Mom Files $30M Suit Against Police for Not Arresting Son

Kathi Fedden says son Peter should've gotten a DWI earlier the night he died
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 18, 2014 12:20 PM CST
Mom Files $30M Suit Against Police for Not Arresting Son
A Long Island mom's lawsuit says police should've arrested her son earlier on the night he died.   (Shutterstock)

Peter Fedden was picked up by police the night of July 30, 2013, after drunkenly plowing his car through a fence, across a couple of lawns, and into the side of a house in Commack, NY. It's at this point that Fedden's mom, Kathi Fedden, thinks police should have arrested her 29-year-old son for DWI, according to a $30 million wrongful-death lawsuit she filed Monday against the police, Newsday reports. But instead, cops dropped a "severely intoxicated" Peter off at home, where he got right into his mother's car sitting in the driveway and crashed it minutes later into the side of an industrial park building. He died from injuries sustained in the second crash. Kathi Fedden says the police let Peter off the hook the first time because of his rapport with them at the deli he owned in Commack.

"Peter served many Suffolk County police officers at his deli, and it was known throughout the local officers that Peter charged only $1 for officers to eat at the deli no matter what they ordered," the suit says. Because of this relationship, Kathi Fedden claims, the police "conspired to avoid charging Peter with any crimes" and "carelessly disregarded Peter's safety ... and actually created the events leading to Peter's wrongful death." Also named in the suit: Ruby Tuesday, which reportedly served Peter two drinks—10 ounces of Jack Daniel's whiskey over soda and ice—the night he died, Newsday notes. While sympathetic to the Fedden family, the owner of the building Peter crashed into tells NBC New York, "He put the community in harm's way. He decided to take the law into his own hands by getting into a second car that evening." (One drunk driver made an impact with this powerful confession.)

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