Soon after police released photos of the SUV, the car was located. Police interviewed the driver, and now say the SUV was not involved in Wednesday's accident.
Police are no longer looking for any other vehicles involved in Wednesday's incident, says Halifax Regional Police spokesperson Pierre Bourdages.
But while the hunt was on for a white SUV, The Coast learned that on May 7 of this year, a white SUV struck a bicyclist at the corner of North and Robie Streets, just one block west of the site of Wednesday's incident. The bicyclist received "minor injuries," confirms Bourdages.
In the May incident, the female driver of the white SUV drove away from the scene without stopping, and headed north on Robie Street. Another driver, who had witnessed the incident, followed behind the white SUV until the SUV "pulled into a garage," says Bourdages. The witness informed the driver of the SUV that she had struck a bicyclist.
At that point, the driver of the SUV drove to the police station on Gottingen Street, says Bourdages. She was given a ticket for a motor vehicle infraction for “Changing Lanes Unsafely,” which comes with a fine of $222.41. The driver was not charged with leaving the scene, because she said she did not know she had hit the bicyclist.
Despite an injured bicyclist, and at least the appearance of a hit-and-run, police did not publicize the incident. The Coast asked about it Thursday, but the incident still has not been added to the police department's web page dedicated to police reports.
The Coast has reason to believe the driver of the SUV has a connection to the police department, but Bourdages will not release her name. That the incident wasn't made public in May only serves to arouse suspicions of a coverup.
This incident underscores the importance of making the entire police blotter public. Had the blotter been public record in May, the accident with the bicyclist would be part of the public record, like all other incidents, and police could not be accused of treating this incident any differently than any other incident. Full public disclosure serves to protect the reputation of the police department.
The Coast has been advocating for making the police blotter a public record since 2009. Last March, the department announced that it would be the first police department in Canada to make the blotter public, but the roll out of the public blotter has been repeatedly delayed.
Now, deputy chief of police Bill Moore says the "beta" version of the public blotter will be out in January, with some modifications coming some time after.
Related to this discussion is another public records issue. It is the department's long-standing practice to not publicly release the names of people charged with motor vehicle infractions—for example, the name of the driver who struck a bicyclist in May. If the ticketed person doesn't contest the ticket in court, and instead just pays the fine, his or her name will never become public.
Thursday, we asked Bourdages to provide a justification for withholding names. He said he would ask Moore, who is the department's public information officer. As of this writing, Moore hasn't responded.
But roughly similar to motor vehicle infractions are city bylaw infractions, which are routinely released, for example, here. It makes no sense that the name of someone whose dog is loose in the neighbourhood is made public, but the name of someone who drives into and injures a bicyclist is not.
