Despite Wailing Siren, Oxnard Police Car Gets Hit

As an Oxnard police officer was moving slowly--with lights flashing and siren wailing--Monday night through a red light to respond to an officer’s call for assistance, a driver failed to yield and clipped the officer’s patrol car, police said.

Officer Wendy Gietzen was at the intersection of Pleasant Valley Road and J Street in Oxnard at 7 p.m. when she turned on her lights and siren, said Randey Cole, a traffic investigator for the Oxnard Police Department.

One other vehicle in the intersection yielded, but another, driven by Carolina Hancock, 68, of Oxnard, struck the left rear portion of the police car.

Gietzen summoned Oxnard firefighters and an ambulance, but while Hancock complained of head and neck pain, she refused to be taken to a hospital, Cole said.

Both Officer Gietzen and Hancock drove away from the scene. It was unclear whether Hancock would be ticketed for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle, but Cole said that an investigation is continuing.