Ruggs lawyers suggest firefighters could be the cause of crash victim’s death

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Steve Marcus / Getty

The defense team for former Las Vegas Raiders player Henry Ruggs III has suggested in a new court filing that the slow response from firefighters may be partly responsible for the death of a woman in a car crash. burning car.

A witness claimed that firefighters took a long time to extinguish a RAV4 that caught fire after Ruggs slammed his Corvette Stingray into it, defense attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld wrote in their file, according to the Las Vegas Review Newspaper.

Prosecutors allege Ruggs was traveling at speeds of up to 156 miles per hour and had a blood alcohol level of 0.161, double the Nevada legal limit, at the time of the crash. He’d been partying at a fancy MGM Grand golf club earlier that night.

Ruggs’ corvette seen flying in the street moments before a fiery fatal crash

RAV4 driver Tina Tintor, 23, did not die immediately and could be heard screaming as she tried to break free, witnesses said.

“I thought we were going to be able to do something. The fire was so small back then, ”Tony Rodriguez told KTNV. “It just grew up fast. Very fast. There was a person with a fire extinguisher, a county employee. It did not work. It was not enough. It was so fast.

Tintor and his 3-year-old golden retriever, Max, died after the car caught fire.

In their court file, lawyers for Ruggs wrote that “the firefighters did not attempt to put out the fire in Ms Tintor’s vehicle for about 20 minutes, at which time the entire vehicle was engulfed in flames.”

The firefighters were “able to extinguish the fire from the vehicle while it was in its infancy and did not do so,” they said.

County spokesman Erik Pappa criticized the suggestion, saying in a statement to the Review Journal that there had been “no delay in the response or in the attack on the fire” and that “the vehicle was fully involved in the fire [first responders’] arrival.”

“There was continuous reignition in an area of ​​the car which caused problems for the crews, which is not unusual in vehicle fires,” Pappa said. “The captain said there was material leaking, possibly from a re-igniting fuel line in the rear wheel area on the passenger side. Firefighters continuously extinguished this area as it went on. as it lighted up again.

The story continues

Ruggs’ attorneys are seeking a court order to obtain the Clark County Fire Department’s records regarding the Nov. 2 accident. Chesnoff characterized the case as part of their effort to investigate the crash. They request all records related to the accident, including videos, photos, log reports, dispatch calls and text messages.

Cops say Raiders’ Henry Ruggs yelled at them after fatal drunkenness

Ruggs, a 22-year-old former first-round pick, was formally charged on Wednesday with four felonies and one misdemeanor charge of possession of a firearm while intoxicated. If found guilty on all counts, a prosecutor said, he could face up to 50 years in prison.

Tintor, who arrived in the United States as a child when her family escaped war-torn Serbia, was returning home after spending time with a friend and taking her dog to a park when she was killed.

“The tragic loss of Tina has devastated her family beyond a grief they could never understand,” a lawyer for her family said in a statement. “Family was everything to Tina, and she was the light in her parents’ lives. Tina has lived in Las Vegas since she was a baby. She loved her 3-year-old Golden Retriever, Max, who died next to her on Tuesday morning.

His funeral was scheduled for Thursday.

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