San Jose police officer nearly splits patrol SUV in two, takes out power pole

San Jose police are investigating an accident involving one of their own, that damaged a utility pole, and knocked out power to a portion of the Alma neighborhood in San Jose.

PG&E crews spent much of Friday trying to repair the damage. They hope to restore service sometime Friday evening.

The damaged San Jose police SUV sat nearly split in two, after the driver crashed into a utility pole in the 100 block of West Alma Avenue. Cell phone video shows the scene shortly after impact.

An officer was driving their patrol SUV when they crashed into a utility pole, knocking out power in the Alma neighborhood. No on was injured.

Police officials, who declined an on-camera interview, said around 1 a.m., the officer was driving westbound on Alma. For an unknown reason, he lost control, hit the curb on the center median, then careened across both lanes of traffic and collided with a utility pole. 

PG&E officials said 6,200 customers lost service, including business owner Heidi Nguyen.

“Yeah! (I’m losing) a whole lot (of money). Who will repay it to me? Will we (ask) PG&E or the police department to pay it to us? How do you think? You don’t know and I don’t know too. I hope they will fix it today,” said Nguyen.

Police department brass declined to say how fast the officer was driving at the time of the accident, but have not indicated he was on an emergency call, with lights and-or sirens. 

The amount of damage to the vehicle suggest it was traveling above the posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour.

“We are human, we do make mistakes. But if do make a mistake, you want the impact of that to be minimal,” said Nikita Sinha, a program director for Walk San Jose. “Just because it’s in the middle of the night and you feel nobody else will be out, you still have to be extremely care about the speed you’re going at.”

PG&E crews hope to restore service to the impacted section of Alma Avenue by 7 p.m. Friday.

San Jose police said the unidentified officer was not injured.