cross-posted from: https://hilariouschaos.com/post/12281799
A rising star boxer was killed after she was struck by an alleged road rage driver who deliberately reversed into her as she rode her bike along a Texas highway, police said.
Hannah Rapp, 26, who challenged for the WBC women’s featherweight championship last month, died Saturday morning after being struck by a car, according to a
…
Rapp’s boyfriend said Medina accelerated backward before striking Rapp, causing her to hit her head on the rear window.
Medina, of Navasota, has a lengthy rap sheet and has been booked into the Brazos County Jail 13 times since 2012, according to online jail records obtained by KBTX.
Those include criminal mischief, theft, resisting arrest, assault, hit and run, escape from custody, deadly conduct, possession of a controlled substance, and multiple driving offenses.
“The driver of the car, Charles Medina, 31, was later arrested and charged with manslaughter…”
MANSLAUGHTER???
IANAL but AFAIK they only need one charge to hold him and they can tack on more charges later. Realistically plea bargaining means that he won’t actually get convicted of murder, but they could still use a murder charge to get him to cop to manslaughter.
Dudes been in jail 13 times already. Maybe we can just decide he’s not good for society at this point and put him somewhere he can’t hurt innocent people anymore. Or maybe I’m the crazy one for thinking this
I’m surprised they didn’t just ticket him for failure to yield right of way or something equally minor.
That’s what the person who hit me (a pedestrian) got. Less than a $70 ticket. I got a permanently injured knee, a crooked nose, $12k in medical debt, and 7+ years of ruined credit.
Still bitter about it twenty years later.
Track him down and run him over with a car.
In most legislations the qualifyer for more than that is premeditated action. And being a moron with low impulse control and a tendency for road rage sadly is the opposite.
The actual question is how someone like that is still allowed behind a wheel.
As I understand, it’s Mens Rea that determines whether it’s manslaughter or murder.
It’s hard to argue this person didn’t do it on purpose. Hence, murder, not manslaughter.
My understanding (not a lawyer) is the difference is intent to kill. Murder requires that the accused clearly intended to kill the victim, while manslaughter only requires that the accused intended to do the thing which resulted in the victim’s death.
“Hard to argue”, sure, but that’s not the standard of a legal trial. The prosecution would need to prove beyond doubt that the driver meant for Rapp to die, not just that he meant to hit her with his car.
It looks like this could go either way as a reasonable person would assume that intentionally hitting someone with your car poses a real possibility of killing them. Looks like the examples of negligent vehicular manslaughter are usually things like reckless driving or driving under the influence.
Personally (not a lawyer) I’d consider it murder if I was on a jury given the information I have. Hitting someone with a car on purpose is akin to hitting them with a club. Sure, you may not have thought it was likely to kill them, but you weren’t trying not to kill them.
That premeditation can be as short as a few seconds. People get convicted of murder when they get in a bar fight, leave the bar to grab a gun, then come back into the bar to continue the fight, resulting in an eventual shooting. If you kill someone in a random act of passion in a bar, it’s manslaughter. But just the short time to go and grab a weapon is enough time to meet the standard of premeditation. All that matters is you have a brief moment to think about it.
Happy to see that the article isn’t mincing words calling this a “crash” or an “accident” and Texas has him booked for manslaughter. Hopefully when it comes time to take him to court they can up that to murder (and, realistically, plea bargain him back down to manslaughter).
I do wonder if the subjects were reversed - if it were a Latino run over by a white woman - if Texas would take this as seriously.
hit and run
[…]
and multiple driving offenses
People like that should not be driving. I realize that in Texas it’s cruel to take somebody’s license because that’s basically crippling them. That’s one of the many costs of car-centric planning: Since everyone must drive, it becomes unthinkable to take that away from someone.
It’s Texas. They’ll give him a medal and a government position to “own the libs” or some shit
Could always ride a bike if you can’t drive. Privilege and all that jazz.
I’ve seen a few other articles about this in other communities that I chose not to crosspost because of overly-soft language.
also @ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/19/boxer-hannah-rapp-dies-struck-by-car
Medina had sped past Rapp and her boyfriend when the boyfriend raised his hands. The court records alleged that Medina slammed on his brakes, backed into Rapp and hit her so hard that she shattered the rear windshield.
Medina, when speaking later with investigators, denied hitting Rapp on purpose, said the records cited by KHOU. He allegedly told them that he believed Rapp and her boyfriend were flagging him down, so he stopped, backed up and did not see Rapp until right before hitting her, KHOU reported.
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I know it’s not the right way to convict someone legally, but dude has both driving offenses and hit and run on his record.
no one is questioning his …CONVICTion.
