Pierce deputy drove 83 mph in wrong lane during deadly 2020 crash

Shots fired. A drive-by.

Lopez booted up his lights and siren, maneuvering his white Ford Explorer south past Tacoma city limits. Lopez stopped to check for cross traffic before proceeding through three stop-signed intersections and one traffic light, he later wrote in a statement submitted by a union-appointed attorney. 

Driving west on a four-lane arterial, Lopez steered into the left lane and started passing vehicles. He accelerated past the 40-mile-per-hour speed limit, hitting 60, then 70. As he approached a red light at a major intersection, he noticed traffic beginning to pile up and slow to a stop near a Wells Fargo bank. 

It can be hard to predict how drivers respond to a siren, Lopez later said during a deposition. Many pull over to the right, but some pull over to the left. Others abruptly stop. That’s why it’s crucial to leave enough time to respond to unpredictable road conditions, multiple Pierce County law enforcement officers later testified in civil proceedings.

As he approached the red light, Lopez did not slow down. He pressed the pedal as far as it would go. He passed 80 miles per hour as he veered over the yellow double line into oncoming eastbound lanes, which looked empty. 

He hit 81. He hit 82. In the moment before he noticed a small green Honda turning left, Lopez was driving 83 miles per hour.

“There’s no way he could stop,” one witness told a Washington State Patrol investigator. “He was just going too fast.”

Lopez swerved and jammed on the brakes, but an investigative analysis later concluded that he would have needed 337 feet in front of him to avoid a collision. He had just 120 feet.

His patrol vehicle T-boned the Honda, crumpling the driver’s side door and pushing it more than 45 feet over a curb and onto a rocky embankment. The driver of the Honda, a 31-year-old mother named Maria Teresa Magana Bedolla, died at the scene. Her two adult passengers suffered injuries. 

Lopez reported no injuries. He returned to duty two weeks later.

Newly obtained records on the April 2020 crash detail how investigators deferred to Lopez’s judgment on speeding into oncoming lanes and shifted responsibility to Magana Bedolla. The county prosecutor’s office declined to pursue charges despite an internal sheriff’s department review board classifying the collision as highly preventable. In 2022, Pierce County officials quietly settled with Magana Bedolla’s family for $3.5 million. 

Washington law permits first responders to speed and drive in the wrong lane en route to emergencies if they use lights and sirens. And though officers can be held criminally liable if their driving is found to be reckless, the legal standard used across the nation – which requires officers to show “due regard” for others’ safety – can be subjective and difficult to enforce.

Cascade PBS found that international first responder organizations strongly discourage driving in the wrong lane, and police practices experts have described driving choices similar to Lopez’s as a dangerous breach of duty.

Minutes after the deadly crash, another deputy arrived at the scene of the reported drive-by shooting. A resident at the house told him no shooting had occurred. The deputy spent two minutes and 21 seconds at the scene before clearing it.