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Autry.
The police officer whose cruiser struck a pedestrian on Chapel Street last week told investigators he was not on his cell phone at the time of the collision.
The collision, in which a 45-year-old woman suffered arm and leg injuries, occurred near the corner of High Street Oct. 19 at 1:08 p.m. The woman, LaTanya Autry, a fellow in photography at Yale University Art Gallery, said Monday she plans to contact an attorney to file a civil suit.
A police spokesman said soon after the collision last Monday that the officer was not at fault because the pedestrian was not in the crosswalk at the time of the collision, a fact confirmed by video at the scene; and because the officer was not speeding or driving recklessly. A police investigation of the incident cleared the officer of wrongdoing.
The department released the video to the Independent Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act. Click on it above to watch.
The video was taken by a surveillance camera across the street; a tree blocks much of the view.
However, the pedestrian, LaTanya Autry, can be seen preparing to cross the Chapel from the northwest corner of High. She then appears to be walking slightly outside the crosswalk.
The police cruiser is shown on High stopped at the light at Chapel, then starting up, turning left, and coming to a stop after striking Autry.
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Autry later said eyewitnesses — one of whom repeated the story to the Independent — told her the officer had been on his cell phone at the time. The video does not provide that level of detail. A second witness told the Independent he in fact saw nothing until right after the crash. Also, police spokesman Officer David Hartman noted, eyewitness testimony from crash scenes can often be faulty — often people don’t notice what happened until after a crash occurs but might believe they saw more.
(Hartman emphasized that state law specifically allows cops to use their cell phones when driving. However, police department General Order 224, effective Jan. 15, 2012, limits that practice. “Sworn personnel during the performance of law enforcement functions should also avoid using cellular telephones whenever such usage would unnecessarily or unreasonably divert their attention from official duties and/or cause a potentially hazardous situation,” the police reads in part.)
Sgt. Milt Jackson conducted the investigation into the collision. He said he went to Yale-New Haven Hospital and spoke to both Autry and the doctor who examined her. He said he originally told Autry he might seek to arrest the officer under the state’s new “vulnerable users” law, Public Act. No. 14 – 31. The law states that “[a]ny person operating a motor vehicle on a public way who fails to exercise reasonable care and causes the serious physical injury or death of a vulnerable user of a public way, provided such vulnerable user has shown reasonable care in such user’s use of the public way, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars.”
Autry was released from the hospital the same afternoon. She said she felt bruised and missed days of work. But she didn’t suffer a “serious injury” that would have made the vulnerable-users law apply, Jackson concluded.
Jackson said he also interviewed the officer involved last Friday. “He says he was not on the cell phone” at the time of the collision, Jackson said. The officer made both his cell phones available to confirm the fact, according to Jackson.
“She was out of my field of vision” when the collision occurred, Jackson quoted the officer as saying.
Jackson said he also asked the officer about Autry’s remark (quoted in this story) that she felt badly that the officer didn’t come to check on her as she lay on the ground. The officer said that when he saw a crowd of people already attending to Autry, he decided to direct traffic onto High Street “to keep everybody safe,” and that he did check on her condition with people at the scene.
In an interview Monday, Autry said she still feels bruised from her shoulder to her ankle and has trouble standing straight and lying down. “Bending is bad,” she said. She said she had waited for the light to turn green before crossing the street last Monday; then may have veered slightly from the crosswalk as she headed toward Atticus for lunch. She received a warning, not a fine, from police for walking outside the crosswalk. She called it “absurd” that the officer didn’t get punished for his role in the collision.
Lucy Gellman contributed reporting.
She is definitely out of the cameras field of view, but I have no idea how she could be out of the drivers field of vision.