New Bedford police officer failed to render aid after fatal motor vehicle accident

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NEW BEDFORD — A city police officer was suspended for three days without pay in May after investigators found she failed to render medical aid to a woman who ultimately died after being struck by a car this winter. 

The Jan. 30 accident made headlines. A car operated by Ruby Quiroa Santos spun out on Route 18 into a snowbank around 9 p.m. and landed against a guardrail next to the left lane, according to a police report. The roads still bore remnants of the storm that had dumped a foot of snow just days earlier. It appears Santos was unhurt after the initial crash, per police reports.

Three New Bedford police officers responded to the scene, one of whom was Officer Jenna Touchette, a police report said. Santos’ sister also arrived on scene in an Audi with two other people to give Santos a ride. One officer left, while Touchette and another officer returned to their flashing blue-light cruisers to wait for a tow truck and State Police. One cruiser (Touchette’s) was positioned in front of the disabled car and the Audi. One was positioned behind the disabled car. 

Minutes later, a Honda sedan struck Santos and her sister, who were about to enter the Audi, according to State Police records; the report said both were “thrown a distance” from the impact. The Honda also struck the rear police cruiser and the Audi. Santos, 23, was pronounced dead the following day at St. Luke’s Hospital. 

A department investigator said that based on body-worn camera footage, Touchette stood there for a few minutes after the crash without providing aid while the other city officer attended to several victims (the Honda sedan had a driver and two passengers).

“For almost 3 full minutes you walked around the injured victims lying on the ground and failed to provide any type of medical aid to them,” reads a letter signed by Police Chief Jason Thody and addressed to Touchette. “You admitted to these facts in your interview. One of those victims would succumb and die from her injuries the next day.”

Thody’s letter notes police officers in Massachusetts receive annual training in CPR and first aid.

“One of your primary functions as a police officer is to act as an emergency first responder and provide basic medical aid to victims you encounter during your tour of duty,” the letter continues. “It is evident in this case that you failed to do exactly that and instead, admitted to being mentally disconnected and distraught by the event.”  

Touchette violated two department policies by failing to provide first aid to injured parties under the crime and disaster scene integrity policy, and improperly performing duties by neglecting to perform assigned duties. 

“The New Bedford Police Department’s reputation and overall effectiveness depend on the behavior of its staff. Your failure to comply with the department’s rules and regulations has adverse consequences, not only for your own standing as a valuable employee but also for the department’s image and functioning as a whole,” Thody wrote. “Any future incidents may result in more severe disciplinary action, up to and including termination.” 

One of the many violations that appears in the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission’s database is failure to render aid. It only appears a few times in the almost 1,200-page dataset of violations by officers. It is possible other departments did not report the incidents to POST.

Touchette’s violation does not appear in the POST data, which was updated July 31. NBPD spokesperson Holly Huntoon in an email said the department did not notify the POST Commission of the violations, determining “it was not subject to the Commission’s mandatory reporting requirements.”

A spokesperson for the POST Commission, however, said that while it does not comment on specific cases, “allegations of the type described in [The Light’s] email do not fall within the limited ‘minor matter’ exception and must therefore be reported by the officer’s employing law enforcement agency to POST.”

The spokesperson said when the commission learns of a matter “that should have been reported by a law enforcement agency but was not, we take the necessary steps to review and address it.” 

In most cases in the U.S., failing to render aid would be a policy violation by police, not a legal one, especially when the person isn’t in police custody and the victim’s condition is not a result of police force (such as a shooting or other forms of excessive force). 

The Marshall Project reported years ago that there is no federal law mandating police officers to provide first aid directly. In one incident, a New York City police officer failed to render aid to a child experiencing an asthma attack (the officer pulled the child and her mother over while she was driving to the hospital). The child died and the family sued the police officer, but the case was dismissed because there was no law mandating CPR training for police in New York. The case later resulted in the passage of a state law mandating CPR training of police officers.

Massachusetts, as Thody noted in his letter, requires annual CPR and first aid training through the state’s Municipal Police Training Committee. It’s a minimum of six hours each year: three hours of hands-on practical instruction, and three hours of classroom-based first-aid instruction, per NBPD. 

Officers complete the training on a three-year rotating curriculum that covers medical emergencies, airway management, CPR, head and spinal injuries, tourniquet use and dressings to help with blood clotting, among other areas. The curriculum also covers “legal and ethical responsibilities.”

Since late 2024, when the policy on rendering medical aid took effect, NBPD has only sustained one violation: the one against Touchette, according to Huntoon. 

The scene

Touchette’s cruiser, parked in front of all the other cars, was not struck by the sedan, but she told investigators she heard a “loud thud” at the rear while she was in the cruiser, potentially one of the women colliding with it.  

The other officer on scene with Touchette, Johangel Lorenzo, was also hit while in his cruiser, having to climb out of it to provide aid. He was subsequently taken to the hospital as well and went out on injured duty for about three weeks. 

Ultimately eight people, including Lorenzo, were taken to the hospital. 

Lorenzo first helped “distraught” vehicle occupants and kept them out of the roadway before checking one of the two women lying in the road, noting it appeared she was breathing, the internal investigator wrote based on body camera footage. There were three occupants in the Honda and two occupants in the Audi at impact. He gave one person a sternal rub, a medical technique, after they collapsed.

