Cleveland Browns' Chris Smith Fined, But Driver Who Killed His Girlfriend Skips Charges

From ESPN to Fox News and ABC’s News5 Cleveland, reports that a 47-year-old woman who struck and killed the 26-year-old girlfriend of Cleveland Browns’ defensive end Chris Smith in an auto accident on Interstate 90 will not face criminal charges all ducked the question, how come? One native of a city whose police have a record of racism had a ready answer.

Her identity remains unknown at this point.

The tragedy went down like this. At around 2 a.m. on Sept. 11, Smith’s Lamborghini had blown a tire on the I-90 in Cleveland, causing it to veer into a median. Smith and Petara Cordero, who had been celebrating the birth in August of their child, were standing on the shoulder when Cordero was struck by the car driven by the woman which had first hit the open passenger-side door of Smith’s vehicle.

The driver had told officers she had been drinking prior to the incident, according to cleveland.com. A police report subsequently stated that toxicology tests showed that she was not legally drunk when she struck Cordero. The report also cleared her of speeding and driving recklessly.

Yet on Oct. 31, Smith, 27, was found guilty of a minor misdemeanor charge of failure to control in connection with the incident, and paid $316 in fines and court costs, according to Cleveland Municipal Court records. A second charge of reckless operation was dismissed.