The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) is looking into a crash involving a police cruiser early Tuesday morning on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Video from the 100 block of East Hastings Street shows a man bent over in the middle of the street.
The video was taken at 3:20 a.m. on Sept. 20.
A Vancouver police squad car comes up Hastings Street and strikes the man, coming to a stop a few minutes later.
The man was taken to hospital but has since been released, police confirmed.
“The IIO will look into things like, why was there a pedestrian standing in the middle of the street in the middle of the night? Why the police officers didn’t see the pedestrian? What speeds were involved and any other contributing factors that may have led to the collision?” Sgt. Steve Addison with the Vancouver Police Department told Global News Thursday.
That stretch of East Hastings Street is a 30 km/h speed zone and Addison said that will form part of the investigation as well.
Ronald MacDonald, chief civilian director of the IIO, told Global News they are aware of video circulating of the incident.
They are in the midst of investigating if charges would be laid against the VPD officer in this case.
“The video will allow us to have a very good view of the collision of the car and the individual but also it will help us determine speed because we can analyze the video to do that.”
Investigators will also be able to view the terminal inside the police car and determine if the terminal was in use at the time of the collision, MacDonald said.
“We have processes that allow us to determine the speed of a vehicle but taking the frame rate of the video and then calculating how far the video has moved during the time it’s shown on the video. From that we can determine a fairly accurate speed of the vehicle.”
MacDonald said while officers can look at their data terminal inside the car while driving, it does not absolve them of the responsibility to avoid distracted driving or of driving safely.
The IIO is asking any person with relevant information, dashcam or other video footage of the incident to contact the witness line toll-free at 1-855-446-8477 or via the contact form on the iiobc.ca website.
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