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Source: Pioneer Press, St.迷你倉 Paul, Minn.Sept. 07--A St. Paul police officer was driving up to 70 mph on Grand Avenue, heading to assist fellow officers, when she collided with another car last year.The driver in the other car, which had pulled in front of the squad car, was knocked unconscious and critically injured in the crash. After an internal affairs investigation, St. Paul's police chief issued a 15-day suspension to the officer and ordered her to go through "retraining in police driving protocols," according to her discipline letter.In St. Paul, the police department's Accident Review Board deemed 48 squad car accidents last year "preventable" out of a total of 84. That was the highest number of accidents since at least 2008. On average, there were 36 preventable accidents each year between 2008 and 2011, a Pioneer Press analysis found.Each day, police officers make decisions that balance the need to respond quickly to emergencies with the risks to others on the roads. St. Paul police spokesman Sgt. Paul Paulos said officers usually do so without incident -- "99.9 percent of the time, we get from point A to point B safely," he said.That was not the case in Minneapolis in May, when an officer was heading to a deadly shooting with his squad car's lights and siren on. He went through a red light at 16 to 17 mph, and a motorcyclist, Ivan Romero Olivares, struck the rear of the squad car, according to Minneapolis police. Olivares, 24, was killed.On Aug. 21, a 101-year-old pedestrian died after being injured when a St. Paul police squad car backed into her. The officer had responded to a complaint about a juvenile and was slowly backing up when her Ford Explorer SUV hit Roza Sakhina on Aug. 16, police have said. Both that case and the Minneapolis one remain under investigation.In the St. Paul police statistics about squad car accidents, not all crashes resulted in injuries, and some accidents were minor, such as a squad car scraping a fire hydrant or garbage can, Paulos said."Any timeyou see somewhat of an increase (in the number of accidents), it raises a question, but at the same time, our chief is very proactive in looking at how to solve issues, get the officers the best training out there and make everyone as safe as possible," Paulos said.'UNSAFE AND DANGEROUS'In the squad car accident that ended in serious injury on Grand Avenue last year, officer Jennifer Mink told the police department she was trying to provide backup to officers who were stopping a vehicle wanted in a gun-pointing incident, though no police radio transmissions indicated the officers needed help, according to the internal affairs review, which was among public information released by police at the Pioneer Press' request. The department also released video from Mink's squad car that shows the officer's driving behavior before the crash and the accident.During the internal affairs investigation, a sergeant questioned Mink about the speed she was traveling and why she wasn't aware that other officers were providing backup.The sergeant wrote in an internal affairs report: "I asked Officer Mink why she was not able to hear squads responding on the (police) radio as she responded. ... Officer Mink did not have an answer. I asked if maybe the reason she could not hear the (police) radio was because her stereo was on. Officer Mink said no and that it was because she was focused on driving."Mink drove up to 87 mph while responding to the call, the police investigation found. The speed limit at the accident site on Grand Avenue near the Ayd Mill Road exit ramp was 30 mph, though police responding to emergencies are not bound to the posted speed limit.State law says officers have "the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of persons using the street." Prosecutors reviewed the accident involving Mink and found no basis to file criminal charges against her.But Police Chief Thomas Smith suspended Mink for violating department policy, including driving vehicles with "reasonable care."He wrote in Mink's discipline letter: "As a police officer you have a responsibility for the public's safety. This includes making sound decisions and operating an emergency vehicle in accordance with department regulations and training with due regard for the safety of other persons and vehicles operating on the same streets. Your actions in this instance were unsafe and dangerous to others and yourself."CAR PULLS INTO LANEPolice reports and a report about the internal affairs investigation give the following account of what happened in last year's squad car crash:It was Jan. 30, 2012, when Mink was on patrol in a marked cruiser and heading to a call. She was driving south on Snelling Avenue, in the area of Highland Parkway, when she heard over the police radio an officer requesting assistance on another call -- stopping a vehicle involved in an earlier gun-pointing incident.Mink told the police department she recalled reading an alert, which said that "if that car was located to use caution because there could be guns in the car," a police report said.Though Mink said she knew she wasn't near the suspect car (she was 2.4 miles away when the car was stopped near Lexington Parkway and Concordia Avenue), she noted that the call came during a shift change and said "she believed there was an inadequate number of squads responding, because of the nature of the call," according to the report in the internal affairs investigation.Mink turned on her emergency lights and siren and made a U-turn to head north on Snelling Avenue. Mink was alternating different siren sounds along with the squad's air horn, reports said.She went east on Grand Avenue and, near Kowalski's Market, the officer said, she saw a silver car on Ayd Mill Road halt at the