ABC News: Family Sues Cops Over Accident Photos

this is so sad - that girl was gorgeous. But at the same time, why was she sneaking her dad's Porsche out and driving 100mph?

Omg... I've seen the photos. Not of her but of the car. :/ Somehow I knew this was going to be related. People are so cruel....

And she probably took the car out because that's what a lot of kids do. They sneak out of the house, drive fast, take chances. Some get lucky and then others like her are not so fortunate. After seeing the pictures, I was 99.99% sure that nobody survived.

oh yea, i remember that story...

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People need to stop giving this scum-fuck money. The family in the OP are being SCAMMED by Fertik's bullshit. RD has indirectly RUINED the lives of two law students who are now trying to sue anonymous posters on the Internet. I can't even feel sorry for the family now that they have hired this anti-free speech scammer fuck. Ugh.

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cintra wilson is my hero

horrible about the posted photos. but what the hell was she doing taking her dad's porsche and driving it at such a high rate of speed? she's lucky she didn't kill anyone else

um correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't police reports public record, and can be requested by anyone? so those photos would have been able to have been procured in a legal manner anyway?

it's a truely tragic story, don't get me wrong, but the lawsuit doesn't make sense to me.

Yes. The lawsuit is pointless and anti-free speech. If you read up on Michael Fertik, you'll see that he's a con artist who gets people to give him a LOT of money and initiates pointless (often pro bono) litigation to further expose whatever detail his "clients" don't want exposed. Fertik is SCUM.

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cintra wilson is my hero

I'd never heard of him.

I saw the accident photos a while back with her and the car. Someone sent them to me in an email (real nice huh). I have seen a lot of photos like that but these were some of the worst I have ever seen. I read that she argued with her father and then took the car without his permission. I can't remember but I think he called the police about it.

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Details of Nikki Catsouras car crash:

The night before she died, Nikki had gotten into an argument with her father about “typical teenager stuff,” Christos Catsouras said.

He disciplined her by taking away the keys to her car.

Nikki’s mother said her daughter wasn’t feeling well Oct. 31. She had a 3 p.m. appointment to see a doctor.

Christos Catsouras had lunch at home that day. He works five minutes away at a real estate office.

He recalled telling Nikki before he went back to the office that he loved her. She blew him a kiss and flashed him a peace sign.

After he left, Nikki walked to a key rack in the house and took the keys to her father’s $150,000 Porsche – which Nikki had never driven, her father said.

The keys were hanging where they always were, with all the others.

Lesli Catsouras heard the garage door open and the car leave and called her husband, who called 911. He immediately drove around looking for her.

Nikki had taken off down the Eastern (241) Toll Road in his black 911 Carrera.

As she tried to pass a car that was going about 70 mph, she clipped it and lost control of the Porsche, the CHP said

With a quick google of her name this is what came up.

Nikki Catsouras Photos

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I saw this on snopes when it first happened.

Cos only pretty people matter!

they were gory for sure.....teenagers do dumb things....still feel for the family.

I got the ones of her in the car, and those were horrible - It's just sickening that they would send those to her family though.

+1

Oh how horrible.

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don't forget that part!

I don't really agree with Gwen on this one. An 18 year old girl wrecked her dad's porsche in a toll-booth at 100mph after an argument. Pictures of her face ripped from her skull are then passed around the internet like kids swapping baseball cards. I think that's sick regardless of who it is. I never have felt the need to look at that kind of crap.

^^She was only commenting on the title of the article she posted...it said "Beautiful".

That's for shock-value but I'll agree.

that poor family.

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*Jesse*

I was just commenting on the title. You have to admit the fact that they included "Beautiful" looks pretty silly.

Ooops, I guess I should have read the rest of the replies before posting.

If anyone has seen the pictures of her dead then they would understand why so much is said of her beauty. It was really, really bad.

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First off, I saw those pictures and they made me want to vomit. I mean, seriously, those are beyond disturbing images.

Secondly, there is a valid point to the lawsuit...negligence. I know that people question how the CHP could be liable for their anguish but man, if I were in the family's shoes and receiving those pictures through email and texts, seeing a fake myspace page set up, and just KNOWING that people were out there swapping those pictures and basically getting off on the gore... that's plenty of unecessary anguish that could have been prevented. If CHP employees are emailing sensitive confidential pictures around their department and then those employees email them to external recipients- then there is definitely exposure for CHP. If CHP was aware this was going on or did not have reasonable safeguards in place to protect this sort of private information from being freely disseminated then they sure as f*ck can be and should be held responsible. This is the CHP, not some rinky dink operation in a small podunk town. The CHP can absolutely can be held to a higher standard of care. This is clearly different from a valid public records request. CHP operated in a negligent manner and these photos were not published following a records request (which would then place liability if any on the requestor).

IMO, I think its pretty twisted that the public can request crime scene photos and video. There are some sick f*cks out there who probably collect this sort of crap and that to me is not a valid use of the materials. The internet can be a scary place nowadays and the ability for citizens to access public records can be exploited and perverted by some twisted individuals.

I think the lawsuit is valid if it is based on this theory and not arguing that accessibility to public records violates a family's right to privacy or something. I agree that access to public records is a good thing but there should be some safeguards in place. In some cases, the law should not be so black and white. Some of the issues that arise here are that these materials can be extremely graphic and sensitive in nature, that some people are seeking to PROFIT off of them (some people post blogs about controversial stories for the sole purpose of driving traffic to their site so that peopel will click on their google ads etc.). IMO, there should be room for a balance between fair access and general human decency by either allowing the family to seal documents that fall into a certain pre-defiined category or having civil liability for those who use the materials in an absuive manner.

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While CHP really screwed up by distributing those images, they are not confidential or private. Anyone could have gotten to them anyway. The dispatchers may have been a catalyst and gotten things going, but its not like they are solely responsible. You may have an argument in that the photos might not have surfaced without their actions, but its a weak one. The pictures were still out there for the taking

You're ignoring the possibility of people abusing the seal/safeguard policy you speak of, and I'm absolutely sure that they would. I feel bad for the family, and it must be horrible to have to deal with the pictures, but that doesn't mean they have a valid case