Cop cleared after running over pedestrian in Hamilton school parking lot

A Hamilton Police officer who ran over a pedestrian in a school parking lot will not face criminal charges following an investigation.

According to the Special Investigations Unit, two officers in separate cruisers responded to a service call early in the morning on August 21. After dealing with the call, the officers drove to the parking lot of Central Elementary School on the corner of Bold Street and Bay Street South to finish their notes on the incident.

After one of the officers pulled into the parking lot he “sensed an obstruction under his cruiser,” the SIU wrote. The officer stopped and got out of the car to look underneath.

There he found he had run a man over who was still under the car. The officer got back in the cruiser and reversed, freeing the injured pedestrian. The man, 40, was then rushed to Hamilton General Hospital. He suffered cuts on his forehead and near his eye as well as road rash. Once in hospital, he was diagnosed with a lacerated liver.

The SIU was soon called in to investigate. They found the area was dark when the cruiser entered. They determined the officer turned into the parking lot at about 20 km/h and had slowed to about 9 km/h when he struck the pedestrian.

The investigation found the man was dragged about five meters over roughly four seconds before the officer hit the brakes.

Following the investigation, SIU Director Joseph Martino said he had to consider “whether there was a want of care in the manner in which the [officer] operated his vehicle, sufficiently egregious to attract criminal sanction, that caused or contributed to his collision with the [pedestrian].” The offence under consideration was dangerous driving causing bodily harm.

“In my view, there was not,” Martino concluded, “The officer’s want of care was characteristic of a momentary lapse of attention. On this record, I am unable to reasonably conclude that the manner in which the [officer] operated his cruiser transgressed the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law.”

“There is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case,” he said.