The family of a commercial truck driver who was killed during a police pursuit has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit alleging the involved officers failed to follow department policy and state law.
The lawsuit, filed by the estate and family of Bohdan Vetrov, alleges a litany of mistakes and missteps made by the two officers. They reportedly chased a 16-year-old robbery suspect at high speeds through the residential Tillicum neighborhood of Lakewood early on June 29, 2023, culminating with the youth broadsiding a semitrailer driven by the 57-year-old Vetrov, a father of 7.
According to the lawsuit, the officers failed to notify a supervisor about the chase, didn’t take into account the dangers of pursuing a young, inexperienced driver, hadn’t been certified in any “pursuit intervention option,” as required by Lakewood policy and state law at the time, and created an unnecessary risk for citizens by not considering other methods to take the suspect into custody.
The officers, identified as Cole Craner and Sean Urckfitz, conducted an “unauthorized, unlawful, rogue police pursuit” and were acting with “intent to scare, endanger, or even harm the juvenile suspect rather than the legitimate law enforcement purpose of a safe arrest,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit, filed by Mark Lindquist, a former Pierce County prosecuting attorney, claims the officers knew the identity of the suspect in the robbery, which had occurred nearly five hours before the pursuit, and had other options to take him into custody, including waiting for him to exit his vehicle or coming back at another time. Instead, it claims, they laid in wait for him near his residence.
When the suspect arrived, the lawsuit claims he was “driving safely and obeying traffic laws” until he spotted the officers. Then he drove away at a high speed, running a stop sign and pulling away from the pursuing police.
The officers, in violation of Lakewood pursuit policy and state law at the time, “had not developed a plan to safely end the pursuit and had no basis to conclude the risk of failing to immediately apprehend the suspect outweighed the risk of a high-speed pursuit in the residential neighborhood.”
Pursuits have been a friction point between law enforcement agencies and police reform advocates, who have argued that they should be undertaken only in more dire circumstances where the suspect poses an imminent threat to public safety that exceeds the threat posed by the pursuit, and that no other method of apprehension is feasible.
In 2021, the Washington Legislature passed one of the most stringent police pursuit laws in the country, but police leaders voiced opposition, claiming the law had emboldened criminals and led to an uptick in stolen vehicles and auto thefts. Lawmakers loosened some of those restrictions two years later, and voters passed Initiative 2113 that further scaled back the law.
The law at the time of the 2023 crash stated the suspect of a pursuit must pose a serious risk to the public that outstrips the safety risks posed by the pursuit itself. It also said the pursuit must be necessary to identify an unknown suspect of a violent crime, but the lawsuit claims both officers already knew the suspect and where he lived.
The lawsuit alleges neither Craner nor Urckfitz contacted their sergeant before giving chase.
Lakewood spokesperson Kelie Kahler said Wednesday that the city does not comment on pending litigation.
Also named in the lawsuit is Lakewood police Chief Patrick Smith, who is accused of ratifying the officer’s actions by failing to ensure the city’s more than 100 sworn officers were properly trained in policy and changes in the law.
According to the family’s claims, neither officer involved in the pursuit was disciplined and no “meaningful review” was ever undertaken by department officials.
