The name of a woman killed in a motor vehicle crash early Saturday morning was released by the Juneau Police Department on Monday.
Ruth Carol Baz, 59, was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by an 18-year-old woman while crossing Egan Drive, according to JPD.
Baz is the latest of a series of automobile-related crashes resulting in fatalities and injuries over the last few weeks. Cramer Marquez Sexton, 48, was killed while driving a motorcycle after striking a bus downtown, and a 13-year-old girl riding a bicycle was struck and severely injured by a vehicle near Gold Creek on June 25.
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None of the results for any of the three investigations have yet been released. No charges for any of the three incidents have been announced yet.
All three incidents are currently under investigation. For JPD, those investigations occur on the auspices of the JPD Major Accident Response Team, which leads investigations for serious or fatal motor vehicle crashes, said Erann Kalwara, JPD’s public safety manager,
“A fatality motor vehicle collision is managed similar to any other death investigation. JPD conducts the same investigative steps as we would for a homicide until proven otherwise,” Kalwara said. “That includes interviews with witnesses and involved parties, attempts to retrieve any evidence including the vehicles themselves, 3D scans, video footage, and anything else deemed necessary for the case.”
The plenitude of evidence can be one of the things that draws out a serious motor vehicle crash investigation, said Deputy Chief David Campbell.
“We treat all (motor vehicle crash) deaths as though they’re suspicious until we prove otherwise. We do that so we don’t take shortcuts or miss other things,” Campbell said in a phone interview. “With motor vehicle incidents, we have more resources available to us than usual. There’s a lot of evidence associated with motor vehicle incidents.”
Investigators from the JMART will gather evidence from many sources, including the roadway, local weather conditions, and toxicology reports for all parties involved, be they drivers, pedestrians, or others who were significantly involved in the crash, Campbell said.
“If you’re doing a thorough investigation, you’re not going to shut it down until you answer those questions,” Campbell said. “When we have those things, we do ask things like, was the driver impaired. We would run the driver through a field sobriety test or take them to a hospital to do a blood draw. And that’s assuming the driver isn’t the person who died.”
Many components of the investigation, such as getting autopsy reports on the casualties from the state medical examiner’s office or getting toxicology reports back, can take weeks or months.
“The investigation into a motor vehicle fatality is very comprehensive,” Campbell said. “Getting the final report back from (the medical examiner’s office), that might take a while.”
Not making assumptions but covering all possibilities, including getting toxicology reports for all parties involved in the crash, is part of the investigation, Campbell said.
“We do it to be thorough,” Campbell said. “We don’t assume the (hypothetical) pedestrian was drunk. That’s not how you do a police report.”
Each investigation is different, and can take time to investigate, Kalwara said, just like other kinds of serious cases.
“Each case develops differently depending on circumstances and access to information,” Kalwara said. “They can take a long time to investigate, just like a homicide or serious assault that doesn’t involve a vehicle.”
In cases where an impaired driver was involved in a motor vehicle crash— which there is no indicator is the case at this stage of the three investigations — the charges they face depend on the facts of the case, Campbell said.
“It really depends. It escalates depending on the severity of the level of injury,” Campbell said. “It’s very very serious.”
• Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at (757) 621-1197 or mlockett@juneauempire.com.
