Kauai Policeman Charged With Negligent Homicide in Pedestrian Fatality
Victim had already been hit by a car and was run over a second time by the officer was responding to the scene.
A Hawaii police officer is facing up to five years in prison for allegedly striking a teenage pedestrian with his patrol car while responding to the scene of an accident earlier this year.
Officer Irvin Magayanes of the Kauai Police Department was arrested last week and charged with one count of second-degree negligent homicide, a Class C felony.
Officer Irvin Magayanes
The victim, Michael Kocher Jr., 19, was walking along a Kauai highway around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 4 when he was hit first by a driver in a Toyota Corolla. Magayanes was responding to the scene of that accident when he struck Kocher a second time.
Magayanes’s police powers have been revoked, according to The Garden Island, and he will appear in court Aug. 25.
No charges have been filed against the driver who first hit Kocher.
In a statement Friday, Kauai Police Department Chief Darryl Perry extended his sympathy to the Kocher family, as well as to Magayanes, “whose every intention that night was to assist in an emergency.”
