Flashes

Did Speeds Kill?
The driver of a pickup truck that slammed into the car driven by Phoenix accountant John Yeoman may face negligent-homicide charges, Phoenix police say.

Yeoman was killed April 5 at the entrance to the Pointe Hilton at Tapatio Cliffs on Seventh Street after turning his Ford Escort sedan in front of a speeding northbound Ford 250 pickup.

The accident occurred two days after Yeoman was arraigned in U.S. District Court on nine felonies stemming from the alleged rigging of a state contract. Yeoman was the former personal, business and campaign accountant for Governor J. Fife Symington III.

Witnesses say the driver of the pickup, David Int-Hout, 36, was speeding and weaving across three lanes of traffic moments before the collision.

Both Yeoman and Int-Hout were intoxicated at the time of the accident. Yeoman’s autopsy showed he was legally drunk, registering .11 percent alcohol. Police records show Int-Hout was high on marijuana and methamphetamine.

“What you have here is an impaired driver making a left turn in front of an impaired driver who is speeding,” says Phoenix police spokesman Detective Mike McCullough.

Int-Hout was traveling at approximately 75 miles per hour in a 45-mph zone when the collision occurred about 7 p.m. on Good Friday, according to police reports.

Witnesses say Yeoman never came to a complete stop at the intersection, which has a dedicated left-turn lane controlled by a yield sign.

“He just rolled up the left-turn lane and kept going,” McCullough says.
Police forwarded their report to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office last week, with no specific charge recommended, McCullough says.

“We will have the county attorney review it and see if it is negligence,” McCullough says.

Pot Shots at PNI
That’s not the sound of breaking news over at the new Phoenix Newspapers Inc.–it’s breaking glass.

PNI hasn’t fully relocated to its new building across Second Street, but safety is already a concern. Unlike the old, nearly windowless bunker at First Street and Van Buren, PNI’s new HQ–of the heady Mirrored Bank/Financial Institution Box genre–is all glass.

That caught the attention of some ne’er-do-wells last month. According to Phoenix police records, a broken glass door was reported in the new building just after midnight on May 18. At about the same time on May 19, PNI employees reported that a front glass window was cracked by a bullet. And on the evening of May 20, PNIers again reported a bullet hole in a window above the building’s southeast door.

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