Shows
The Blame GamePutting the POW back in PowderOn February 26, 2016, Terry Sanderson, an optometrist in his late 60s and an experienced skier, was skiing at Deer Valley Resort in Utah when he claims his life changed forever after Gwyneth Paltrow, an Academy Award-winning actress, crashed into him. In the personal injury lawsuit he filed against Ms. Paltrow and the Deer Valley Resort Company (and which is on trial at the time of this broadcast), Mr. Sanderson is claiming to have suffered a traumatic brain injury, multiple broken ribs and economic loss as a result of the crash.In this episode of The Blame Game, we try t...2023-03-2806 min
The Blame GameMan's Best Friend?On October 2, 2022, a 13-year-old girl was walking home from school on Staten Island when she was suddenly and viciously attacked by a group of pit bulls which had escaped from an open window in their owners’ home. The pit bulls also attacked a 2-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman. Sadly, these types of attacks are not isolated incidents, either in New York City or elsewhere. According to the insurance industry, there were almost 18,000 dog-bite claims filed in the United States in 2021, a small fraction of the 4.5 million dog bites that occur each year. Between 2005 and 2020, dogs killed over 5...2022-10-3105 min
The Blame GameSupermarket SlaughterOn the afternoon of May 14th, Payton Gendron, eighteen years old and a self-proclaimed white supremacist, arrived outside a Tops Supermarket located in Buffalo, New York. Armed with an AR-15 type rifle, Gendron began firing off rounds in the parking lot, fatally shooting three shoppers. He then entered the grocery store where his killing spree continued. When all was said and done, Gendron had murdered 10 people and injured three others. Almost all of the victims were African-American.Perhaps not surprisingly, Gendron had purchased the assault rifle legally from dealers in New York and northern Pennsylvania. Background checks came...2022-06-0721 min
The Blame GameBronx InfernoIn the late morning hours of Saturday, January 8, 2022, a five-alarm fire broke out in the Twin Parks North West apartment complex in the Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx. Caused by a malfunctioning electric space heater, smoke from the fire spread throughout the 19-story high-rise after the door to the apartment in which the fire started was left open. When all was said and done, nineteen residents lost their lives, including nine children, making this New York City’s deadliest fire in more than thirty (30) years. In this episode of The Blame Game, we try to answer the questi...2022-01-1107 min
The Blame GameCold Gun!On October 21st, an acclaimed cinematographer, 42-year-old Halyna Hutchins, was fatally shot by Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust. Just prior to the shooting, the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, grabbed the gun from among three that the film’s armorer had set up on a nearby tray. After yelling “Cold Gun!”, film jargon which is supposed to mean that the gun did not contain any live ammunition, Mr. Halls handed the gun to Mr. Baldwin. Mr. Baldwin was rehearsing a scene which involved “cross drawing” and pointing the gun towards the camera lens when it suddenly wen...2021-11-1126 min
The Blame GameFlood and FuryOn September 1, 2021, the remnants of Hurricane Ida, which had just pummeled Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane several days earlier, swept through New York City. In a matter of hours, more than half a foot of rain inundated the five boroughs. Easily overwhelming the City’s sewer system, Ida turned streets and subways into raging rivers and flooded homes throughout the region. When all was said and done, more than forty people lost their lives in New York and New Jersey, including eleven victims in Queens. Of the victims who lost their lives in Queens, most were tenants living in illega...2021-10-0105 min
The Blame GameChamplain Towers Collapse - Part IIOn the morning of June 24, 2021, Champlain Tower South, a 13-story oceanfront condominium in south Florida, collapsed. So far, rescue crews working around the clock have recovered 97 bodies from the rubble. At least a dozen residents still remain unaccounted for as recovery efforts continue.In the last episode of The Blame Game, we spoke with an architect to discuss why this unspeakable tragedy occurred and who, if anyone, was to blame, such as the structural engineer who had found major structural damage in the building following an inspection two-and-half years ago, the architect who had designed the building, an...2021-07-1517 min
