Cop fingered in fatal hit-and-run accident

A POLICEMAN is believed to be the person involved in a hit and run accident in which an elderly man was knocked down and left for dead on the side of a road last Thursday. The corporal, attached to a police station in South Western Division, is now the subject of an investigation and may face the possible charge of vehicular manslaughter, a senior police source revealed.

Lawrence Garcia, 85, of Hickling Village in Fyzabad, was knocked down around 11.30 pm on Holy Thursday. Senior officers told Newsday they have information that the officer was reportedly en route to work when he struck the pedestrian. Too afraid to stop and assist the elderly man, the officer went straight to a police station where he informed officers that he received an anonymous call that an elderly man was knocked down by a car, minutes earlier.

The corporal contacted E999 Rapid Response and, together with other officers, went to the scene of the crime. But Garcia was already dead. Sometime later, policemen observed blood splattered across the corporal’s windscreen and questioned him about it. An eyewitness to the accident subsequently identified the corporal’s vehicle as the car which struck the elderly man. Investigations are continuing.