stop sign and then slowly pull onto Grand Ave儲存倉ue. The Toyota Camry stopped in the middle of Grand Avenue. Mink said she made eye contact with the driver.Mink said she applied her brakes mildly to moderately because she thought the car was going to continue crossing her lane and turn left onto Grand Avenue, but the car didn't move."Officer Mink also indicated seeing a vehicle to her left and wasn't sure if the silver car would have been able to turn onto W/B Grand because of the vehicle that had pulled over," a police report said. "She (Mink) then said she tried to turn her steering wheel to the right to try to go around the car to the right but when the car stopped she crashed." The accident happened about 4:40 p.m.Lidia Pavitova, then 28 and a River Falls, Wis., resident, was knocked unconscious from the impact; St. Paul firefighters had to extricate her from the car.A letter dated April 2012 said that as far as the Ramsey County attorney's office knew at the time, Pavitova was still in Regions Hospital's intensive-care unit. At that point, she'd been put into "a medically-induced coma while doctors waited for swelling to go down to do further assessment and treatment," the letter said.More recently, Pavitova's sister said in a message that her sister is doing well and improving every day, but otherwise didn't respond to Pioneer Press requests for comment.Neither Mink nor the St. Paul police union's president responded to requests seeking comment.NO 'RECKLESS DISREGARD FOR ... SAFETY'Mink told the department that she hadn't looked at her speed while driving because "her attention was focused on the road," a police report said. Mink had reduced her speed as she approached intersections and sped up in between, "reaching speeds of 60, 65, 70, 75, with the top speed of 87 mph," the internal affairs summary said.An internal affairs sergeant questioned Mink about whether "87 mph was a reasonable speed to respond to the traffic stop that possibly had weapons in the vehicle," the internal affairs report said. "Officer Mink said yes." She added that "she needed to get there as quick as she could in case something 'really really bad happened.' "Before the accident, when Mink began braking, she was traveling between 64 and 70 mph, according to the collision analysis and reconstruction report. The maximum speed the squad car "could have been traveling and had sufficient time to perceive, respond, and brake to stop" within the approximately 178 feet between it and the Camry was 44 mph, the investigation said.The Ramsey County attorney's office and Minneapolis city attorney's office, which reviewed the case to avoid a potential conflict of interest for their St. Paul counterparts, declined to file charges.The county attorney's office memo declining charges said "65-70 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone is very fast; however, one cannot ignore the fact that this officer was responding to a serious call using appropriate lights and emergency sounds. Her driving as a whole looked appropriate under the circumstances."The city attorney's memo said Mink's decision to exceed the speed limit "falls within the statutory exception for the use of an emergency vehicle and is not inherently criminal in nature solely because of the tragic consequences of this case. Rather, the proper standard for review is whether Officer Mink exhibited a reckless disregard for the safety of others." The letter concluded, "the evidence does not suggest a reckless disregard for the safety of others by Officer Mink."MORE TRAINING ORDEREDMink, who joined the St. Paul Police Department academy as a police trainee in October 2009 and became an officer in January 2010, had not been disciplined before this case. Her personnel file noted nine thank-you notes for her work.Five days of Mink's 15-day suspension are to be held in abeyance for one year, and the discipline is to be reduced on paper to a 10-day suspension after one year if "there are no same or similar actions," Chief Smith's December letter said.Smith wrote in the letter that Mink had to go through "retraining in police driving protocols."All peace officers in Minnesota are required to complete an eight-hour course in emergency-vehicle operations and police pursuits every five years.The St. Paul Police Department puts its officers through the training every three years, Paulos said. In addition to driving on a closed course, St. Paul added an online component to training this year for all officers. The mandatory computerized training showed officers various driving scenarios that they had to respond to, and they had to pass a written test after each unit of the training, Paulos said.The department added this additional training because, Paulos said, "We're always seeking new ways to train and how to operate our squad cars during emergency situations."Last year, during an arbitration hearing for another officer disciplined for a squad car crash, the union representing St. Paul police officers "submitted evidence purportedly showing that Chief Smith had become concerned with the number of recent costly accidents and had instructed the ARB (Accident Review Board) chair and senior command staff to come up with ideas to reduce the number of accidents and injuries," according to an arbitrator's ruling on the union grievance over the officer's discipline.But Smith testified during the arbitration hearing "that he did not direct the ARB chair to make an example of" the officer in that case "in order to further this objective," the ruling said.MaryJo Webster contributed to this report.Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her at twitter.com/MaraGottfried or twitter.com/ppUsualSuspects.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at .twincities.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉價錢