Surveillance video showing a Denver bicycle officer being struck by a runaway vehicle illustrates just how violent the collision was, and how fortunate Officer John Adsit is to still be walking.
The collision occurred in December 2014, but the surveillance video was just released on Friday, when the driver involved -- Christopher Booker -- was formally sentenced to six years in community corrections.
HALO cameras captured the scene on Dec. 3, 2014 from two different angles. (Click on the video players above to see the raw videos from the High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras.)
The videos show Booker's black Mercedes striking four bicycle officers as they were cycling on East Colfax Avenue, escorting students who were marching in a protest.
A couple of officers fall to the side after they are hit but Adsit lands on the hood of the car and is dragged several feet before the car hits a curb and runs him over.
Adsit, a 9-year-veteran of the department, was critically injured and needed more than a dozen surgeries. He is still recovering and has not yet returned to the force.
"Booker lost control of his motor vehicle, accelerating from a stop, striking the bike officers, causing serious and bodily injury to several," DPD wrote in a statement.
Booker was not initially arrested because, at the time, Denver Police Chief Robert White said preliminary indications were that the crash was due to a medical condition.
However, Booker was charged three months later. The probable cause affidavit revealed that the officer who pulled Booker from his damaged car recognized the signs of a seizure and that Booker told investigators that he took medication for seizures.
Police checked with Booker's doctors and confirmed he had the condition for several years, but had never disclosed the condition on his applications for a driver license from the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles.
"It's our allegation that he was aware of his medical condition," said Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. "When you go to the DMV and you re-up for your driver's license you have to answer certain questions about your physical condition and it’s our position that he did not tell the truth about his medical condition on nine separate dates."
Booker pleaded guilty to vehicular assault and attempting to influence a public servant as part of a plea bargain back in October.
Community corrections means he will spend the next six years in a halfway house or under house arrest.
