The point that any other driver who ran a kid over would have been tried by now can’t be ignored. That Brooklyn DA Chuck Hynes has yet to get off the dime a year after Tamon Robinson was killed can’t be attributed to anything other than the fact that the driver of the RMP was a cop.  They must “investigate,” where it would be prosecute if it was anyone else.

The  Daily News makes the point:

The official accident report states the police car was stopped on a footpath outside the Bayview Houses last April when Robinson “did run into” the vehicle, causing him to fall backward and strike his head.

Cops were in pursuit because Robinson, 27, had stolen paving stones from the project’s grounds. But multiple witnesses came forward, saying Robinson was deliberately mowed down by the cops.

Faced with the conflicting accounts, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes hired an accident reconstruction expert in Massachusetts six months ago who has no ties to the NYPD.

And to date…nothing.  Robinson was being chase because cops believed he stole some paving stones, although friends told the  New York Times that he had permission to take them. And then there were the initial police reports following his death.

When officers arrived, Mr. Robinson ran toward his building, but a police car hit him before he reached it, according to a police report about the events, which took place around 5:30 a.m.

This wasn’t controversial until the “official report” came into being, which told a different story, that he “did run into” the cruiser.  Like the dead man “did run into” the speeding bullet aimed at his head.  It’s not that the cops didn’t care deeply for Robinson’s welfare, as reflected in their yelling “wake up, wake up” before “bouncing him off the hood of the car.”

To make the story even more trite, the City then  sent Robinson’s mother a bill for $710 to repair a dent in the car that killed her son, sending it off the a collection firm for payment.  After the Daily News disclosed the collection effort, the City backed off.

A spokeswoman for the city Law Department said the notice seeking $710 was “sent in error” to Tamon Robinson, a 27-year-old who was killed in April as he fled from police who had spotted him stealing paver stones outside the Bayview Houses.

“We regret that Mr. Robinson’s family received a collection notice,” said Law Department spokeswoman Kate Ahlers. “We recognize that this involves a tragic case.”

The bill was sent in September, 2012.  Tamon Robinson was run down by the cruiser on April 12, 2012.  He laid in a coma for six days before he died.  Chuck Hynes, who couldn’t believe the initial police reports or anything said by the people who watched Robinson get run down, hired a professor about six months ago.

If this wasn’t a cop behind the wheel, would the one year anniversary of Tamon Robinson’s death pass without the district attorney having indicted and prosecuted the perpetrator?

Or maybe if the person run down had lived on a cul-de-sac rather than the Bayview Houses, the investigation would have moved along apace.  Either way, paving stones in Brooklyn are safe. People, not so much.

And if you’re bothered by the write up using the passive tense, “did run into,” it’s not a deliberate act of irony but just the way they do these things.  It makes them sound more official so you won’t mind that a year has passed, a kid died, and nothing has happened.