COP HITS, KILLS PEDESTRIAN
Officer remains on active duty
BARNSTABLE — A Barnstable police officer remained on active duty yesterday following an earlymorning crash in which he struck and killed a jaywalking pedestrian while responding to a 911 call with his cruiser’s lights and sirens on as he passed another vehicle, authorities said.
The fatal collision occurred at 2 a.m. on a wooded and residential stretch of Falmouth Road (Route 28) in Centerville just past an intersection where the state highway squeezes from two lanes down to one.
The names of both the officer, who was briefly hospitalized, and the victim, an adult male, were being withheld by authorities yesterday.
Barnstable police Sgt. Detective John York said more information would be released once investigators had a more complete picture of what happened. York declined to describe the call the officer was headed to. He said the officer had been released from the hospital and was not placed on leave.
York also declined a request by the Herald to see the cruiser in question.
“Preliminary reconstruction further indicates that the Barnstable officer was responding to a call for service with the cruiser’s lights and siren activated when it struck the victim in the middle of Route 28,” said state police spokesman David Procopio, whose department is assisting Barnstable police with their investigation.
State police said, “The pedestrian was walking on the double yellow center line of the roadway. ... As the cruiser continued to travel south, it approached another vehicle that was traveling southbound. The other vehicle pulled over partially to the right to yield to the cruiser. According to the preliminary investigation, as the cruiser passed the other vehicle on the left, its right front side struck the pedestrian.”
Investigators’ orange markings on the road in the aftermath of the crash suggest a scene that stretched for several dozen yards and includes tire skid marks. One side of the street is bordered by a wide, paved pathway for bicyclists and pedestrians; the other, by a stone wall with no sidewalk.
Georgia Schilling, who has lived on a nearby side street for 21 years, said both she and her visiting sister were awakened by the commotion.
“I didn’t know at the time what happened. I heard sirens and then this crash,” Schilling said, pounding the palm of one hand with the other balled into a fist. “This road is fast and dangerous.”