A police officer involved in a tragic crash that left a partially deaf jogger dead last winter in B.C.’s Lower Mainland will not face charges, a watchdog has decided. The Independent Investigations Office said the officer was responding to an alleged domestic violence incident at the time of the Dec. 14 collision, which took place after dark on a rainy evening. He accelerated to a maximum speed of approximately 121 km/h along 152 Street—where the limit is 60 km/h—in an unmarked police vehicle with lights and siren activated, according to the IIO’s findings. A witness told investigators the jogger had been dressed in dark clothing with her hood up, and described her as moving quickly from the sidewalk into the roadway. “He estimated that the police vehicle’s driver would have had less than a second to react,” reads the watchdog’s report. The woman, whose family told investigators she was deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other, died at the scene, despite the best efforts of first responders. Domestic violence victim had fled The domestic violence incident that prompted the police response involved a report of a man “dragging a struggling woman from a car” into a home, with “crying children present,” according to the IIO’s findings. The watchdog noted that police had been told the alleged victim had already fled with the children prior to the crash, but continued speeding toward the scene. Another officer who was in the vehicle told investigators they “could not be sure that no one else was still in danger, as the man was still shouting inside the home,” reads the report. IIO chief civilian director Jessica Berglund found no evidence police had broken the law. “While it can be said that it might have been prudent, given the driving conditions at the time, to have reduced speed once it was reported that the apparent victim of the initial assault had left the scene, the decisions made by (the officer) based on his apparent overall assessment of the situation were not so unreasonable as to amount to criminality,” Berglund wrote. Given the circumstances, Berglund found the crash might have happened even if the officer had been going the speed limit. Speaking to investigators, another driver who had pulled over to make way for the police car moments before the collision recounted thinking, “That could have been us.”
