'I sat inside my car and started crying': Driver who accidentally struck officer testifies at murder trial
Passenger pleaded guilty to manslaughter in December, sentenced to 5 years in prison
The man who accidentally struck a Calgary police officer after he fell from a fleeing SUV he had been clinging to broke down in court Tuesday as he described finding Sgt. Andrew Harnett lying motionless on the roadway.
"I believed I killed someone," said Macksom Ogunsanya through tears as he testified on Day 2 of the first-degree murder trial of the teen who was behind the wheel of the fleeing SUV.
"I sat inside my car and started crying."
Harnett, 37, was killed on New Year's Eve 2020 after he was dragged 400 metres and then lost his grip on an a vehicle he was clinging to as it reached speeds of nearly 100km/h on Falconridge Boulevard N.E.
The driver was 17 years old at the time and can not be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He offered to plead guilty to manslaughter on Monday but prosecutor Mike Ewenson proceeded with the murder trial.
Ogunsanya's testimony Tuesday was the first time he had spoken publicly about the death of Harnett.
When he began telling the court about what happened on Dec. 31, 2020, Ogunsanya started crying and asked to sit down.
"You understand that nobody here is blaming you for what happened that night?" Ewenson reminded the witness.
After gathering himself, Ogunsanya told the judge that he had been invited to his father-in-law's northeast home when he got in his Toyota Corolla just after 11 p.m.
'He's not moving'
While driving down Falconridge Boulevard, Ogunsanya first noticed the speeding SUV coming toward him and then spotted a "black object coming from the car," he said.
"I thought maybe they threw something towards me," he said. "So I smashed my brake."
"Then I believe I hit the object."
Ogunsanya stopped right away and got out of his car.
"I look around then I saw a police officer on the floor. Immediately I realized that was what I hit," he said. "He's not moving, he's not speaking."
"I don't know what to do, I was shaking, how could this happen?"
Police arrive on scene
As he looked for his cellphone to call 911, Harnett's colleagues who had been at the traffic stop caught up to the scene. One worked to try to save Harnett, the other was on his phone calling for help.
Ogunsanya told the officers he was the one who had hit the injured officer.
They told Ogunsanya to wait in his car. That's when he says he broke down.
A few minutes into Ogunsanya's testimony, Ewenson suggested a break after the witness began sobbing.
Ogunsanya returned and answered a few more questions.
Defence lawyer Bob Aloneissi did not have any cross-examination questions for Ogunsanya.
Passenger pleads guilty
The passenger in the SUV on the night Harnett was killed was Amir Abdulrahman, 20, who pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of manslaughter. Last week, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
On Monday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Anna Loparco heard that Harnett had pulled over the SUV after noticing its lights weren't on.
He then discovered there were warrants out for Abdulrahman's arrest and that the driver did not have a valid licence.
By then, two colleagues had arrived to provide backup.
The plan was for Harnett to issue traffic tickets to the driver while his fellow officers arrested the passenger.
But before Abdulrahman could be arrested, the driver took off with Harnett hanging onto the driver's side of the SUV.
While fleeing, the driver tried to push Harnett off of the speeding vehicle.
Aloneissi will argue his client did not intend to kill Harnett and is guilty only of manslaughter.
The defence lawyer has already suggested through his cross-examination of Crown witnesses that Harnett should not have been holding onto the vehicle.