Officer cleared of crash charges

Rocky Mountain News

Published June 13, 2008 at 10 p.m.
Updated June 13, 2008 at 10 p.m.

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An undercover Denver police officer was acquitted by a Jefferson County jury Friday of charges of running a stop sign and hitting a car driven by a school teacher last August.

Clement David Bourgeois, 39, was found not guilty of careless driving causing serious bodily injury, a misdemeanor.

The jury of five women and one man deliberated for two hours after a day and half trial.

On Aug. 22, Bourgeois, a member of the Denver Fugitive Unit, was in pursuit of a suspect from a Denver stakeout which went into a residential neighborhood in Lakewood.

He did not have emergency lights or siren on the black pickup truck he was driving at the time, and according to witnesses, he was going 60 mph in a 30 mph zone.

Bourgeois ran a stop sign at W. 9th and Gray streets, and hit a car driven by 53-year-old Edith Mack, a tutor at Molholm Elementary School, which was only a block away.

The collision caused Mack's car to flip over and trap her inside. She had to be cut out of the vehicle and suffered fractures to her pelvis and sacrum, traumatic brain injury and bruised internal organs.

Mack, who spent six weeks at a hospital and a rehabilitation center for her injuries, could not be reached for comment Friday.

After the crash, Denver police had launched an investigation into whether Bourgeois had violated the department's pursuit policy, but it was not known Friday what the outcome was.

• June 13, 2008

  10:48 p.m.

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