New Jersey: "Trooper's widow defends suit against Ford" (in husband's shooting death)

[cuchulainn]

from the Express Times

http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/nj/index.ssf?/base/news-4/106811316190090.xml

Trooper's widow defends suit against Ford

Carmaker claimed lawyer was unnecessarily putting the family through difficult times.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

By TOM QUIGLEY
The Express-Times

BELVIDERE -- The widow of slain New Jersey State Trooper Scott M. Gonzalez lashed back Wednesday at a statement by a Ford Motor Co. spokeswoman, saying the automaker is partly responsible for her husband's death.

"I have read Ford's statement in (Wednesday's) Express-Times article and I am personally outraged and I am responding on my own behalf and on behalf of my husband," Maureen Gonzalez said Wednesday.

"Ford's claim that my attorney is putting me through this unnecessary grief is totally groundless and an insult to me," she said.

Gonzalez is suing Ford, asserting that design defects in her husband's police car contributed to his death.

The civil case is headed for trial and jury selection at the Warren County Courthouse could begin in the coming days.

Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes on Tuesday said the attorney representing Gonzalez is unnecessarily putting the slain trooper's family through a difficult time.

Scott Gonzalez was killed after a Knowlton Township man rammed his vehicle with a pickup truck and pumped two blasts from a 12-gauge shotgun through the trooper's windshield Oct. 24, 1997, in rural Mansfield Township.

The gunman, Samuel Shipps Jr., later died after accidentally shooting himself.

The trooper intercepted Shipps after police received a call reporting he might be on his way to Hackettstown to harm his estranged girlfriend.

"After Scott was killed I became aware of detailed investigations by the state troopers of the reason for his death," Maureen Gonzalez said.

"One of the reasons they found was that his car doors were jammed and he could not exit his vehicle," Gonzalez said.

She said the doors trapped her husband inside "and gave an unfair advantage to Mr. Shipps."

Gonzalez said she decided to do something about those findings and consulted with Chatham, N.J., attorney Dennis Donnelly.

"I was the one who insisted that Ford had to be sued because I believe their failures were one of the reasons that my husband is not alive today," Gonzalez said.

Vokes, the Ford spokeswoman, said she did not wish to respond to the statement by Gonzalez.

"My condolences go out to Mrs. Gonzalez," she said. "But this was a tragedy caused by a man with a shotgun and not by any vehicle design."

Vokes said there is evidence the door was opened and could have been opened farther "had Trooper Gonzalez not been injured."

The lawsuit originally was filed in 1999 and also names gun maker Heckler & Koch, which the suit faults for not providing adequate warnings about its weapons' firing pins. Heckler & Koch supplied the service weapon Gonzalez possessed when he was killed. A ballistics team discovered the day after the murder that the 9 mm gun's firing pin was defective.


Reporter Tom Quigley can be reached at 908-475-8184 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Copyright 2003 The Express-Times.

 

[FPrice]

""My condolences go out to Mrs. Gonzalez," she said. "But this was a tragedy caused by a man with a shotgun and not by any vehicle design.""

More succinctly it was caused by a man with a truck and a shotgun. Or more to the point, by a man.

I am very curious as to what sort of design "flaw" causes doors on a vehicle to jam after it has been rammed by another vehicle.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

The wife may have a good case if the vehicle's doors could not be opened due to some design flaw. If not a design flaw but a result of the car being damaged, then it sounds bogus.

As far as the statement that the supposedly defective doors gave the shooter and unfair advantage, would she have been okay with the shooting had the door opened and her husband have the same mobility ability of shooter? I don't think so. Whether or not the advantage was fair and who had the advantage is not relevant.

My guess is that the shooter had another "unfair advantage" in that he was using a shotgun and apparently the cop was using a handgun.

So the firing pin was defective. Had it failed or failed to perform. In other words, was the officer's gun disabled?

Wow, two lawsuits for one incident and they are both based on supposed product defects of two unrelated items. What are the chances of that?

 

[outfieldjack]

Hmmmm, sounds like she is out for more $$$. Tragic about her husband, but that is part of the job.

 

[Mike Irwin]

In order to make a car body so stiff that the doors wouldn't jam would completely defeat the concept of energy absorbing crumple zones and would likely lead to a marked increase in the number of fatalities...

 

[WT]

Double Naught - the trooper's gun was indeed disabled. Investigators could not fire it. They found a partially full magazine on the floor of the car and another in the pistol. It appears the trooper tried to clear a malfunction and do a speed reload.

Trooper Gonzalez went down fighting.

RIP.

 

[ny32182]

If the trooper's gun had indeed suffered a malfunction such as a broken firing pin, she probably has decent grounds for a suit against H&K. If I understand correctly, even the gun industry "immunity" bill wouldn't protect H&K or anyone else from being sued over a product that was actually defective, i.e., didn't function as advertized.