By Robert Crowe
San Antonio Express-News
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A preliminary investigation of a collision that injured a motorist and two police officers, one critically, shows one officer may have disregarded a stop signal while failing to control his speed.
West Substation colleagues of Officers Robert Davis and David Seaton said the accident about 9:45 p.m. Friday in the 9300 block of Potranco Road was especially tragic because the relatively new officers are close friends who would do anything to ensure each other’s safety.
“On any given day, they would have sacrificed themselves for each other,” said Mike Helle, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association.
Davis, 26, is married with no children. Seaton, 43, who is married with children, joined his friend on the force after retiring from the military in recent years.
“Our primary concern is getting the people who were injured well,” said Sgt. Gabe Trevino, spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department. “We want to see them recover, and everything that comes after that, what we can learn from it, what went wrong, all those things will be examined.”
Police said Seaton was driving his patrol car on Potranco to a shoplifting call at a Target store on Texas 151 when his cruiser struck a car at Hunt Lane on the far West Side. The collision caused Darrell Lampkin’s car to spin out of control and strike Davis, who was standing nearby while clearing an unrelated accident.
Trevino said police are investigating Seaton’s speed, whether he ran a red light and if his emergency lights and sirens had been activated. A supervisor wrote in an incident report that factors contributing to the collision included Seaton failing to control his speed and disregarding a stop sign or light.
Trevino stressed that the report is preliminary.
“What we don’t want to do is get too premature in trying to attribute fault here,” Trevino said.
The accident pinned Davis, a member of the SAPD for 11/2 years, beneath one of the vehicles. He left the scene unconscious with multiple injuries. Seaton, a member of the force for 21/2 years, and Lampkin suffered multiple broken bones and internal injuries.
Both officers remained hospitalized at Wilford Hall Medical Center. Lampkin was being treated for severe injuries at University Hospital.
The accident brings front and center SAPD’s policies and procedures for speeding while responding to emergencies. Many big police departments have strict policies that limit or prohibit speeding by officers. San Antonio permits speeding by officers under specific circumstances.
Witnesses to a recent collision between a police car and an SUV on Culebra Road said the officer’s car did not have its emergency signals or sirens on before it sped through a red light, striking the SUV, which had the right of way.
“It looked like the lights came on and the officer honked his horn right before it got to the intersection,” David Rivas said shortly after the 11:30 p.m. accident Oct. 13.
On May 5, 2006, an accident involving Officer Winder Morales killed Rodney Brandenberger on Somerset Road at Southwest Military Drive. Morales’ patrol car, traveling at 73 mph without sirens or emergency lights, struck Brandenberger’s pickup. The city this year paid a $250,000 settlement to Brandenberger’s family as a result of a wrongful death lawsuit.
“I think that SAPD’s policy should change because it absolutely does no good when an officer is on the way to an accident and never gets there because he ends up injuring or killing someone,” said Cindy Merrill, Brandenberger’s mother.
In both the Oct. 13 and May 2006 accidents, officers were responding to reports of other officers in trouble. In both cases, the emergency tones were canceled before or shortly after their accidents.
SAPD’s General Manual allows officers to speed to “code-three” calls, such as shootings in progress or reports of officers in trouble. They must still activate lights and sirens and yield the right of way at stop signs and red lights.
The General Manual states that officers responding to “code-two” emergency calls cannot travel more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Code-two calls include requests for services that present a strong potential for personal injury. They require activating emergency lights and coming to complete stops at all traffic control devices.
Police are not sure whether the shoplifting call - a “theft in progress” - that Seaton was driving to would be considered a “code-one,” which does not permit speeding, or a code-two. At the time of the accident, Trevino said, another officer had already arrived at the scene, where two men were reportedly pocketing some sort of “blades” inside the Target.
Trevino said SAPD has no immediate plans to reconsider its speeding policy.
“We expect our officers to be careful and get there as quickly as they can, but do it safely,” he said.
Helle said top brass most likely will revisit the speeding policy, but the department’s primary concern now is the recovery of Davis and Seaton.
“Everybody is focused on the family right now,” Helle said. “There were 50 to 70 officers at Wilford Hall just stunned that this has happened.”
Members of Lampkin’s family could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Staff writer Alejandro Martinez-Cabrera contributed to this story.
Copyright 2008 San Antonio Express-News