Prosecutors in Arizona said a truck driver killed someone because he was watching TikTok while driving. The driver has been given more than 22 years in jail.
On the morning of January 12, 2023, Danny Glen Tiner was driving on Interstate 10 near Chandler. He failed to stop his tractor-trailer before it hit one of the lanes that were already stopped. Tiner was charged with killing about six months after the deaths of five people.
As part of a deal with authorities, he pleaded guilty to less serious charges.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said on Tuesday that he was given a sentence of 4½ years in prison for each count of negligent homicide. He will spend a total of 22.5 years in prison, as each sentence will be spent in order. The highest sentence for each charge is eight years.
Rachel Mitchell, the county attorney, said that Tiner was held responsible by the legal system.
“You have to pay attention to the road as a driver.” “It is careless to use social media while driving, putting other people’s lives at risk,” Mitchell said. “Five families are living through the pain of losing a loved one.”
Online court records don’t show that Tiner has a lawyer.
The first thing Tiner told the police was that he was looking at a message on his “electronic work tablet” at the time of the crash and didn’t have time to stop when he looked up from the device. However, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said that the FBI’s review of Tiner’s phone showed that he was using TikTok at the time of the crash.
The police also said he was going too fast, 68 mph in a 55 mph zone.
It was Ryan Gooding, Andrew Standifird, Jerardo Vazquez, Willis Thompson, and Gilberto Franco who died.
The mother of Standifird, Sarah Standifird, told the Phoenix NBC station KPNX that her son was driving Vasquez, Thompson, and Franco to work. The four men worked at AAA Landscaping.
Standifird’s Ford F-250 was hit from behind by Tiner’s tractor-trailer. This pushed the Ford F-250 and a Toyota Camry under another semi-truck in front of the three cars. The driver of the Camry, Gooding, and the four coworkers were all killed.
That was the day my son died, but he was burned,” Sarah Standifird told KPNX last year. “I wasn’t buried properly.” I have ashes. I had to use his dental records to figure out who he was. That was really tough.
Nikki Johnson, Gooding’s fiancée, told KPNX that he was also on his way to work when the crash happened. Their wedding was set to happen in Las Vegas. They had been together for 10 years.
It made her worry when Gooding’s boss called to say he hadn’t shown up for work around 11 a.m., which was about five hours after the crash, she told the station. Johnson couldn’t reach him, so she said she called hospitals and the cops.
Johnson said, “I kept waiting to hear the garage door, but I never heard it. That’s when the trooper showed up, and I could tell from the look on his face that it wasn’t good news.”
