police officer killed by car

I do agree that the facts need to be looked at prior to it being plastered about. However all investigations are dealt with as a suspicion and different types of investigations are carried out in very different ways. Just the sheer mechanics of how the incident in Merseyside appears to have happened will suggest they will look at a criminal offence rather than a driving offence. However that does not mean that one cannot become the other after further investigation. I also agree that there are times when it may look like police are playing down certain situations like collisions. Luckily the average member of the public doesn't experience that many, officers will experience many many collisions and its that experience that they use to form their investigation plan in the first instance. They will always be occasions where they initially get it wrong that's just the way it is. If a cyclist decided to place himself in the way of an offender who was actively trying to escape from police and that driver deliberately drove into him then that would also be dealt with as a murder investigation. Thankfully that scenario would happen very infrequently. Despite how it may seem at times there aren't many people in the world who would deliberately take the life of an unknown person. However there are far too many people who don't pay anywhere near enough attention whilst at the wheel of a 2 tonne lump of metal!

As for the media......don't get me started!

Well, it was the police themselves who set off calling it a murder investigation, not the media.

Ciderman

The point you seem to want to make is that the police and media are prejudiced towards the police and equally prejudiced against cyclists. You even say that the severity of the offence is denoted by the clothes you wear. The reason your thread touched a nerve is that by its design your thread is inflammatory. You may not have designed it to be, however it is. The whole point of it is to suggest the cycling world is seen as second class or of less importance to that of others.
I have a foot in both camps and a reasonable amount of experience in both.
Oldstrath has hit the nail on the head. We cannot know what the offender was thinking unless they tell us. A mind probe has yet to be invented. However the mens rea of the offender is key when seeking any conviction of any kind. Often the persons actions give this away to some extent. However without being there ourselves we will never be in possession of the full facts.
Regarding the media attention to this. To me it seems fairly simple. How many police officers are killed each year in the line of duty? Answer - not many. How many cyclists are killed each year? Answer - far too many. There you have it. The media will sensationalise everything to make it sound more interesting. The less often something happens the less they need to sensationalise it. That is their job, like or dislike it. No one road death is more important than the other. Unfortunately some people are a lot more vulnerable and therefore lose their lives in greater numbers.
The law cannot and does not get changed depending on who the victim is. As much as people like to berate the British legal system it is widely regarded as one of the best in the world due to the fact it is seen as incredibly fair. There will be no favouritism by the courts in relation to this. They have no side to take. Yes the police will throw more resources towards this incident than perhaps they might for a cyclist being killed. One of their own has died and they are a family. People naturally want to protect their loved ones and people that they have an affinity with. You are obviously a cyclist and therefore will want to protect them even if you don't know them. It's natural behaviour.
Yes my earlier post was pointed and rash. It was late and in reaction to your initial post which riled me. We will not agree on this subject however I can assure you that cyclist are not seen as second class or given a lesser service due to who they are. Not by me anyway!

To use the phrase offered up by many on here when a cyclist is killed by a motorist "I don't suppose he went out that night intending to kill someone". Clearly he did kill someone, and that is both sad and wrong, but I still struggle to see how this can be described as any more 'intentional' than the actions of motorists who deliberately pass too close, or reverse into a cyclist, or destroy a hair salon while attempting to hit a cyclist.

Surely the issue , in reality if not in law, is that we can never actually inspect someone's intentions. Any rational person will show remorse and claim non-deliberation after the event - this proves nothing except, at most, good advice.

I don't normally get drawn into these kinds of discussions however this has touched a nerve!! if you wish to make such a strong argument then you must at least have some slight notion about the subject!! Clearly there are a lot of trolls on here tonight!!

If you have no dealings or training in the judicial system I would suggest keeping your mouth shut for fear of making yourself look a right numpty, like some the others here have!!

Please Roadcc delete this entire thread!

Sounds like murder to me. Perhaps it'll end in a manslaughter charge, who knows but either way that description, and the public outrage about such a callous act, seems completely appropriate.

It seems wrong to me to liken this to cyclist/ car collisions on the road. Even if that debate still needs to be had, there's a time and a place and this isn't it. To raise it now, about this news story, just sounds like a cyclist persecution complex which gets in the way of sensible debate all too often on here.

If they deliberately drove at him, then murder seems a perfectly sensible change. Can the moaners not tell the difference between something intentional and something careless/negligent/accidental? Given how often we get the argument the other way around, I guess not.

Again, "murder" used by the media today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-34457725

the jury will decide, and the attention this case gets is fully justified - first police officer killed on duty in Greater Manchester in nearly 35 years I believe. Out there protecting the general public, there's a time and place for other debate.

Murder is an intentional criminal act where a person deliberately takes another persons life.

Careless driving is a statutory offence where someone's driving falls below the standard accepted as reasonable by a court/jury.

The news reports are that the driver mounted a carriageway divider and drove straight at a person, reckless as to whether they would suffer great harm, and all to avoid arrest for theft.

To suggest that the two are the same is clearly ridiculous.