CALGARY – Police have charged a 70-year-old taxi driver in connection to a fatal hit and run along 16th Avenue N.E.
Investigators have charged Stanislaw Maguder with hit-and-run causing death. Maguder appeared in court Thursday morning and has been released on bail with conditions. Police don’t have evidence to suggest he was impaired.
The victim, a 16-year-old girl, was found lying in the centre lane of 16th Avenue and 5th Street N.E. on Wednesday.
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Family have identified the victim as Tyla Rain Chipaway.
Police say they used a combination of CCTV footage along with evidence from the scene to determine that the girl was struck by a taxi.
“The young girl was lying on the roadway when the cab was going westbound on the road… ran her right over and didn’t stop,” explained S/Sgt. Paul Stacey at a news conference.
“Why she was lying down on the roadway, I couldn’t say. But she was.”
GPS technology used by the taxi company assisted officers in identifying the suspect.
“The evidence that we were able to obtain after that point… that convinced us that the cab driver absolutely knew that he had hit somebody.”
Police haven’t identified the taxi company the driver worked for.
“The taxi company has been extremely cooperative with us,” explained Stacey. “And this collision is solely the responsibility of the driver that was driving this cab.”
“The taxi company knew nothing about this.”
Police say the taxi wasn’t transporting any patrons at the time of the incident.
A dash camera inside the vehicle recorded footage of the incident.
At the time, police were also investigating the discovery of an unconscious male near the scene. On Thursday, police confirmed the man was a relative of the victim.
He told police he has no recollection of what happened, and doesn’t know why the young girl would have been lying in the road.
With a file from Stefan Keyes
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