Off-duty Brockton police officer crash remains under investigation – NBC Boston

More than a year after an off-duty police sergeant crashed into a Brockton couple’s car as they stopped at a traffic light with their young son in the back seat, the family is still waiting for answers about the circumstances of the accident.

An internal investigation into the incident involving Sergeant Stanley David in May 2023 is still open.

Jessica Nash and her fiancé Damian Dorsey told NBC10 that it was difficult to move on given the many unresolved issues.

“It’s unfair to us as victims that nothing happened,” Nash said. “Nobody was held accountable for anything.”

Nash said she thinks about the accident every day. When she stops at a red light, she instinctively looks at the traffic behind her to make sure there are no vehicles approaching quickly.

In the early hours of May 19, 2023, Nash had picked up her fiancé from his warehouse job and driven home to Brockton. The couple’s five-month-old son, Beckham, was in the back seat.

Surveillance video obtained by NBC10 investigators shows what happened next.

As the couple’s Jeep Cherokee came to a stop on Belmont Street shortly after 1 a.m., a Dodge SUV approached the intersection and did not even appear to slow down before the collision.

“It was literally like a bomb had exploded in our car,” Dorsey described. “The impact was so violent that the headrests fell off the seats.”

According to the accident report, the force of the impact threw the family’s vehicle about 90 meters through the intersection.

Before the couple left the scene of the accident in an ambulance with their young son, witnesses said they came to the scene to inquire about their condition, claiming the driver of the other vehicle was drunk.

However, when the couple later received a copy of the Brockton police report, it stated that no witness had given officers a statement.

They also noted that the driver had received only a minor ticket for an accident that destroyed both vehicles. And, according to the report, police did not conduct a breathalyzer test.

They then learned that the other driver was Stanley David, an off-duty Brockton police sergeant who told his colleagues that he “may have dozed off for a moment” before the accident.

When we broke the story last October, legal experts told us the incident raised significant conflict of interest questions, asking why Brockton police were investigating an accident involving one of their own officers rather than referring it to an outside agency.

A Brockton couple was standing at a stoplight late one night with their young son in the back seat when an SUV suddenly slammed into them. At the wheel of the vehicle that struck them? An off-duty Brockton police sergeant.

When we published our report, a police department spokesperson said the internal investigation into the incident was almost complete.

But more than seven months later, the case is still unresolved.

“You would think that closure would be a top priority for us victims, but it seems like the matter has just been swept under the rug,” Nash said.

This year, Nash emailed Police Chief Brenda Perez almost daily, asking for an update on the status of the investigation. She said the chief never responded to her messages.

We contacted both Perez and Brockton Mayor Robert Sullivan with several questions about the situation.

“The case is still under investigation,” was the brief response from Darren Duarte, a police department spokesman.

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

David, who did not respond to our request for the original story, is next in line for promotion to lieutenant, according to Brockton’s roster.

This is not the first accident involving a Brockton police officer in recent years that has raised questions about transparency.

The police chief caused a serious three-car crash in May 2021, but the incident went unnoticed until NBC10 investigators uncovered it.

Emanuel Gomes, who has since retired from the police force, was eventually charged with careless driving. His case was settled last September when he admitted there were enough facts to find him guilty.

Shortly after we contacted the police chief and the mayor’s office last week, the couple received an update from a police captain in the department’s internal affairs division, who said he hoped to have the final report in his hands this week.

“We’re just sitting there with our hands tied waiting for someone to tell us something,” Nash said. “It’s just mentally exhausting. I just don’t understand what the delay could be.”

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