The story so far is this: At around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 2, a cabdriver stopped near the corner of Belmont Avenue and Pine Street, and called the police to deal with his very drunk passenger (a white male who, apparently, had vomited in the cab). According to a witness, officers in Car 518 arrived, removed the drunk from the cab, and checked his ID—it seemingly had a clean record. The officers left the drunk where they found him, and, according to witnesses, he passed out on the sidewalk for 10 to 15 minutes.
The drunk finally got up, ran into the street, and was hit by an eastbound motorcycle that tried to avoid him. The hit caused the motorcyclist to fall, and the drunken man's head was badly injured and bled profusely. Witnesses called 911 and Seattle Police Cars 518, 574, and 647 responded to the scene, as well as Seattle Fire Department Ladder #10 and M-10, a medic unit. The drunk man, according to the fire department, was unresponsive and unconscious. They transported him to Harborview Medical Center for treatment—he arrived at the hospital at 6:15 p.m.
All of the interviewed witnesses believe the drunk man was dead by the time the Seattle Fire Department arrived, but the SFD spokesperson stated: "If he were dead, then the medical examiner would have been called... [And] we would not have taken him to the hospital." The witnesses also placed blame for the accident on the officers who first responded to the cabdriver's call. They believe the drunk should have been taken to detox instead of left out on the street. "There are some procedures the police must follow [when dealing with an intoxicated person]," said Lisa Herbold, aide to City Council Member Nick Licata, who chairs city hall's public-safety committee. "But it is really up to them to decide if a person is too drunk to get home and needs to go to detox." Evidently, the man was too drunk to even cross a street.
Most troubling of all is that after the accident the officers apparently did not take down any statements from witnesses, some of whom were surprised to find the incident went unreported in the press until it appeared on the Stranger's Slog just over a week later. "The whole thing happened very fast," said a witness. "The man was hit, was dead, and his body was removed in like five minutes." The SPD's media office at first had no information about the accident and, despite it being a serious one, the traffic collision investigation squad, which examines serious accidents, did not respond to the scene nor have a report of it.
However, the police eventually told us they had taken another look at their records and did find a report and were surprised that the traffic squad was not notified of the incident. "We are looking into this and will inform you of what we know when we have contacted the officers involved."
At press time, no one could confirm if the drunk was alive or dead.
UPDATE: The police have just informed us that man hit in the accident on Belmont and Pine on Saturday September 2 is alive. He left Harborveiw on September 11.
