US: Ford/Firestone = Homicide?

In 1998, in Corpus Christi, Texas, 17-year-old Matthew Hendricks was on
his way to pick up his girlfriend. He was driving a Ford Explorer. The
tread ripped off one of the Ford's Firestone's tires, causing him to lose
control. He was thrown from the vehicle and killed.

"When I was told that my son died, I felt like someone had reached in and
ripped my heart out," Vicki Hendricks, Matthew's mom, said last week.

Matthew Hendricks is one of more than 150 deaths around the world linked
to Firestone tread separations. The families and friends of those killed
in these accidents want to know -- what did Ford and Firestone know about
these tires and when did they know it?

Journalists, members of Congress, and trial lawyers are seeking to provide
answers. Reporters have informed us that Ford and Firestone knew that they
had a problem, but failed to notify federal regulators. Many months ago,
Ford and Firestone were ordering the recall of problem tires in Saudi
Arabia, Venezuela and Asia -- but not in the United States.

Ford and Firestone knew of at least 35 deaths and 130 injuries before the
federal government launched its probe earlier this year. They knew about
these cases, because they were being sued by the families of the victims.
(The parents of Matthew Hendricks settled their case against Firestone
earlier this year.) And as a condition of these settlements, Ford and
Firestone were demanding that the lawyers who bring these cases not speak
to anyone about what they found out during discovery.

With Congressional hearings ablazing in an election year, klieg light
fever has overcome our elected officials, and the keepers of the corporate
flame, like Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana), Thomas Bliley (R-Virginia) and
John Dingell (D-Michigan), have been transformed overnight into clones of
Ralph Nader.

There is much talk in Washington about expanding the authority of federal
enforcement officials, of increasing penalties, of requiring auto
companies to report overseas recalls to federal authorities here in the
United States.

But these reforms are being pushed by the liberal corporate elite to put
out a very hot fire that threatens not the reputations of not just Ford
and Firestone, but that also may plant the seed of doubt in the American
mind (in an election year, nonetheless) about the ethical foundation of
corporate America. (Or as Business Week asked in its cover story this
week, "Too Much Corporate Power?")

The families of the victims not only want the truth, and reform, but they
also are demanding justice. And justice begins and ends with the criminal
law.

Last week, Attorney General Janet Reno said she was looking into whether
any criminal case can be brought. But when the auto safety law was first
passed in 1966, the auto companies prevented criminal penalties from
becoming law. And they have blocked criminal penalties ever since. So why
is Janet Reno blowing smoke?

Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) took the floor of the Senate last
week and introduced legislation that would establish criminal sanctions
for executives who knowingly market a defective product that kills or
maims. Auto safety activists want criminal penalties for any knowing or
willful violation of the federal auto safety law. But that doesn't help
bring justice here and now to the families and victims of Ford and
Firestone's act of violence.

Michael Cosentino knows what this game is about. Cosentino is the
Republican prosecuting attorney for Elkhart, County Indiana. Twenty-two
years ago, Cosentino brought a homicide charge against Ford Motor Co. for
the deaths of three teenaged girls. The girls were riding in their Ford
Pinto when it was rear-ended. The doors on the Pinto slammed shut, the gas
tank split open, gas leaked out, caught fire and the girls were
incinerated.

Cosentino had been reading about a 1973 memo that Ford executives had
written about the Pinto gas tank problem. In the memo, Ford put a price on
a human life ($200,000) and a burn injury ($67,000) and calculated that
the cost of saving lives and prohibiting burn injuries by recalling the
Pinto's and fixing the fuel tank ($11 per auto) would be prohibitive.

Faced with a murder charge, Ford brought in its best legal guns, and hired
the judge's best friend as its local counsel. The judge in turn ruled that
much of Cosentino's evidence (including the smoking gun cost/benefit memo)
could not get to the jury, and the jury found Ford not guilty.

We called up Cosentino last week and asked him if he would consider
criminally prosecuting either Ford or Firestone today. He said the
situation has yet to present itself.

E. Michael McCann, the district attorney in Milwaukee County knows that
he will launch a criminal homicide investigation if the situation
presents itself. He has called on the county medical examiner to search
whether any recent death in Milwaukee County has been linked to a
Firestone tire tread separation. McCann has a track record of
criminally prosecuting corporations for reckless homicide. He currently
has an investigation open into the deaths of three workers who died in a
crane collapse during construction at the new Milwaukee Brewers
ballpark.

But the list of prosecutors with sufficient resources and courage to
take on America's most powerful corporations is short. The families of
victims need to approach their local prosecutors and demand they open
criminal homicide investigations now. (If they need advice, they should
give a call to McCann or Cosentino.)

Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a long investigative article
by Keith Bradsher. Bradsher concludes that the story of the Firestone
tire debacle is one of "missed hints and lost opportunities." That it
might have been. But it also might one of corporate crime and violence.
And maybe even homicide. It's time we found out.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
Courage Press, 1999).

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