Photo: Christopher Thompson weeps as a judge sentences him to five years in prison for assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Time (Photo: Los Angeles Times / January 8, 2010)
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LOS ANGELES -- A former emergency room doctor was sentenced Friday to five years in state prison for deliberately slamming on his car brakes in an apparent effort to injure two bicyclists on Mandeville Canyon Road.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Christopher Thompson, 60, guilty of one count of reckless driving causing specified injury, two counts of battery with serious injury, one count of reckless driving, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon (an automobile) and one count of mayhem.
On the two assault counts, the jury found true the victims suffered great bodily injury.
Thompson, wearing dark blue jail scrubs, wept as he apologized to the injured cyclists shortly before he was sentenced.
"I would like to apologize deeply, profoundly from the bottom of my heart," he told them, his right hand cuffed to a court chair.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a "wake-up call" to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with more bike lanes. He said he believed that Thompson had shown a lack of remorse during the case and that the victims were particularly vulnerable while riding their bicycles
Thompson's attorney had characterized the incident as an "unfortunate accident."
However, prosecutors said Thompson pulled up alongside the cyclists, exchanged angry words, then pulled in front of them and hit the brakes, resulting in "severe and permanent injuries" when he was ejected from his bike and propelled through the windshield.
Cyclist Ron Peterson, who was injured in the July 4 accident when he was catapulted through the rear window of a car driven by Thompson.
His riding partner Christian Stoehr was catapulted over the car, landing on the pavement.
Prosecutors alleged Thompson had a history of run-ins with bikers, including a similar episode four months before the 2008 collision, when two cyclists told police that the doctor tried to run them off the road and braked hard in front of them.
Neither of those riders was injured.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Christopher Thompson, 60, guilty of one count of reckless driving causing specified injury, two counts of battery with serious injury, one count of reckless driving, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon (an automobile) and one count of mayhem.
On the two assault counts, the jury found true the victims suffered great bodily injury.
Thompson, wearing dark blue jail scrubs, wept as he apologized to the injured cyclists shortly before he was sentenced.
"I would like to apologize deeply, profoundly from the bottom of my heart," he told them, his right hand cuffed to a court chair.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott T. Millington called the case a "wake-up call" to motorists and cyclists and urged local government to provide riders with more bike lanes. He said he believed that Thompson had shown a lack of remorse during the case and that the victims were particularly vulnerable while riding their bicycles
Thompson's attorney had characterized the incident as an "unfortunate accident."
However, prosecutors said Thompson pulled up alongside the cyclists, exchanged angry words, then pulled in front of them and hit the brakes, resulting in "severe and permanent injuries" when he was ejected from his bike and propelled through the windshield.
Cyclist Ron Peterson, who was injured in the July 4 accident when he was catapulted through the rear window of a car driven by Thompson.
His riding partner Christian Stoehr was catapulted over the car, landing on the pavement.
Prosecutors alleged Thompson had a history of run-ins with bikers, including a similar episode four months before the 2008 collision, when two cyclists told police that the doctor tried to run them off the road and braked hard in front of them.
Neither of those riders was injured.