The Blame GameChamplain Towers CollapseIn the early morning of June 24, 2021, Champlain Towers South, a 13-story condominium in Surfside Florida, collapsed without warning. For the past two weeks, rescue crews have been frantically searching through the rubble in search of survivors. As of this broadcast, 46 residents have been confirmed dead with close to 100 still being reported as missing.Significantly, years before the collapse, a structural engineer had warned the condominium's board that the building was suffering from “major structural damage” and that there was abundant cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage underneath the building. Despite this gr...2021-07-0719 min
The Blame GameE-Bikes v. Pedestrians on the Streets of New YorkOn Saturday April 17th, 2021, 71-year-old Hing Chung, manager of a Dim Sum restaurant at the corner of West 78th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, was tragically killed after getting struck by an E-bike. Mr. Chung represented the fourth pedestrian killed by E-bikes since 2014 and is part of a troubling trend so far this year. Between January 1st and April 28th, there were 41 pedestrian deaths in New York City compared to only 26 deaths last year, an increase of almost sixty percent (60%); and significantly higher than the number of deaths reported in 2018 and 2019.In this episode of...2021-05-2508 min
The Blame GameTread LightlyDuring the Covid-19 pandemic and due to social distancing restrictions imposed on indoor fitness facilities across the country, millions of Americans stopped going to the gym and began working out in their own homes. In turn, the sale of health and fitness equipment soared. One such at-home fitness company, Peloton, saw its sales surge to roughly $1.8 billion dollars in 2020, roughly double its sales from the year before. The euphoria surrounding Peloton’s success was dampened in March of this year, however, after a child in San Francisco was killed by one of its popular treadmill products, the $4,300 Tread Plus. I...2021-03-2321 min
The Blame GameCarnage on Capitol HillJanuary 6, 2021. A day that will go down as one of the darkest in American history. Thousands of supporters of President Trump assembled outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC to object to Congress' certification of Senator Biden's electoral college victory and stop what they view as a stolen election. What happens next is heartbreaking. Breaching security, supporters of the President storm the building and invade the Capitol itself until, outside the rotunda, they are met by armed guards. In the melee that follows, one of the protesters, 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt, who had flown all the way from California to jo...2021-01-1224 min
The Blame GameNightmare on Third AvenueOn Saturday, October 24th, 33-year-old Leonard Shoulders experienced every New Yorker’s worst nightmare. Mr. Shoulders is walking towards the bus stop on Third Avenue near 183rd Street in the Bronx when, without any warning, the sidewalk collapses underneath him. Mr. Shoulders plummets 15’ into an underground vault, breaking his leg and arm upon impact. But that’s not the scariest part of this story. Because he falls into what appears to have been a rat colony. Hundreds of rats, crawling all around him and all over his body. He cannot even scream because he’s afraid a rat will craw...2020-11-0908 min
The Blame GameRevel's DilemmaOn July 18, 2020, Nina Kapur, a 26-year-old news reporter for CBS, was tragically killed when the Revel scooter on which she was a passenger crashed after its driver suddenly swerved for an unknown reason Ten days later, 32-year Jeremy Malave was killed after losing control of the Revel scooter he was driving and crashing into a light pole. Under increased public pressure, Revel, which operates the electric-scooter sharing company and whose popularity had soared during the coronavirus pandemic with people seeking alternatives to public transportation and ride-share services, announced that it was shutting down its operations in New York City un...2020-08-0408 min
The Blame GameLicense to NeglectNursing homes have been the ground zero of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the more than thirty thousand people who have died from the virus in New York State, more than six thousand were of residents in nursing homes and adult care facilities. Saddened and angered by the loss of their loved ones, surviving family members are looking for justice and to hold nursing homes accountable. In this episode of The Blame Game, we try to answer the question of who’s to blame for the catastrophic loss of life that has taken place in nursing homes and adult...2020-06-0807 min
