Manitoba RCMP constable convicted after crash between police car, 2 other vehicles in Portage la Prairie

A Manitoba RCMP constable who got into a crash as she responded to a call in 2023 has been convicted of driving without due regard for safety.

The collision happened when Const. Rawanjot Pandher, 32, was on duty in Portage la Prairie, about 85 kilometres west of Winnipeg, on the afternoon of June 30, 2023. She got a high-priority call about someone who said an air pistol had been held to their head, provincial court Judge Robert Heinrichs said in court on July 8.

Pandher turned her police lights and siren on and sped east on Saskatchewan Avenue, driving at high speed along the median lane as other vehicles sat stopped in the other lane at a red light.

As she went through the intersection, Pandher was hit on the driver's side, causing her vehicle to slide into another vehicle that was stopped, Heinrichs said.

The police vehicle event data recorder showed Pandher was going 104 km/h five seconds before the crash, then sped to 116 km/h over the next three seconds. The speed limit of that section of Saskatchewan Avenue is 60 km/h.

The data showed the brakes were only applied in the last second before the crash, Heinrichs said.

Though Pandher testified she had her lights and sirens on and other vehicles knew she was coming through, some witnesses who were also driving nearby at the time of the crash said they didn't notice those indicators before the crash happened, the judge said.

"Const. Pandher was wrong to assume that people knew she was there," said Heinrichs.

"It would not be surprising if some of the drivers would not observe what all of the other traffic was doing, or that they would be listening to the radio or talking on their phone, or perhaps be hard of hearing and not hear the siren."

Situation was an emergency: judge

Heinrichs said he was satisfied the situation constituted an emergency that would allow Pandher to speed and disregard traffic signals, but noted it also happened on a busy Friday before a summer long weekend.

"The time of day, the amount of traffic and the speed at which Const. Pandher was travelling when she went through a red light without slowing down to observe all of the traffic are such that I find she did not adequately consider the safety of other drivers or pedestrians at the time of the collision," the judge said, adding that "thankfully" there were no lasting physical injuries from the crash.

However, he also acknowledged Pandher was at the time responding to an emergency call that "may in fact, based on what she was hearing, have been quite urgent."

"I don't know what goes through someone's mind when you hear that it's a gun call and there's somebody holding a gun to somebody's head," Heinrichs said.

"It may be in fact that it wasn't all that serious — but you don't know that when you're getting called. You just don't know the circumstances of that."

While Crown attorney Nick Reeves asked for a $300 fine, Heinrichs ultimately sided with defence lawyer Josh Weinstein, who noted Pandher is a first-time offender with no previous driving incidents or negative performance reviews at work and asked instead for a reprimand.

"A fine certainly wouldn't have been out of the question," Heinrichs said. 

"But given her personal circumstances and the circumstances of this case, where she was responding to an emergency call, it makes me believe that that is a sentence that, while lenient, is possible in this circumstance."