a lot of information missing here in the news reports, so this may not apply. Still, I would be interested in seeing where the driver had been in the hours leading up to the accident.