The Blame GameNo Dignity in DeathThe coronavirus continues to ravage New York. Heading into the last week of April, almost 300,000 people across New York State have been diagnosed with the virus with close to 17,000 deaths being reported. In New York City alone and despite the imposition of strict social distancing measures, more than 11,000 people have died from the disease.Overwhelmed by the sheer number of fatalities, makeshift morgues have been set up outside local area hospitals. To ease the burden on hospitals, the City's Office of Chief Medical Examiner recently issued a notice that bodies which remain unclaimed after only 2 weeks would be...2020-04-3012 min
The Blame GameYou gave me COVID-19!COVID-19 is crippling the United States and countries all over the world. Since being first diagnosed in the city of Wuhan, China back on December 1, 2019, the coronavirus which causes the disease has spread throughout the world. As of this podcast, more than 15,000 cases of coronavirus have been diagnosed in New York State alone. Over one hundred twenty deaths have been attributed to the disease.With the pandemic showing no signs of slowing down in the near future, more and more states are ordering citizens to stay indoors and to practice social distancing. What happens, however, if a colleague with...2020-03-2309 min
The Blame GameThe Sky is FallingOn December 17, 2019, Erica Tishman, a New York City architect, wife and mother of three, was walking through Times Square on her way to work when she was killed after being struck by a piece of masonry that had fallen off a 17-story building. Shockingly, eight months earlier, the very same building had been issued a violation by New York City's Department of Buildings for "damaged terra cotta at areas above the 15th floor in several locations” and which represented a falling hazard risk for pedestrians. In this episode of the Blame Game, we explore who's potentially responsible for...2019-12-2011 min
The Blame GameCycle at your own RiskOn October 13, 2019, a 65-year-old man was struck and killed by an SUV while his bike on Cross Bay Boulevard in Queens. This marks the 25th cyclist killed in New York City in 2019, more than twice as were killed in all of 2018. With so much carnage on New York City's streets, advocacy groups are claiming that Vision Zero, the City of New York's plan to reduce the number of traffic fatalities and make City streets safer, is in a state of emergency.In this episode of The Blame Game, we explore the legal responsibility of motorists, cyclists and th...2019-10-1515 min
The Blame GameTake Me Out to the BallgameOn May 29, 2019, a four year old girl was seriously injured after getting struck by a foul ball during a baseball game between the the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros. Her story is one that is repeated hundreds of times every year at baseball stadiums across the country. And yet despite knowledge that fans are getting struck (and sometimes even killed) by foul balls, Major League Baseball only requires teams to provide protective netting to the end of the home team and visiting team dugouts. In this episode, we take a closer look at The Baseball Rule, its eff...2019-06-2411 min
The Blame GameTerror in the SkiesOn March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed en route to Nairobi, Kenya, killing all 157 passengers on board, including eight American citizens. The crash involved a Boeing 737 MAX jet, the same jet involved in a crash of Lion Air flight 610 from Indonesia in October 2018. Although investigators have not yet completed their investigation into the cause of the crash, the flight pattern of the jet suggests a problem with an automated anti-stall device on the plane (MCAS) which would push the nose of the jet down in certain circumstances in order to stabilize the aircraft. With two crashes of the sam...2019-03-2726 min
The Blame GameLimousine TragedyOn October 6, 2018, Axel and Amy Steenburg of Amsterdam, New York, together with fifteen of their closest friends and family members, were traveling by limousine to a brewery in Cooperstown, New York to celebrate Amy's 30th birthday party. The limousine, owned by Prestige Limousine, was approaching the intersection of Route 30 and Route 30A in Schohaire County when it inexplicably went through the intersection, crashed into an SUV that was parked in the parking lot of the Apple Barrel Country Store, and careened off the road into a shallow ravine. In what is being reported as the worst transportation-related crash in mo...2018-10-2924 min