Ever have a bad day at work? One of Jasper RCMP’s newest officer had an exceptionally bad one recently when he hit and killed a deer with his police car.

The officer struck the deer on the north end of Connaught Drive sometime around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, May 4.

According to Sgt. Dave Maludzinski of the Jasper RCMP detachment, the officer in question was responding to a call for back up on Highway 16. The officer had just put on his flashing roof lights and was picking up speed when the crash happened. Lights from a passing motorist affected visibility for the officer, and before he could swerve, a crash ensued, significantly damaging the police car, and injuring the deer. It was later put out of its misery on the side of the road.

“I’ve watched the video myself and the deer just appears. There’s hardly any time to react,” said Sgt. Maludzinski.

Significant damage was done to the car. The front left side was pushed up considerably and large amounts of blood was visible on the front and side of the car.

Sgt. Maludzinski said he had spoken to the officer in question and advised him to be extra careful when driving around town, especially on that section of road as deer and elk are frequently there.

“It’s just a bad spot for deer and elk. I told him to really watch out there, and to just really keep his eyes open all of the time,” said Sgt. Maludzinski.

He said that the RCMP is currently in the process of investigating the crash and is examining videotape and GPS data from the crash. The GPS data should give the RCMP an exact picture of how fast the officer was traveling when the crash happened.

The crash also means the Jasper detachment’s fleet of four official police vehicles is now down to three. Sgt. Maludzinksi said the lost vehicle would not affect operational duties at the detachment (patrols, responses to calls, etc.) but it does mean that sending officers to training exercises in places like Edmonton will be more difficult. Officers will have to use their own vehicles for such trips, and the costs of paying for their mileage will come out of the department’s operations budget.

“It’s a big pain,” said Sgt. Maludzinski.

Perhaps worse, he said that the money to pay for the repairs to the cruiser would be coming out of the detachment’s operational budget. Sgt. Maludzinski said that he had plenty of other things that he would rather spend the money on.

He estimated the costs to the damaged cruiser would be in the $6,000 range, perhaps more.

The car is also the newest cruiser in the Jasper RCMP’s fleet. 

“It’s not a good situation all around,” said Sgt. Maludzinski.