Driver Won't Face Criminal Charges, Just A Ticket For Running Over Several Geese
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CLINTON TWP. (WWJ/AP) - Police say a motorist who ran over several geese in Macomb County, killing some of the animals, will receive a ticket but won't face criminal charges in the incident.
Clinton Township police Capt. Richard Maierle said Tuesday that the 49-year-old Warren man would get a ticket for failure to use due care and caution. It's a two-point civil infraction that also carries a $150 fine.
Witnesses told police that the man drove through a flock of geese crossing at a busy intersection at the Clinton Township-Mount Clemens border on July 30.
Maierle says the man maintains he didn't know he hit the geese, and that police don't think he did so intentionally. The incident happened on northbound Gratiot Avenue and Wellington Crescent, just south of the Clinton River.
Witnesses said several vehicles were stopped on Gratiot, allowing the flock of white geese to cross the road, when a motorist "plowed right through them and kept going." By some witness accounts, the motorist actually appeared to speed up before striking the birds.
"We were slowing because we saw a sea of geese coming across, there had to be 30 or 40 of them," witness Lynn Anderson told WWJ's Scott Ryan. "I'm sitting two car lengths behind a little SUV and that person just hit the gas and plowed right through them. No brake lights, just kept on going."
Four of the geese died. One was so badly injured, it had to be euthanized. Two others were believed to be injured.
The remaining flock has been relocated to a farm.
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