Car 3, Where Are You? Were You Involved In An Accident?

A few days ago I noticed a new addition to the city's vehicle impoundment lot, which is located next to the DPW garage on Dock Street.  Though I have never been told what cars end up in the "pound," it appears that the locked and fenced area is used for abandoned vehicles which the city removes from our streets before they are either repossessed by the owners or sent to a scrap yard.  But the vehicle that caught my attention was certainly never an abandoned vehicle.  Rather, it was a city-owned vehicle that until recently could be seen being driven all around town.  It was HPD patrol vehicle #3, and it had obviously been hit by another vehicle at the driver's side rear wheel, likely damaging the rear axle and rendering the vehicle totaled. (Notice how misaligned the wheel is.)

According to the Hudson Police Department's vehicle accident report for the month of August 2023, there was an accident involving a HPD vehicle on the 31st at about 5 pm.  The only other detail that the report offers about the accident is that it occurred at "S 3rd St. at Montgomery Street."

This is not the result of a fender bender

11 days after that accident, our new Police Chief Mishanda Franklin gave her first monthly report to the council and the public, but no mention of the accident involving the police vehicle was made.  After the report, Council member Vicky Daskaloudi asked Mishanda if in her future reports she would include details of any accidents involving pedestrians that HPD has responded to during the previous month. Mishanda agreed to do so.

One month later at October's informal meeting, Chief Franklin gave her monthly report via Zoom, among other things offering some information about the 3 accidents involving pedestrians which HPD had responded to since the beginning of the year.  As the previous month, Mishanda made no mention of the accident involving one of her own officers while on duty in a police cruiser.  Apparently, a pedestrian was not involved in that accident, otherwise one presumes that mention of the accident would have been made. 

The reticence begs a few questions, doesn't it?  Such as:  If the HPD officer involved in the accident on August 31st was injured or killed (or if someone else was injured or killed), would there still not have been any mention of the accident?  Was anyone hurt or killed in the accident?  Which officer was driving (presumably) car #3 when it was involved in the accident on S. 3rd on August 31st?  Who was responsible for the accident/what are the details of the accident?  What is to become of car #3, and does HPD need to replace that vehicle?  

How does the Chief of Police include in a monthly report how many times HPD officers administered Narcan the previous month but fail to mention the fact that a department vehicle, presumably being driven by a HPD police officer, had been in an accident and the vehicle is no longer available to the department?  Did Mishanda forget to mention it, or did she do so intentionally?

A few years ago at an informal meeting following a shooting in the city, Police Chief Ed Moore failed to mention the shooting during his report to the council and public.  At the subsequent meeting, having once again failed to mention the shooting, I asked Ed why he had never mentioned it.  I forget what his response was (it was probably a deflection of some sort), but Sergeant Miller, seated in the audience, did claim that because there was an active investigation into the shooting, there could be no public mention of the incident.  His implication was that not even the simplest of details, like when and where it happened, could be broadcast in public.  (I believe that was the meeting that I was made to leave by the council president and escorted out City Hall's doors by Sgt. Miller.)