Court hears Hamilton officers’ memories from night driver sped through RIDE lane
Police officers take on their job knowing they will face danger, yet nothing could prepare Hamilton police working New Year's Eve for when a driver accelerated through a RIDE check, running over two officers without stopping, court heard.
Alexis Petrovic used to love working RIDE lanes and estimates she's worked hundreds of them. On Dec. 31, 2021, she and her fellow officers were happily interacting with drivers on the Claremont Access when out of nowhere a red 2020 Hyundai Sante Fe came crashing through the RIDE lanes, accelerating at her two colleagues so fast she didn't have a chance to warn them.
As the vehicle barrelled toward me I thought I am dead, or this is really going to hurt," she told a packed courtroom last week.
She pressed herself against the side of a car, hoping she wouldn't get hit. As the vehicle passed, speeding away, she saw two of her colleagues on the ground. She thought they were dead. She was left with a large bruise on her hip. But the bigger wound is the emotional toll she knows is also felt by other officers who know the same could happen to them.
I find it hard to be a victim, but I know that I am," she said.
My only recollection of being struck was seeing the headlights coming toward me," Zachary Meyer wrote in his victim impact statement, read by assistant Crown attorney Brett Moodie.
Meyer spent five days in hospital, where he required surgery and has lived in constant discomfort since. He suffered a broken tibia, has a metal plate and screws in his knee and has tissue damage in his right hand. His partner now fears every time he leaves the house for work.
Every night is a reminder to her that I could have been killed that night," he said.
No one thinks this could happen to them, and I didn't until I looked right and saw the car coming too late," Marlee Nicholson wrote in her victim impact statement, also read by Moodie.
The next flash of her memory is her sergeant's voice over the radio asking for help. She was laying on the ground and couldn't get up. She felt blood coming from her head; she couldn't move her limbs but she was breathing.
Nicholson spent the next week in hospital. She suffered fractures to both wrists, tibial plateau and left femur, all requiring surgery, and 16 stitches to the back of her head. Coming up on a year later, she still cannot smell, a symptom her doctor believes is from a mild traumatic brain injury that may never come back.
I went from loving my job and riding horses to being completely immobile and dependent on other people," she said.
The victim impact statements are among the many factors Ontario Court Justice Martha Zivolak is contemplating in sentencing Hannah Pietrantuono, the now 20-year-old who was behind the wheel in the midst of a five-day crack cocaine bender when she mowed down the officers.
This is an unprecedented case," Moodie told the court.
Not just because of the carnage at a RIDE lane, but because of Pietrantuono's own tragic life and actions leading up to and after that night.
Some might say the officers are lucky not to have been more hurt, but that's the wrong way to look at it, Moodie argued.
They ought not have been hurt at all. They were there to try to help people, not to become injured by this reckless conduct," he said.
Pietrantuono has pleaded guilty to six offences from the night of Dec. 31, 2021, including two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, failing to stop after causing a collision, dangerous driving, flight from police and resisting arrest.
She also pleaded guilty to multiple other offences related to stolen vehicles and fleeing from police before and after New Year's Eve.
Her interactions with Hamilton police on Dec. 31, 2021, began earlier in the day around 12:45 p.m. when police approached a woman sleeping with a bong in her lap in a vehicle at Fennell Avenue East and Hoover Crescent. Police pinned in the red SUV and turned off the ignition, but she resisted arrest, restarted the vehicle and rammed cruisers to escape.
Hours later, she drove that same SUV through the RIDE checkpoint.
Days later while police were searching for Pietrantuono, she stole a 2015 Dodge Caravan from a friend's restaurant on Jan. 5. Later that same day, she was speeding in that stolen minivan in Norfolk County when OPP tried to initiate a traffic stop, Moodie said.
Several police cruisers were involved in various points of the police chase that spanned from Jarvis, Haldimand County, to Port Dover, Norfolk County. She sped up through residential areas and never stopped, with police calling off the pursuit for public safety.
Before this string of offences, Pietrantuono had no criminal record.
I see a case like this as a tragedy on all fronts," Pietrantuono's lawyer Genevieve Eliany told the court.
She described Pietrantuono's background as quite heartbreaking" and with a shocking amount of trauma."
Court heard she had a traumatic childhood, including abuse, neglect and exposure to drugs. She has also been a witness in two homicide cases.
Eliany pointed to a witness statement from a now-deceased friend of Pietrantuono, who she called the night of Dec. 31.
He describes her as being scared out of her mind," Eliany said, adding that Pietrantuono was crying and said she didn't do it on purpose.
The friend also described her as a runner for someone else, adding that she was part of a bigger vehicle theft ring to fuel drug addiction.
The Crown is seeking a three-year sentence, plus a 10-year driving ban. The defence is asking for a two-and-a-half-year sentence, plus a five-year driving ban.
The case returns Dec. 15 for sentencing.
Nicole O'Reilly is a crime and justice reporter at The Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com