Video shows Vancouver Police cruiser narrowly miss mother, child while driving in bike lane

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A Vancouver woman says she was shocked to see a car driving down the bike lane on Beach Avenue towards her and her nine-year-old daughter, Wednesday morning.

It wasn’t until the car got closer and turned on its lights that she realized it was an unmarked police vehicle.

Video shows the vehicle approaching from the distance while the woman is heard telling her child to “stop, stop, pull over.”

“All I could see was headlights coming towards me. At that stage, the police car hadn’t turned their lights on, so all I could see was a black sports car driving, probably, at least twice the 30-kilometre speed limit, towards us,” Lucy Malloney tells CityNews.

“I had my daughter with me so I said to her, ‘stop, pull over.'”

The @VancouverPD say they were in pursuit of an active crime and there was a need to get to the scene before the suspect hurt themselves or others. Lee says if there's an investigation it will matter what the crime in question was.

— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) December 17, 2020

Beach Avenue’s eastbound lane was closed earlier this year to allow people to walk and cycle on the road.

Vancouver Police say officers were responding to an ongoing emergency at the time. Malloney says she has no problem with emergency vehicles using the bike lane but feels it took too long for this one to put its lights on.

…stay where we were. One of the witnesses I spoke to afterwards really sums it up, “my god, I saw them coming and you coming and I was like oh my god… I don’t know anything that justifies that kind of behaviour. We’re shocked too.” pic.twitter.com/Y0z0M9y8G4

— Lucy Maloney (@Lucyincanada) December 16, 2020

The mother shared the video of the incident online. Two hours later, the Vancouver Police Department responded.

“Hi Lucy, we understand this would have been distressing for you and your daughter,” the VPD writes on Twitter. “The police officers in this video were responding to a crime in-progress nearby. They were able to get to the crime scene with enough time to arrest the suspect, who is a serial offender.”

“I don’t know anything about the nature of the person that they were pursuing or for what crime,” says Malloney. “But I do know that travelling in a black sports car with no emergency services vehicle markings on it in a bike lane is just really out of step with what I think are accepted standards of safety.”

Constable Tania Visintin reviewed the video and says it shows the lights of the undercover vehicle were on. In fact, the video appears to show the lights turn on shortly after the cruiser rounds the corner. It’s unclear if the cruiser had activated its lights or sirens at any point previous to the start of the video.

Visintin also says she can appreciate how traumatic it can be to be in a bike lane and see a car driving toward you.

“Sometimes our officers have to get certain places quicker. At this time, we were responding to an in-progress call of a chronic offender — it was happening in progress, at that moment,” she says, adding the West End’s side streets were not an option.

“During that time of day, taking side streets — it wouldn’t be feasible. It wouldn’t let us get to that offender at that time, who was committing a crime,” she says, adding the bike lane was the best route to take to safely get to the scene, “before [the offender] caused any injury to anybody else in that neighbourhood.”

It’s unclear what the situation was or what neighbourhood officers were responding to.

Visintin notes she empathizes with Malloney, adding she would probably feel the same way had she been in the mother’s shoes.

“But, sometimes this is what we have to do to get to somebody getting a crime before they injure anyone else or themselves,” the constable explains.

Lawyer ‘surprised’

After watching the video, Vancouver lawyer Kyla Lee says she was stunned to see the VPD “driving that way on that stretch of road.”

“It’s a road that they patrol frequently for speeding because they’re well aware of the large number of people — and especially children — that use that area of Vancouver and are out and about on the sidewalks, and on the roadways, and on the side of the road on bikes,” she explains.

Lee says even if it was an emergency, she was surprised to see police “drive with such carelessness for all of the hazards around the area.”

According to the lawyer, police are allowed to break traffic rules if the situation they’re responding to is more serious than the rules they’re breaking.

That requires “weighing and balancing” of the situation on the officer’s part.

"There's been lots of instances where police officers have been charged and convicted for driving in a situation where they're responding to an emergency where lights and sirens are activated, and it's a legitimate reason to be driving that way but they've caused an accident…"

— Ash Kelly she/her (settler) (@AshDKelly) December 17, 2020

She stresses, however, that the decision to break traffic rules needs to be necessary. In her opinion, it didn’t appear to be required for the officer to be driving in the bike lane.

“That to me was concerning,” Lee says, adding the VPD’s response to Malloney’s complaint was also of concern.

“The idea that they can drive however they want just because they’re responding to an ongoing situation without having regard for the fact that there are going to be other road users out there — even though the Police Act allows police officers to violate the Motor Vehicle Act as long as they’re responding to an emergency situation — they still have a duty to make sure that they’re driving in a way that has sufficient regard for other people on the road,” Lee explains.

She says there have been instances of a police officer being charged and convicted in connection with a crash or incident, despite being allowed to go against the Motor Vehicle Act.

Lee believes the VPD owes Malloney a “basic apology,” even if police feel like they did nothing wrong.