Hit and run in Calgary: Taxi driver charged in fatal 16th Avenue crash

Police have charged a 70-year-old taxi driver in connection with a fatal hit-and-run in northeast Calgary early Wednesday morning.

Emergency crews were called at about 3:20 a.m. MT after a body was found on the road outside the Calgary Co-op store on 16th Avenue near Fifth Street N.E.

The driver ran over the 16-year-old girl and kept driving, police say.

"There was no effort made by the cab driver to check and make sure this girl was OK or anything else,” said traffic section Insp. Paul Stacey of the Calgary Police Service. 

The taxi's dash-cam recorded the collision, he said.

The girl was lying on the road when the vehicle ran over her, and investigators don’t know why, Stacey says. But police are convinced her death was caused by the collision.

"The evidence we were able to obtain after that point, that convinced us that the cab driver absolutely knew he had hit somebody,” Stacey said.

Closed-circuit footage from nearby businesses and evidence from the scene led investigators to determine she was hit by the taxi, police say.

Detectives identified the suspect using the taxi company’s onboard GPS technology.

There is no evidence to suggest the cab driver was drunk when he hit the girl, police say.

The man is charged with hit and run causing death.

He has been released from custody on $10,000 bail under conditions, which include that he surrender his passport, not drive a vehicle and abide by a curfew. His next court date is set for April 9.