South Kansas City crash involving KCPD police car leaves 3 injured
Three people, including a police officer, were injured in south Kansas City Monday after a car crashed into a Kansas City Police Department vehicle with its emergency lights activated.
Officers with the Kansas City Police Department were called to the intersection of Bannister Road and Blue Ridge Boulevard at 11:17 a.m. with reports of an injury crash involving a member of the department, Sgt. Phil DiMartino, a spokesperson for the department, said in a news release Monday.
A preliminary report indicated a marked police vehicle, a Ford Explorer, was traveling east on Bannister Road with its “overhead emergency lights and audible sirens” engaged, DiMartino said.
The vehicle slowed down before entering the intersection, DiMartino said, where a black Chevrolet Traverse “failed to yield” and struck the police vehicle on its passenger side.
The impact caused the police car to “roll over and slide into multiple vehicles” stopped on Bannister Road, DiMartino said.
The driver of the police vehicle and two occupants in the Chevrolet were transported to local hospitals with “what appear to be minor injuries,” DiMartino said.
According to the department’s emergency police vehicle operations procedure, officers are required to approach intersections cautiously.
“Although Missouri law requires motorists to yield to emergency vehicles, members should not assume that motorists see or hear emergency vehicle(s) until they actually yield,” the policy said.
Employees are allowed to proceed into an intersection after stopping or slowing down, the policy said.
