Ohio officer’s dashcam video shows him running over college basketball player

Dec. 12 (UPI) -- The dashcam video from an Ohio police officer’s cruiser shows him running over Ohio Wesleyan University basketball player Caroline Walker, an incident that will likely leave her sidelined for quite a while. The junior player has spent the last few days healing up from numerous injuries, but her family members believe she is lucky not to have any broken bones.

The dashcam video shows officer Mark Jackson driving through Delaware on his way to a local bar to provide backup to other officers. When he takes a turn, his vehicle strikes Walker. The video shows Jackson hopping out of his car to check on Walker and then calling for backup.

Walker’s father, Rex, says that his daughter suffered a concussion and doesn’t remember anything about the accident.

"She was dog sitting, and her mother and I thought she was over with the dogs, and to find out, she'd been in the hospital for six hours without anybody getting a hold of us," Rex said.

In an email to WPEC, Delaware Police Chief Bruce Piganowski wrote that "the officer involved, Mark Jackson, has been cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian."

"He fully cooperated with the investigation. Pursuant to standard procedure, a urine sample was collected for analysis, the results of which are still pending. We do not anticipate that alcohol or drugs were any way involved in this incident. He does have a previous caution and counseling for a crash that occurred on Nov. 26, 2013."

Jackson has waived his court appearance and paid a fine.

The Walkers are focusing their energy on Caroline’s recovery, not her return to the court for OWU. "Get her in to school first is our first concern, back up, and of course, playing basketball is just secondary,” Rex said.

[WPEC]