Former Winnipeg police constable Derek Harvey-Zenk doesn’t remember drinking and carousing in a bar after work with fellow officers in late February 2005. He doesn’t remember leaving a fellow officer’s home and getting in his pickup truck.Â
But Harvey-Zenk does remember the second of impact when he drove full tilt without braking or trying to veer into the back of Crystal Taman’s stopped convertible at Highway 59 and the North Perimeter, killing the 40-year-old mother almost instantly.
“The only memory I have of the accident is feeling the impact and feeling panic to stop the truck,” Harvey-Zenk said repeatedly when asked what he remembered of the morning of Feb. 25, 2005.
He told an inquiry into the crash that after that his memory once again gets spotty.
“I have holes in my memory,” Harvey-Zenk, 34, said solemnly on Wednesday.
“I remember snapshots, like, still pictures of instances. I remember sound bites. I remember feelings.
“I don’t know if I have them in context. And the things that I remember, I’m not sure if I’ve been told things and have convinced myself I remember them or if I specifically remember them.”
Harvey-Zenk is serving a two-year conditional sentence after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing death. More serious charges related to impaired driving were dropped in a controversial plea bargain.
The inquiry is investigating the conduct of the East St. Paul and Winnipeg police forces, which investigated the crash, as well as the prosecution of the case under private prosecutor Marty Minuk and how he treated the Taman family and Taman’s parents, Victoria and Sveinn Sveinson.
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Harvey-Zenk was in court last year to plead guilty, but yesterday’s appearance at the inquiry marked the first time he has ever testified under oath about the fatal crash that killed Taman and about the hours before and after.
In the audience watching were Harvey-Zenk’s wife, Karleigh, his mother, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and uncle, as well as numerous other relatives and friends.
The former officer showed little emotion, his voice so low that the commission had to tell him to speak up a few times.
When told witnesses saw him walk towards Taman’s yellow car, Harvey-Zenk said “the only memory I have is a snapshot of Mrs. Taman in the vehicle.”
When given the chance by inquiry commission lawyer David Paciocco to say something, Harvey-Zenk declined, saying “I thank you, sir.”
At the conclusion of his testimony, Harvey-Zenk, holding his wife’s hand, walked down a hallway in the Winnipeg Convention Centre, down a stairway and out the front doors accompanied by family members. Neither he nor his wife spoke to reporters, keeping their eyes forward.
Afterwards, Harvey-Zenk’s lawyer Jay Prober said Harvey-Zenk didn’t take the opportunity to apologize to Taman’s family because he “made a heartfelt apology” last year during the sentencing.
As for his client’s memory, Prober said “he’s not happy.
“He’d rather remember than not remember.”
Taman’s husband, Robert, said he not think much of Harvey-Zenk’s testimony. He and his entire family filed out when the former officer was asked if he wanted to say anything.
“To me it was well rehearsed,” Taman said.
“He knew exactly what he was going to say right through his testimony… . I see a lack of remorse. I see somebody very robotic and not a lot of caring.
“A little bit of caring might have gone a long way.”
Earlier, during intensive questioning by lawyers, Harvey-Zenk said he wasn’t using his memory loss as a convenient excuse to deny responsibility for what he did.
“It’s very inconvenient for me not to talk decisively for something that happened in my life,” he said.
Harvey-Zenk admitted that following the collision he never looked to see if he still had a receipt from the bar and he never checked his cellphone records to see if he was talking to anyone when it occurred.
The former officer said he doesn’t remember going to Branigan’s with fellow officers after his shift and he doesn’t remember anything clearly until seeing himself in a mirror sometime after the collision.
Harvey-Zenk doesn’t remember going to Sgt. Sean Black’s house or what it looks like, but he remembers one episode while there.
“I hear voices. People teasing me for not winning a (arm-wrestling) contest.”
Harvey-Zenk said he now lives in Brandon with his wife and two-and-a-half year old child and sees a psychologist regularly.
He says he suffers hallucinations and nightmares and he has problems sleeping.
Harvey-Zenk said the psychologist has told him those problems are consistent with someone suffering post-traumatic stress.
The inquiry will hear final submissions next Tuesday
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