March 19--An Aberdeen police officer and his passenger who were injured in a Sunday morning accident remain in fair condition, said a nurse at Avera St. Luke's Hospital.
Officer Mark Miller, 27, and passenger Ashley Elliot, 21, were driving eastbound on Seventh Avenue Southeast when they were struck by another police car at 4 a.m. heading north on South Washington Street, according to a report by the South Dakota Highway Patrol. The second police car was driven by officer Alejandro Reyes, 28.
Both cars struck an apartment building. Alcohol was not involved, according to the report.
The two officers were responding to a third officer, who was pursuing a fleeing suspect on foot, said Capt. Neil Bittner.
All three were taken by ambulance to Avera St. Luke's, the report stated.
Miller and Elliott suffered serious, nonlife-threatening, and Reyes sustained minor injuries, according to the report. He was treated and released from St. Luke's on Sunday.
Elliot, a senior at Northern State University, is an intern at the Aberdeen Police Department.
Reyes received the 2011 State Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award from the South Dakota American Legion.
The investigation of the accident by the South Dakota Highway Patrol is still ongoing, said Sgt. Caleb Walters of the Highway Patrol.
Investigators will conduct interviews with the two Aberdeen police officers who were driving the police cars, the passenger and witnesses from the scene, Walters said.
"By the time you look over all the information and gather all the information, it would be roughly two or three weeks," he said.
Any law enforcement agency in the state can investigate any vehicle accident, Walters said. He added Aberdeen Police Department could not conduct an investigation on itself because of the conflict of interest.
"The police department would not conduct the investigation considering it involves their own units," Walters said. "We were asked to come investigate the accident, so that's why we did an investigation."
Stay with aberdeennews.com for more on this story.
reported earlier:
Three people were injured when two Aberdeen police cars collided into each other, then into an apartment building, early Sunday morning.
All three -- two Aberdeen police officers and one passenger -- were taken to Avera St. Luke's Hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries, according to a news release by the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
The passenger, Ashley Elliot, 21, of Aberdeen was riding with Aberdeen police officer Mark Miller, 27, when they were struck by another police car driven by officer Alejandro Reyes, 28.
While Miller and Elliot received serious, nonlife-threatening injuries, Reyes received minor injuries, according to the report.
Reyes was treated and released from St. Luke's, while Elliot and Miller remained hospitalized Sunday in fair condition, an Avera St. Luke's nurse said Sunday afternoon.
Elliot is a student at Northern State University and is an intern at the Aberdeen Police Department, said Capt. Neil Bittner. It wasn't unusual for her to be in the car with the officers at 4 a.m. as part of her internship, he said.
Elliot had to be extracted from Miller's car with the Jaws of Life, according to the report.
The accident occurred shortly after 4 a.m. at the corner of Seventh Avenue Southeast and South Washington Street.
Both officers were responding to assist a third officer who was pursuing a fleeing suspect on foot, according to the highway patrol report.
Bittner said the fleeing suspect was eventually apprehended.
Reyes was traveling northbound in a dark, unmarked 2006 Dodge Charger on South Washington Street toward Seventh Avenue Southeast. Miller was traveling eastbound in a 2009 Dodge Charger on Seventh Avenue Southeast heading toward South Washington Street, with Elliot as a passenger.
It was at the intersection of Seventh Avenue Southeast and South Washington Street that Reyes struck the passenger side of Miller's vehicle while crossing Seventh Avenue Southeast, according to the report.
The intersection does not have any stop signs.
Both vehicles lost control, traveled off the road and came to rest against 203 Seventh Avenue Southeast, an apartment complex on the northeast corner of the intersection.
Alcohol was not a factor in the accident, according to the report.
Reyes ended up against the stone steps of the complex, damaging the railing on the porch. His car was spun around, facing out to the street. Miller's car hit the building's west side, leaving some damage to the exterior of the building. It came to rest at the edge of the yard near a parking lot for the building. A tree in the front yard was snapped in half after one of the vehicles struck it.
While the two police cruisers were removed from the scene before apartment resident Andrea Knoepfle came home at 11:45 a.m. on Sunday, she still saw debris and chemical runoff in the front yard of the apartment complex.
She found a pool of oil from Miller's police car in the parking spot where she usually parked her car, which is in the front of the building.
A resident at the apartment complex, her car would have been hit by one of the cruisers, said Knoepfle, a 23-year-old student at Northern State University.
"My car would've been exactly right there where the oil from the car leaked," she said.
But at the last minute, she decided to visit and sleep over at her sister's home in Mansfield last night, she said.
The accident scene drew many spectators from the adjacent houses and passing cars.
Roger Weifenbach, 61, was out getting coffee around 6:45 a.m. when he saw the police lights and decided to get a closer look.
"I can't believe it. I've never seen something like this happen," he said, shaking his head as he surveyed the two police cars. "I was born and raised in this town and this was the first time I've seen something like this happen."
Neighbor Alisha Chamberland was sound asleep when she heard the sound of the sirens and then the impact of the crash.
"My husband and I woke up to the sirens first, then the impact and that jarred us out of the sleep," said Chamberland, who lives on the corner opposite of where the police cars stopped.
While the sound of the sirens and impact lasted a few seconds, she said the sounds still rang in her head several hours later.
"I keep hearing it over and over in my head," she said.
The state highway patrol is investigating the accident since the Aberdeen Police Department was involved in the accident.
"When an agency is involved in an accident, another agency is called to investigate this. It takes away subjectiveness and conflict of interest," said Capt. Dave McNeil of the Aberdeen Police Department.
Capt. Neil Bittner said he would not speculate if there might be any disciplinary actions taken against the officers in the future.
"I'm not going to speculate anything at this time because you know, we don't have all the facts yet," he said.
Reyes received the 2011 State Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award by the South Dakota American Legion.
Copyright 2012 - American News, Aberdeen, S.D.
