An Adam County Sheriff’s commander committed negligence by entering an intersection without emergency lights and causing a fatal crash, a federal court determined last week.

John Bitterman was reportedly responding to an emergency call on March 29, 2019 when he drove through a stop sign at the intersection of Highway 79 and East 88th Avenue north of Bennett. He collided with the car carrying Maria De Refugio Corral and her mother, Eira Saenz Sandoval. Sandoval died from her injuries.

Separately, two other deaths occurred at the intersection later that year, prompting Adams County and the Colorado Department of Transportation to improve visibility of the stop sign.

Bitterman received convictions for careless driving resulting in death and in serious bodily injury. Adams County Judge Leroy Kirby sentenced him to two years of probation and 250 hours of community service.

“I see police cars zipping around me with no lights on all the time,” Kirby said at the time. “They think because they are in a police car, ‘I can do whatever I want.’ That is not true.”

The Colorado State Patrol found Bitterman had not activated his emergency lights at the time of the crash. De Refugio Corral sued Bitterman for negligence, citing the requirement under Colorado law to yield the right of way at stop signs. There is an exception for emergency vehicles responding to calls for service, but under two conditions: that the driver slow down safely and use emergency lights or sirens.

The law also does not shield the driver for reckless conduct.

“[I]f there is no genuine issue of fact that Defendant Bitterman’s emergency lights were off when he entered the intersection,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter on Nov. 17, then the plaintiffs are entitled to a judgment without necessitating a jury trial.

Even without taking account of Bitterman’s criminal conviction, which Colorado prevents the court from considering, Neureiter reiterated the Colorado State Patrol investigator’s finding that the commander had only activated his lights during the crash – when his unbelted body hit the console.

“I find that, under Tenth Circuit precedent, five or six instances of responding to emergencies over a three-year period, where Defendant Bitterman ‘usually’ or ‘generally’ turned on his emergency lights, is not sufficient evidence of habit to be admissible to show that the lights were activated prior to the collision,” the magistrate judge decided, describing Bitterman’s account of his past conduct.

Without considering evidence of Bitterman’s alleged habit of turning on his lights, Neureiter found eyewitness testimony, the state patrol’s investigation and the subsequent discipline from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office to be persuasive.

“I conclude there is no genuine issue of material fact on the question of whether Defendant Bitterman violated state law in causing the accident by entering the intersection without his emergency lights activated,” Neureiter wrote.

Attorneys for Bitterman and the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is Estate of Eira Saenz et al. v. Bitterman et al.