The crash should not have happened.
The training exercise that resulted in the crash and death of Detroit Police officer Darren Weathers was being done on a public street, in uncontrolled conditions.
Chief James Craig says the surveillance training procedure was a mistake.
Craig told the Paul W. Smith show, “you don’t do surveillance training like this in an uncontrolled environment, a city street. This should not have happened.”
Weathers was travelling at a high rate of speed when, police say, a civilian car hit the officer’s car, which then slammed into a metal pylon at Michigan and Clark in SW Detroit.
The car was a mangled mess and torn up to pieces.
The officer died at a hospital.
Chief Craig says he cannot comment on what they may have seen on video images of the crash.
Officer Weathers was 25 and was on the force for less than 2 years.
He had received the department’s medal of valor for helping to save the life of a fellow officer.