[Blackwell:] It's 13 minutes after the hour now. Reality star and Olympian Bruce Jenner, was involved in a fatal car crash yesterday afternoon in Malibu. Now, authorities say there's no evidence he was being chased by photographers so no paparazzi in this equation. Jenner's publicist tells CNN that he was not injured in the crash, but one person died. Five children and two adults were sent to hospitals with injuries, and the Los Angeles County sheriff's department is now opening a vehicular manslaughter investigation.
[Sgt. Philip Brooks, Los Angeles California Sheriff's Department:] It appears Bruce Jenner was involved in a rear-end of a vehicle. However, he was the third car in a multiple rear-end collision, which was an escalade with a trailer behind it towing a sand rail. Bruce Jenner's car, when it struck the Lexus, the Lexus went into oncoming traffic which struck the southbound H2 Hammer, and the driver of the white Lexus was pronounced dead at the scene.
[Blackwell:] All right, this incident was quickly captured on camera by Paparazzi. They weren't involved in the accident, but they got there soon after. Let's bring in HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson. He joins us by phone from New York. Joey, so the L.A. County Sheriff's Department is now opening this vehicular manslaughter investigation. What does that involve?
[Joey Jackson, Hln Legal Analsyt:] Good morning, Victor. What will happen is the investigators want to identify exactly what happened in the accident and how it happened in the accident. When you have multiple parties, what you want to do is you want to assess the conduct of each party. So it's not only limited, Victor, to Bruce Jenner, it's, of course, limited to any each and every car that was involved there. I think it really will be twofold. It will be one, looking at and identifying any eyewitness and, of course, speaking to them to see what they can contribute as far as exactly what happened. And there will be reports taken from those people who are actually there who observed who were involved. Then the second part to that, Victor, is also a fair amount of science. There's something called accident reconstruction. And it really involves physics. When you look at the crush impact and the damage of the vehicles, you can really determine positioning of the vehicle. You can determine speeds of the vehicle, your skid marks on the street, and it's really pretty fascinating. I've had a few cases involving accident reconstruction. And you can really piece together and figure out what went on, who caused it, and how it happened. That's what the investigation will entail.
[Blackwell:] There are several vehicles involved. Let's kind of walk through what happened here. So Jenner's driving that black Escalade you saw. He hits the Lexus from behind. The Lexus then spins into oncoming traffic, and then that lexus is hit by a Hummer H2. The driver of the Lexus dies. So based on that chronology there, is Jenner responsible in any way?
[Jackson:] Well, what will happen, Victor, is that's what the investigation will seek to identify because, I mean, we can all understand that every day, unfortunately, most unfortunately, people die in accidents. Driving a car can be very dangerous. And so that in and of itself is not criminal if someone dies. What they're going to do is they're going to look and assess the conduct of each party. Now, when you look at criminal and vehicular manslaughter, you're not looking necessarily at intent. No one's intending to harm anyone when you're driving, but you're looking at something very basic, and it's called negligence. When you look at negligence, were you careless in any way? Were any of the drivers careless in any way? What does that mean? Did they not exercise a reasonable amount of care as any driver would? And so in California under the vehicular manslaughter laws, if you are negligent, that is careless and acting not reasonably or irresponsibly, you could be criminally charged. And of course, the degree to the charge would depend upon the part of negligence, if any. Were you negligent? Were you grossly negligent? Which is the higher standard? And then it sort of goes from there, they'll look at each party's conduct in that accident. Look at the degree of negligence, if any. And then they'll try to determine who was responsible and whether criminal charges should be filed or whether it was simply a normal accident that occurred, unfortunately, with people driving.
[Blackwell:] All right, a lot to learn still in this case. HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson, thank you so much.
[Jackson:] Have a great day, victor, my pleasure. Bye-bye.
[Blackwell:] Christi.
[Paul:] All righty, well, it is February. More snow is on the way, but the travel headaches that could be ahead here. Millions of people are in this latest storm's path. We're going to take you there live.