The internal affairs report briefly describes what Touchette did at the scene, based on body camera footage. But it does not describe her minute-by-minute, nor second-by-second, actions in the three minutes before more officers and medics arrived. 

Touchette stepped out of her cruiser and put on latex gloves. After Lorenzo checked the woman in front of Touchette, Touchette called in over the radio to report the second crash and request help, but she did not retrieve her medical bag, the investigator wrote. 

The bag, found in every cruiser, contains a manual breathing unit, sterile water, ice packs, an emergency oxygen face mask with an oxygen tank, bandages and trauma shears. Cruisers also have “go bags” with tourniquets. 

“It does not appear in this video Off. Touchette checks on any of the parties laid out on the ground nor does she attempt to retrieve the medical bag from her cruiser,” reads the investigative report.

After about three minutes, crash detectives from the department arrived on scene and “immediately beg[a]n attending to the two females in the roadway,” the report says. Medics arrived soon after.  

Asked about her failure to respond, Touchette told investigators that “this call hit me hard” and that it was “almost like I wasn’t there in a sense.” 

“I feel like I wasn’t, like, physically there, but I was able to like, verbally spit things out,” Touchette, who has served the department for 15 years, told investigators. She described the scene as “chaos.” 

Asked if she assumed the women were back in their car when she got in her cruiser before the second crash, Touchette said she wasn’t sure “how they ended up back outside the car” and that they were “walking back there.” 

She was also asked if she and the other officer deployed flares at the scene to divert traffic before the second crash. She said they did not. Their emergency lights were flashing. 

“This investigator recognizes that a multi-casualty scene of this nature is a very stressful situation, [but] the expectation that an officer render first aid to the injured parties when capable of doing so is the most basic and mandatory of duties,” the NBPD report reads. “This reaction or lack thereof created an ever more dangerous situation than was already present.” 

Anthony First, a paramedic and patrol supervisor who trains officers in first aid for the Tulsa Police Department, said minutes in an emergency can make a difference in patient outcome, but also said that some traumatic injuries cannot be helped. 

According to a State Police report, Santos “was given a poor prognosis by trauma doctors” and would need “extensive treatment in order to attempt life saving measures,” while Santos’ sister was in “critical condition.”

The training that First provides in Oklahoma is modified from military technique and procedure. It’s called tactical emergency casualty care and involves putting recruits through “stress inoculation,” in which they are pushed to practice first aid with high heart rates.

“We up it, we up it, we up it, until eventually in our training, we can throw whatever we want to at them and they’re doing exactly what they should do,” First said. 

“I’ve seen body camera footage of officers either freezing up or making mistakes that would otherwise have been preventable had the training been done better,” First said. He also emphasized that the critical cases first responders see can be challenging mentally and may cause post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Police, fire and EMS used to exist in different lanes, with different tasks, First said. But in recent years, those lanes have crossed, creating “pretty new legal territory.”

City withholding body camera footage

Deputy Chief Derek Belong in February requested an internal investigation be opened to review whether responding officers followed proper medical protocols, according to an email provided by NBPD along with the internal affairs report. 

The city, however, hasn’t provided body camera footage that The Light requested for Touchette and other officers. The city is withholding it, citing an ongoing investigation and privacy interests of the victims.

The Light appealed with the state supervisor of records, who ruled that the city did not sufficiently explain how all body-camera footage could be exempt from disclosure in its entirety. The city has the ability to redact both visual and audio elements of the footage.  

“While the identifying information of victims and voluntary witnesses may be withheld, the Department has not sufficiently explained how the withheld records contain confidential investigative techniques that would be prejudicial to an ongoing investigation if disclosed,” wrote Manza Arthur, the state supervisor of records, late last month. 

The city in response late last month said it is withholding the footage at the request of the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office so as to not interfere with the defendant’s due process.

Megan Chor of New Bedford, the driver of the Honda, was charged with motor vehicle homicide, operating while under the influence and negligence, according to an email sent last week from Jennifer Sowa, deputy district attorney with the Bristol County DA’s office. It’s the first piece of information the office has announced since a Feb. 1 press release on the accident.

According to court filings, Chor, 43, was charged in mid-July and arraigned the first week of August. Her blood alcohol level was about .09, just above the legal limit, according to a State Police report. She allegedly told police she had two or three shots of vodka hours earlier while cooking, the report said. 

Chor’s attorney declined comment.  

The Light contacted Touchette for comment but did not hear back. Department policy prohibits officers from speaking to the press without permission from the police chief. It is another policy violation that can be disciplined. 

“Without question this incident is a tragedy, and we express our sorrow and condolences to Ruby’s family,” wrote Officer Lorenzo Gonzalez, the police union president, in an email on behalf of Touchette. “Officer Touchette, who was on scene prior to the crash happening, has also been affected by this incident and also expresses deep sorrow to Ruby’s family for their loss.”  

Touchette is currently appealing her discipline.

The Light attempted to contact members of Santos’ family for comment before publication, but did not hear back after an initial response from one member. 

A pretrial hearing for Chor’s case is set for Oct. 15 in New Bedford District Court. 

Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.

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