The Syracuse police officer will not be exposed to criminal charges for fatal VEO bicycle collision

Syracus, NY – The New York Attorney General Letitia James' Office of Special Investigation (OSI) published his report on the death of Qian Adams, which died in a motor vehicle collision in December 2023, in which a member of the Syracuse Police Department was involved in Syracuse.

After a thorough investigation, the AG office said that the inspection of video material from a nearby surveillance camera and the civil servant carried with body, the collision reconstruction and the comprehensive legal analysis included.

Shortly after midnight on December 11th, an SPD officer responded to a report on ongoing theft.

The officer traveled to the southwest in West Bear Street, a four -lane, two -way street, which overwhelms Liberty Street, a one -way street, two -lane road. When the officer from West Bear Street turned to Liberty Street, he hit Adams, who wore dark clothes and drove an e-bike with a small LED light while he drove north in the middle of the Liberty Street. Adams was taken to a local hospital where he was declared dead.

The justification in the AG office decision is below.

According to OSI's analysis of the New York vehicle and traffic law, criminal law and the case law, which was articulated by the New York highest court, a police officer who causes death, while he properly reacts to an emergency in an emergency, cannot be charged with a crime if the civil servant does not act ruthlessly or intentionally. The criminal charges that requires ruthlessness is homicide to the second degree in which a person is guilty if they ruthlessly caused another person's death. In order to fulfill this standard, the evidence would have to prove that the official deliberately ignores an “extensive and unjustified” risk of death and that their actions were a “gross deviation” from an appropriate standard of conduct.

Assuming that the official did not respond to an emergency, the evidence does not find that he acted negligently. According to the proof of criminal -negligent murder, it must undoubtedly prove that a person did not perceive an essential and unjustified risk that death would occur. that the failure of perceiving the risk was a rough deviation from an appropriate care standard of an appropriate person; And that the person occurred culpable.

While the officer caused Mr. Adam's death, the evidence does not undoubtedly define that the civil servant's behavior was a gross deviation from what a reasonable civil servant would do under the same circumstances, and he did not determine that the official deliberately ignored an essential and unjustified risk of death. The officer stopped the speed limit and drove within an area of ​​29 to 35 miles per hour in a zone of 40 km / h. There is no reason to assume that he could have accelerated or drove in a dangerous way or that Mr. Adams could have seen in time to avoid him.

There is also no reason to assume that the official was affected by drugs or alcohol, a SMS or a call or a call or in other ways. So Osi came to the conclusion that there was not enough evidence to pursue criminal charges.

Determining the possibility of alcohol impairment is an essential part of the examination of vehicles accidents. In this case, the official involved was never carried out a portable breath test (PBT). There is no reason to assume that the civil servant who drives the car was affected by drugs or alcohol recommends that all patrol police officers and superiors are trained in the administration of the PBT and field soberness tests so that they can test any non-working or extra-curricular police officers who are involved in a collision of a motor vehicle on site.