State investigators said the officer was following his department’s policy and not driving recklessly
Police cars are parked outside of Montgomery County Police's 1st District headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md. A Montgomery County police officer has been cleared in the high-speed pursuit of an intoxicated driver who crashed and died earlier this year, Maryland officials announced Tuesday.
Officer Antonio Copeland, a 17-year veteran of Montgomery’s force, was acting within department policy that allowed such pursuits and didn’t drive recklessly, according to the findings of a seven-month review by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division, which probes police-involved fatalities in the state.
Early that morning, while on duty in an unmarked car, Copeland noticed a Honda Accord making errant movements ahead of him along Rockville Pike, according to the attorney general’s report. He followed the car to a red light at Nicholson Lane, where it stopped. The officer got out, approached the Honda’s driver’s side window and asked the driver to pull over to the far left lane, the report states.Instead, the driver — Noraly Paz Chavez — took off and made a left on Nicholson, police said.
Chavez sped to Randolph Road and eventually crossed Veirs Mill Road and Connecticut Avenue. She then veered off the roadway, struck a fence and a guy wire to a utility pole, and was ejected from the car. Under Maryland guidelines, after the Attorney General’s Office finishes such investigations, local prosecutors decide whether to file charges. The situation in Montgomery has another step because prosecutors there for years have held an agreement with prosecutors in Howard County to review each other’s cases of police-involved deaths. In this case, Howard County prosecutors who reviewed the state’s investigation decided not to file charges.
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