GILROY
– A police officer was rushing to a vehicle-pedestrian accident
at about 8 this morning when his patrol car collided with a compact
car on Church Street at Eighth Street, injuring himself and two
others.
Officer Eric Garcia was expected to be airlifted to a San Jose
hospital, Gilroy Police Department Capt. Scot Smithee said at 8:30
a.m. at the scene of the wreck. Two people in the other car, a Geo
Metro, were injured as well.
GILROY – A police officer was rushing to a vehicle-pedestrian accident at about 8 this morning when his patrol car collided with a compact car on Church Street at Eighth Street, injuring himself and two others.
Officer Eric Garcia was expected to be airlifted to a San Jose hospital, Gilroy Police Department Capt. Scot Smithee said at 8:30 a.m. at the scene of the wreck. Two people in the other car, a Geo Metro, were injured as well. No information was known about any of their conditions as of press time this morning.
Of Garcia, Smithee said, “We think he’s OK.”
Despite the presence of two car seats in the back of the Geo, Smithee said neither of the people injured in that car was a child.
Smithee said Garcia was heading southbound on Church Street when the wreck occurred, but police could not provide details about how the accident happened as of press time, including what direction the woman driving the Geo was heading.
Garcia was responding to an accident between a driver and a pedestrian in the vicinity of Tenth and Hanna streets. No information was available about that accident as of press time.
California Highway Patrol officers are investigating the accident, as is standard when a city police vehicle is involved.
This was the second crash involving a Gilroy police car in less than seven weeks. On Jan. 8, Cpl. Jimmy Callahan was beginning to pursue a car full of burglars who had just hit the Zales Outlet jewelry store when his patrol car struck a tree. He suffered minor injuries.
