Attorney General James’ Office of Special Investigation Releases Report on Death of Chatuma Crawford

NEW YORK – New York Lawyer General Letitia James’ Office environment of Special Investigation (OSI) currently unveiled its report on the loss of life of Chatuma Crawford in Cicero, Onondaga County. Next a comprehensive investigation, including evaluation of actual physical evidence, eyewitness accounts, crash reconstruction analysis, and human body-worn digital camera (BWC) footage, OSI concluded that the officer involved in this situation did not commit a criminal offense.

In the night of December 17, 2021, an off-responsibility police officer with the Town of Cicero Police Division (CPD) was driving with a passenger in an SUV on Northern Boulevard in Cicero. In accordance to the officer, even though he was driving in the left lane, he noticed that a car was stopped on the proper shoulder of the street and that a human being was standing outdoors the vehicle on the driver’s aspect. After he passed the stopped vehicle — when being in the still left lane — he strike some thing with his auto. The officer stopped the motor vehicle and quickly named 911. The officer and his passenger both of those later mentioned they did not see something in front of the auto prior to affect. An off-obligation member of the Syracuse Law enforcement Office, responding CPD officers, and paramedics carried out lifestyle-saving steps, but Mr. Crawford was pronounced useless at the scene.

Primarily based on the clinical examiner’s report and accounts from numerous witnesses, Mr. Crawford was dressed in all dim garments and there were no streetlights together Northern Boulevard. The individual the officer experienced seen standing outside the stopped car or truck on the ideal shoulder of the highway claimed that Mr. Crawford threw a cellphone in the street toward the remaining lane of website traffic (where the officer was driving) and was going for walks toward the cellphone to retrieve it when he was struck. Primarily based on the site of accidents to Mr. Crawford’s overall body, the professional medical examiner mentioned it was probable that Mr. Crawford was bent above at the time of the collision.

As aspect of the investigation, the New York Condition Law enforcement performed a collision reconstruction that concluded that the officer was touring at a affordable pace, was not impaired, and that the lack of road lights in addition to Mr. Crawford’s darkish apparel contributed to the officer’s incapacity to see Mr. Crawford.

The officer also submitted to an liquor exam pursuing the incident, which was unfavorable.

Under New York legislation, proving criminally negligent murder requires proving beyond a fair question that a particular person failed to understand a considerable and unjustifiable chance that demise would occur that the failure to perceive the danger was a gross deviation from a reasonable person’s conventional of care and that the individual engaged in blameworthy perform. In this circumstance, there is no proof that the officer was speeding or impaired, and therefore OSI concluded that felony expenses for the officer are not warranted.