More than a year after an off-duty police sergeant smashed into a Brockton couple’s car when they were stopped at a traffic light with their baby boy sitting in the back seat, the family is still waiting for answers about the circumstances surrounding the crash.
An internal affairs investigation into the incident involving Sgt. Stanley David in May 2023 remains open.
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Jessica Nash and her fiancée, Damian Dorsey, told NBC10 that it has been tough to move on with so many unresolved questions.
“It’s unfair to us as the victims that nothing has happened,” Nash said. “No one’s been held accountable for anything.”
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Nash said she thinks about the crash every day. When she stops at red lights, she instinctively checks the traffic behind her to make sure there are no rapidly approaching vehicles.
In the early morning hours of May 19, 2023, Nash had picked up her fiancée from his warehouse job and headed home to Brockton. The couple’s 5-month-old son, Beckham, rode along in the back seat.
Surveillance video the NBC10 Investigators obtained shows what happened next.
Investigations
When the couple’s Jeep Cherokee came to a stop on Belmont Street a little after 1 a.m., a Dodge SUV approached the intersection and never appeared to slow down before the collision.
“It was literally like a bomb had gone off in our car,” Dorsey described. “The crash was so bad that the headrests came off the seats.”
According to the crash report, the force of the collision pushed the family’s vehicle about 300 feet through the intersection.
Before the couple and their baby boy left the scene in an ambulance, they said witnesses at the scene came to check on their condition and claimed the driver of the other vehicle was intoxicated.
But when the couple later received a copy of the Brockton police report, it said no witnesses provided a statement to officers.
It’s just mentally draining. I just don’t understand what the holdup could be.
Jessica Nash
They also noticed the driver only received a minor citation for a crash that had wrecked both vehicles. And according to the report, police did not conduct a field sobriety test.
That’s when they learned the other driver was Stanley David, an off-duty Brockton police sergeant who told fellow officers he “may have dozed off momentarily” before the crash.
When we broke the story last October, legal experts told us the incident raised major questions about conflict of interest. They questioned why Brockton police investigated a crash involving one of their own officers instead of referring it to an outside agency.
At the time we published our report, a police department spokesperson said the internal affairs investigation into the incident was almost finished.
However, more than seven months later, the case remains open.
“You’d think that this would be a priority to give us victims some closure from this, but it just seems like it’s gone under the rug,” Nash said.
At one point this year, Nash wrote almost daily emails to Chief Brenda Perez, asking for an update on the investigation. She said the police chief never responded to her messages.
We reached out to both Perez and Brockton Mayor Robert Sullivan with several questions about the situation.
“The matter is still under investigation,” was the brief response sent by Darren Duarte, a police department spokesperson.
The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
David, who did not respond to our inquiry for the original story, is next in line to get a promotion to lieutenant, according to Brockton’s civil service list.
It is not the first crash involving a Brockton police officer that raised transparency questions in recent years.
The police chief caused a serious three-car wreck in May 2021, but the incident flew under the radar until the NBC10 Investigators uncovered it.
Emanuel Gomes, who has since retired from the department, was eventually charged with negligent driving and his case was resolved last September when he admitted there were sufficient facts to find him guilty.
Shortly after we contacted the police chief and mayor’s office last week, the couple received an update from a police captain with the department’s internal affairs unit. His message indicated he hoped to have the final report in his possession this week.
“We’re just sitting around with our hands tied, waiting for someone to tell us something,” Nash said. “It’s just mentally draining. I just don’t understand what the holdup could be.”
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