When Paul Pelton saw the scene of a fatal car crash this week, he didn’t try to comfort the victims, who were both teenagers, and he didn’t help them, authorities say. Instead, according to police, Pelton started filming the scene on his cellphone, reports the Washington Post.
Pelton, 41, is now facing a misdemeanor charge of vehicular trespassing. Police arrested him Wednesday, and he has since posted bond. “We searched to try to find anything to charge him with,” Lorain Police Detective Buddy Sivert told Reuters, noting that Pelton was charged for entering a crime scene, but not for filming what was unfolding there, nor for trying to peddle the footage to news organizations. “It is not a crime to stick a camera where a kid is dying or try to sell it.”
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After a Honda sedan flew over railroad tracks and crashed into a house Monday, Pelton filmed the aftermath on his cellphone’s camera. The crash happened in Lorain, Ohio, which is about 30 miles from Cleveland.
Others who were in the area tried to help get to the teens, but Pelton didn’t offer any assistance. “He went right in after the crash, before the rescuers or police arrived,” Sivert said.
According to a police report cited by the Northeast Ohio Media Group, Pelton can be heard in the video referring to the boys trapped in the car as “idiots.”“He opened a back door and leaned in to film the boys and then walked around to the front door as he continued recording,” the Media Group reported. “At no time did he try to help either of the boys, the report said.”
The driver and the passenger were both 17. One died at an Ohio hospital; the condition of the other victim wasn’t immediately known, according to the Media Group. Pelton posted the video to Facebook, police allege, and later tried to sell it to multiple TV stations.
Denise White, who lives on the street where the accident occurred, told CBS affiliate WOIO that she was trying to help the victims and saw Pelton filming. “To take that video and put it on Facebook, it just shows you have no principles. It’s disgusting,” she told the station. The deceased teenager’s “mom probably had to see that,” White said.
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