There are no grounds to believe a Sarnia police officer committed a criminal offense in a crash in August that seriously injured an 80-year-old woman, says Ontario’s police watchdog.
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The police officer’s cruiser struck the vehicle the woman was driving Aug. 26 at 3:10 pm when she entered the intersection of Indian Road North and Exmouth Street, said the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).
The woman drove into the intersection on a green light at a reasonable speed, but it was unclear why she didn’t see the officer who approached the corner with the cruiser’s emergency lights and siren on, SIU director Joseph Martino said in a report.
The officer came to a virtual stop at the intersection before entering and had confirmed that most, if not all, of the traffic had yielded before he accelerated forward, Martino said.
The woman was taken to hospital where she was diagnosed with a fracture in her neck and was later discharged wearing a neck brace.
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Martino said the woman did nothing wrong, “other than perhaps the fact that she failed to take heed” of the cruiser’s lights and siren, and bring her vehicle to a stop. It’s unclear why she didn’t see the officer and the yield the right of way when other drivers at the intersection did, he said.
At the same time, the report said the officer “did not quite live up to the standard” of the Highway Traffic Act “which requires that officers only proceed through a red light when it is safe to do so.”
Martino said the officer’s “indiscretion falls short of amounting to a marked departure from a reasonable standard of care in the circumstances” and “there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case.”
The SIU is a civilian agency that probes all cases of serious injury, death, police-involved shootings and allegations of sexual assault involving police officers.
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