Broadway in downtown Nashville, representative image. Image credit: w_lemay / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Metro Nashville police arrested former NFL coach Rex Ryan on Wednesday on warrants charging him with six offenses: two counts of leaving the scene of an accident, two counts of failure to give information or render aid, and two counts of failure to obey a traffic control signal. The charges stem from an incident at 4th Avenue and Broadway shortly before midnight on the Thursday before the arrest, when two pedestrians say his pickup ran over their feet.
The account comes from the Metro Nashville Police Department as relayed by NewsChannel 5, which reported bond at $6,000. These are allegations. Ryan is presumed innocent, and the report includes no statement from him or a representative.
What police say happened
According to police, the two victims were crossing Broadway from 4th Avenue with a walk signal when Ryan turned right, ran over both of their feet and made contact with one victim’s leg. He did not stop there. He stopped at the red light at Broadway and Representative John Lewis Way, where the victims waved him down.
The victims told police Ryan got out of the truck and argued with them, then got back in and drove away. They photographed his license plate and Ryan himself before he left.
What the report leaves out
The report does not give the make, model or color of the pickup, the victims’ names, or how badly either person was hurt. It does not say how police tied the plate and photos to Ryan, whether those photos are part of the warrants, or why the arrest came nearly a week after the incident. No court date is listed.
Injury matters to the charges. Tennessee’s duty to stop applies to a driver involved in an accident “resulting in injury to or death of any person,” and the report does not say which subsection police used.
What Tennessee law requires
Under Tennessee Code § 55-10-101, as published in the 2020 edition on Justia, a driver in an injury accident must stop at the scene or as close as possible, return if needed, and remain until the requirements of § 55-10-103 are met. Those requirements are the information-and-aid duties that match the second pair of counts here. The statute defines “accident” as any collision or crash, regardless of the degree of care used or whether criminal conduct caused it, so fault at the crosswalk does not decide the leaving-the-scene question.
A violation is a Class A misdemeanor, which in Tennessee carries up to 11 months and 29 days in jail. The felony version requires a death the driver knew or should have known about, and nobody alleges that here. Conviction also requires the Department of Safety commissioner to revoke the driver’s license. Charging per victim is how one right turn became six counts; we saw a similar pattern in the Wake County, N.C., cyclist crash, where a 76-year-old driver faces 16 felonies.
Tennessee has been raising penalties for other driving offenses, including a six-year felony for drag racing that we covered after the Memphis street takeover cases. What a driver does after leaving is also its own evidence problem, as in the Dania Beach case where deputies say a dealership worker was asked to price repairs on the car that killed a man.
Should leaving the scene after a crash that injures pedestrians only slightly carry the same penalty as a hit-and-run that puts someone in the hospital?
Sources: Metro Nashville Police Department account of the incident and charges as reported by NewsChannel 5; Tennessee Code §§ 55-10-101 and 55-10-103.
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