ST. GEORGE —A business provided investigators with video footage that captured a T-bone crash in Washington City last weekend that left both a police patrol vehicle and passenger car nearly destroyed.
On Thursday, video depicting the crash last Sunday evening showed in real time how the crash between a St. George Police patrol vehicle and a Toyota Camry unfolded at the intersection of Green Springs Drive and Buena Vista Boulevard.
Washington City Police Lt. Kory Klotz said the video surfaced during the internal investigation being conducted by the St. George Police Department, which is a standard practice in any crash involving a patrol vehicle. The footage was not collected on the night of the incident, he said, since officers were unable to speak to the manager of the gas station on Sunday.
It wasn’t until investigators in St. George spoke to the manager in the days following the crash that they learned the crash may have been captured on video, which is when officers in Washington City were notified.
Klotz said that after they reviewed the footage, they reached out to the Toyota driver who was subsequently cited for running a red light. He added St. George Police had not seen the video until it was reviewed by Washington City police.
Klotz said when they viewed the footage, they realized that the camera was facing the intersection and captured the crash and the vehicles involved. From that, he said, the Toyota heading north on Green Springs entered the intersection on a red light, since the southbound traffic light seen in the video was rednand both are timed to change at the exact same moment. The footage also shows the patrol vehicle continued through the intersection on a yellow light.
“Luckily, the footage was there to tell us what actually happened,” Klotz said, adding that video is often the most accurate type of evidence, since it provides a non-biased record of the incident, but doesn’t have a stake in the outcome.
Officers also noted there were several other motorists at the intersection when the crash took place, and had anyone else stopped and provided a witness statement at the scene, then investigators would have had a third-party account of the crash that night.
Klotz also said it is not uncommon to respond to a crash to find that the only witnesses are the drivers involved in the incident, such as what took place on Sunday. When that happens, he said, it can be impossible to determine what took place. While it is not up to police to determine who is at fault, since that is left up to the insurance companies, Klotz said an officer is tasked with determining if a traffic violation has occurred.
An objective account from another motorist or a bystander who witnessed the crash is invaluable to an officer, he said, and can provide an important piece of evidence because more often than not, the drivers involved give conflicting accounts — either because of the trauma they experienced in the crash or they may remember things differently. Either way, he said they have a vested interest in the outcome, whereas a bystander tends to be unbiased.
And Klotz said a witness needing to get somewhere else isn’t an excuse. If a motorist is pressed for time and cannot stop to speak to police, then they can call the information into the police department or even fill out a witness statement that can be picked up later.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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