A Feb. 19 Reddit post on the subreddit r/ucr reported that, on Feb. 18, a young woman “appeared to be hit by a police SUV” in Lot 24, pointing out that that it happened near the UC Police Department (UCPD) station. The Highlander reached out to the Redditor for further comment on the incident, who requested anonymity.
In their response, Redditor “ThiccerThanPB” went in-depth regarding the collision, saying that there were no immediate attempts by officers to assist the injured woman; “There was no attempt to move her or the SUV for about 15 minutes,” they wrote, adding that the police SUV did not flash any lights when she had been hit. It was only “after a few minutes of her laying on the ground, unable to get up, screaming in pain” that police lights were eventually turned on.
Additionally, ThiccerThanPB took note of the officers’ low-energy response in helping the pedestrian overall: “The cops did next to nothing. No one was talking to her or anything. She seemed to be in incredible pain from the screaming and it did not look like (to me) that anyone was comforting her.”
An ambulance eventually came by to pick up the injured woman, and ThiccerThanPB explained how the collision itself may have transpired: “The impact appeared to have happen (sic) in the middle of the sidewalk/ramp of the parking lot. I say this to clarify that from what I saw she could not have jumped in front of the SUV, she was half way through,” suggesting that the pedestrian was not intending to get hit and that the collision was indeed an accident.
In the thread of the original post, ThiccerThanPB wrote that they “want UCPD and UCR to address (the incident) openly.” Redditor “thegrahampost” agreed, writing that “it is the duty of the University of California Police Department to warn of possible dangerous conditions on or near campus,” in reference to the line added to the end of every “UCPD Crime Alert” email.
Further citing said message, the Alerts are “sent in compliance with the ‘Timely Notice’ provisions of the federal Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security and Campus Crime Statistics Act of 1998;” at the time of writing, nearly two weeks have passed since the incident occurred and no official email regarding the accident has been sent out to the UCR community.
UCR Chief Communications Officer Johnny Cruz released a statement to the Highlander explaining what had happened:
“On 03/18/19 at about 6:30 p.m., a UCPD Officer was driving a patrol vehicle out of the North entrance/exit of Lot #24 onto Canyon Crest Drive and was involved in a collision with a pedestrian. The pedestrian was transported to the hospital for non-life threatening injuries. The City of Riverside Police Department was contacted to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding this accident.”
