A Richmond Mountie has been cleared of any wrongdoing after a pedestrian was struck and injured in the early hours of the morning almost a year ago.
The unnamed officer was subject to a probe by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) of BC, after the accident on Nov. 6 on Ledway Road – just southwest of Granville Avenue and No. 2 Road – at around 3:30 a.m.
According to the IIO, the officer’s vehicle struck a female pedestrian. The woman sustained serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries and was taken to hospital for treatment.
Her medical records following the incident indicated that she admitted consuming alcohol and cocaine on the night in question, and was possibly suffering from cocaine toxicity.
A report released by the IIO on Tuesday told how the officer was patrolling the area at the time when he collided with the woman, who was on foot.
She told the IIO how she had taken an Uber taxi home to Richmond after spending time with friends in Vancouver.
Pedestrian jumped out of Uber before accident
Believing that the driver had passed her home and becoming concerned about his behaviour, she said she got him to stop and exited the car, intending to walk back to her house.
During the interview with the IIO, the woman’s story about her condition varied from “tipsy but coherent” to “a little incoherent” to “spaced out” and “drunk”.
She claimed she was crossing the intersection of two streets, which she named, when a marked RCMP vehicle failed to yield to her after failing to stop at a stop sign and struck her, causing her to fall to the ground, injured.
However, an investigation by police and the IIO determined that the incident actually occurred at an intersection a significant distance from the location where she believed it had happened.
The incident was captured on residential security video obtained by the IIO, where the woman can be seen passing on the street wearing dark clothing and running shakily along the roadway, though fairly close to the sidewalk.
A moment later, she was seen running closer to the centre of the road at the same time as the headlights of the RCMP vehicle come into view.
The actual collision, according to the IIO, is not visible, but the woman can be seen to fall and roll away from the point of impact.
The officer told the IIO that he was making a left turn into a side street when his vehicle struck a pedestrian that he had not seen before the collision.
He said the woman was “almost in the middle” of the street when his vehicle struck her.
The officer added that the woman was wearing a black leather jacket, brown tee shirt, black jeans and black boots.
Collision reconstruction based on scene examination and a data download from the police vehicle showed that the collision occurred at a very low speed.
The IIO concluded that the woman’s account was “clearly unreliable and does not assist in an evaluation of this case.
“The video recording is the best evidence of how the incident occurred. (The pedestrian) was dressed almost entirely in black, was running unsteadily along a dark residential street, almost in the middle of the road…
“At the time of the collision, she was not in a crosswalk, either marked or unmarked.
“She was struck as (the officer) was making a legal left turn from a through street onto a side street at a very modest speed.”
The report concluded that it was “unfortunate that (the pedestrian) suffered injury from the impact and fall, but there is no evidence capable of establishing grounds to believe (the officer) was not exercising all due diligence at the time.
“Accordingly, as the Chief Civilian Director of the IIO, I do not consider that there are reasonable grounds to believe that an officer may have committed an offence…”
