The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) has cleared a Surrey officer of criminal actions in a crash last December that resulted in a woman who was jogging being killed.
The officer was on their way to the scene of a reported domestic violence case when they activated their emergency lights and siren on the unmarked police car.
Data from the unmarked vehicle shows that the car reached speeds of up to 121 km/hr.
In the report, a witness told investigators that the police car hit the woman who had jogged onto the roadway and that the officer likely had “less than a second” to react.
When investigators spoke with the victim’s family, they were informed that the jogging woman was partially deaf in her right ear and deaf in her left ear.In the report released by the IIO, Chief Civilian Director Jessica Berglund stated that the responding officer had to worry about the possible harm the victim in the domestic violence case could suffer and the risk of driving at such a high rate of speed.The officer was responding under the guise that this was a high priority call and did not know the status of the danger at the domestic violence scene.
A witness cited in the report in another vehicle at the crash scene said the jogger was “moving quickly” onto the road and that if they hadn’t slowed for police themselves, they might have hit the jogger.“Ultimately, the evidence shows that even if the police vehicle had been travelling at the speed limit, this tragic accident could still have occurred,” Berglund says.
The report notes that the jogger was wearing dark clothing and that road conditions that evening were dark and wet.
The IIO has now closed the investigation and is not referring the case for possible charges.