When's a Crash Not a Crash?
When it's a bike
By Chase Hoffberger, Fri., Sept. 26, 2014
It's been tough-going for a local cyclist in her efforts to get a straight story from the Austin Police Department about why it took so long to access an APD incident report after her injury in a collision with a pedestrian. But her trouble – and persistence – may have succeeded in changing APD's reporting policies.
The consternation stems from an East Austin crash on July 31, when cycling enthusiast (and onetime Chronicle advertising executive) Heather "Frankie" Frankovis came into violent contact with a jaywalker (or jayrunner) while en route to the popular Thursday Night Social Ride (organized by Social Cycling Austin). Frankovis, riding southbound on Comal Street, collided with a man who ran into the street, was thrown from her bike on impact, and broke her clavicle. Fire Department and EMS staffers arrived, as did APD Officer Thomas Griffin, who provided an incident number for a police report. Frankovis says there were upwards of 20 witnesses; she and the jaywalker were both rushed to area hospitals. At Brackenridge, Frankovis received emergency surgery, and a titanium plate was installed on her collarbone.
During recuperation, Frankovis repeatedly tried to access the police report via the incident number. On Aug. 29, after a month of failed attempts, she emailed Police Chief Art Acevedo to explain what happened and ask why she couldn't get an incident report. "Somebody caused me injury that is affecting my life adversely and I don't even know his name because there is no report," she wrote in an email now posted on attorney Lenore Shefman's website. "What this shows the cycling community is that if you get hurt by somebody else while on your bike, the APD doesn't care enough to even write up the damn report." A few lines down on the website is an email from the chief forwarding her inquiry to his administrative lieutenant, Tyson McGowan – "an avid cyclist."
On Sept. 8, five days after being forwarded the email, McGowan wrote to Frankovis, citing the incident report number and including a brief explanation about how to obtain the public portion of police reports. Frankovis responded by saying that the incident report number had so far been useless, to which McGowan replied that reports can take a few days to show up in the APD Incident Reports Database. The Central Records Department needs 48 hours, he wrote, "to redact any sensitive information that we are prohibited by law from releasing to the public." This, more than a month after the collision.
On Monday, Sept. 22, an APD Public Information Officer told the Chronicle the report was actually filed Friday, Sept. 5. In a Sept. 8 email posted onto Shefman's website, McGowan added that Officer Griffin didn't initially complete a crash report "since the incident was not one that would normally require that an incident report be written: The officer responded to a call to assist EMS; however, no criminal offense had been committed. I did however, request that a report be written in this instance."
Aside from the nature of the APD's communication runaround, the episode raises the differences between APD-issued incident report numbers and Texas Peace Officer's Crash Reports. Incident report numbers are part of the general filing system and they precede – but don't necessary foretell – the eventual actualization of a Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report.
The Crash Reports are used by the Texas Department of Transportation in traffic safety documentation – but they're only required in the case of a motor vehicle crash "resulting in injury to or death of any person." APD officers aren't required to fill out a crash report for bike incidents like Frankovis' – though TxDOT writes that a police agency can choose "to investigate a nonreportable crash." An APD spokesperson wrote Friday that the decision to generate a report "will be in accordance with APD policy, not desire on the officer's part," but admitted via telephone Monday that "there is a little bit of discretion."
"There is a policy, but no situation is black and white," added the PIO. "In this particular incident, the officer decided not to write a report." That is, until a full 46 days after the incident occurred – mere hours before KXAN's Sophia Beausoleil requested APD comment on the issue for a story that ran last Monday, Sept. 15, detailing Frankovis' troubles. Asked what changed to eventually get a report written, the PIO noted that Frankovis had "emailed several people within the department." What's now available through an open records request is quite thin; the report lists both Frankovis' information and the jaywalker's, and mentions a brief account by a single witness.
"It was paltry, and doesn't have details about culpability," said Frankovis, who says she's considering legal action against the jaywalker, who she believes was at fault. "The guy admitted to jaywalking. He was like 'Aw, I'm so stupid.' I heard him say that. And the police were like, 'He wasn't given a jaywalking ticket because the officer didn't see him.' Since when do you – you can still get a ticket after the fact, if you're in a car."
Ultimately, Frankovis' troubles may have helped ensure better treatment for future cyclists in such instances. On Tuesday, Lt. McGowan confirmed to the Chronicle that he's currently working to amend APD policy "to ensure that, in events of this nature, there's a documenting report."
"I don't know what the language is going to be," he continued, "because I need to send that to the executive staff – the chief and assistant chiefs – who will go over it," adding that the process could take a week, with another month tacked on "to get everybody familiar with the policy."
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