Nanaimo officer cleared in crash that killed two
A Nanaimo RCMP officer has been cleared of wrongdoing in connection with a Jan. 14 head-on crash that killed two people on the Trans-Canada Highway, according to B.C.’s independent police watchdog.
In a report released Tuesday, the Independent Investigations Office found that the Mountie was not chasing a white pickup truck when the driver turned the wrong way on the highway and slammed into a red SUV driven by 45-year-old Cliff Bishop of Cassidy. Bishop died in the crash, along with the driver of the pickup, Kurtis Timothy, 31.
The report found Timothy was driving 179 km/h when he slammed into the SUV south of downtown Nanaimo. Timothy had previously served jail time for dangerous driving causing death in connection with a 2006 crash that killed a friend.
The officer tried to stop the white GMC Sierra pickup at 12:40 a.m. in a residential area one kilometre from the highway. Security camera video from a business about 450 metres from the highway shows the truck passing, with the police cruiser — lights flashing — four seconds behind.
The officer was 11 seconds behind the truck when it reached the highway and turned the wrong way.
She switched off her emergency lights and told dispatchers the man was “trying to take off” and that she was going to “let him go.”
The driver sped south in the northbound lanes of the highway in fog that reduced visibility, the report said.
The officer tracked the white truck by driving south in the southbound lanes, but her emergency lights were not on. Her speed did not exceed 90 kilometres an hour.
She could see only the pickup’s tail lights before losing sight of the truck when it entered a curve near the Duke Point exit.
About a kilometre from where he drove onto the highway, Timothy narrowly missed colliding head-on with a vehicle. The driver of that vehicle told investigators he had to swerve to avoid the truck, which was revving its engine as he passed. The truck was estimated to be travelling at more than 100 km/h.
The witness reported that the Mountie’s vehicle was in the southbound lanes about 500 metres away, driving at a normal speed with no emergency lights.
Seconds after the near-miss, the white truck collided with Bishop’s SUV, killing both drivers. The pickup burst into flames. The officer was about a kilometre away when the crash occurred, according to the report.
Data from the white pickup showed that in the seconds before impact, the truck was at a full-throttle speed of 179 km/h.
“An analysis of evidence such as GPS data, video footage and radio transmissions indicates that [the officer’s] attempts to stop [the driver] by use of her emergency lights lasted only about 15 seconds,” the IIO’s chief civilian director, Ron MacDonald, wrote in the report. “Even during that time, she did not actively pursue him by matching his increasing speed.”
MacDonald said seeing the police cruiser’s emergency lights might have triggered the pickup driver’s flight, but the officer “cannot be blamed for that if the attempted traffic stop was authorized by law.”
Timothy was 19 when he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in a May 5, 2006, crash that killed his friend Daniel Hahto. Timothy was driving a stolen vehicle when he crashed on a sharp curve on Hammond Bay Road in Nanaimo.