Questions still in officer's death

Only two people are known to have witnessed off-duty Moorestown Police Officer Craig Berner lose control of his motorcycle as the pickup truck approached.

One of them is Patrolman Berner, who's dead. The other is Sgt. William McGovern, the off-duty Burlington County detective who ran over Berner on a dark stretch of Westfield Road in Moorestown.

McGovern isn't talking, and an investigation by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office was concluded without any criminal charges being filed. But reports by those investigators, and documents obtained by my colleague Barbara Boyer, raise troubling questions about the late-evening tragedy of July 27, 2013, and its immediate aftermath.

New Jersey state police determined that Berner was heading east at 81 m.p.h. - 30 miles above the posted speed limit - when a dip in the road caused him to lose control of his 1995 Honda sport cycle. He hit the brake, was ejected from the bike, and landed in the westbound lane as McGovern's 2008 Ford F-150 approached from the east.

The state investigators could not calculate the pickup's speed. But they did find that McGovern, a 25-year Burlington County Prosecutor's Office veteran, did not cause Berner to lose control of his bike.

A married father of two teenagers, Berner was alive when his body was crushed by McGovern's truck. The autopsy by the Burlington County medical examiner also determined that his death was due to "multiple traumatic injuries."

Berner's helmet was found in five pieces. He was 52.

McGovern was disciplined administratively by Burlington County, which did not handle the criminal investigation due to the inherent conflict of interest. The 61-year-old Mount Laurel resident remains on the job, and can retire and begin receiving a pension in 2015.

McGovern's lawyer, John Sitzler, did not respond to a voice mail Thursday, or to a message I left with an employee at his Hainesport office Friday.

"I'm still waiting for answers to what I think are legitimate questions," Berner's widow, Carrie, told me. "It's like a puzzle with all these big pieces missing."

McGovern is being "shielded" from responsibility for any wrongdoing, added Carrie Berner, who also criticized the initial investigation of the crash.

In a statement Friday, Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said that because of the conflict, his office "relinquished control of the scene" to the state police and the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

"No actions were taken on that evening or at any time afterward to interfere with the investigation or influence the outcome," Bernardi said. His office extends its sympathies to the Berner family and does not wish to "engage in a debate," he added.

Carrie Berner, 52, has asked the New Jersey Attorney General's Office to intervene in the case. Her letter was "forwarded to the Division of Criminal Justice for review, as is standard for any matter related to police and prosecutors," spokesman Peter Aseltine said in an e-mail Friday. "I cannot comment further."

Some of the items on Berner's seven pages of questions have to do with alcohol.

McGovern, who is single and enjoys bow hunting, is described in the investigative reports as a social drinker and a regular at a number of local watering holes.

Hours before the fatal crash, he drank beer with others in the law enforcement community at the annual pig roast in Shamong Township hosted by a retired Maple Shade police sergeant.

Reports obtained by Boyer show that McGovern was involved in at least five motor-vehicle accidents between 1989 and 2009. A Mount Laurel police officer suspected that alcohol was a factor in a 1989 traffic accident in which McGovern left the scene and did not turn up until the following day.

But a DUI charge was not brought, and McGovern pleaded guilty to careless driving.

In a transcript of the 911 call McGovern made from the horrific scene on Westfield Road at 10:04 p.m., he told the dispatcher that the victim had been thrown from his motorcycle. "It looks like a vehicle might be involved afterward," McGovern said.

About 20 minutes later, a Moorestown police sergeant allowed him to leave in the pickup - which later was found to have "biological material" on its front end, and undercarriage.

(After a Burlington County police lieutenant called McGovern to summon him back to the scene, he explained that he'd gone to feed a friend's cat.)

While the reports describe McGovern as initially unclear about having a role in the fatality - saying he might have "clipped" something, perhaps debris, in the road - by 11 p.m. he told the county detective he "must have hit" Berner.

At this point, the reports show, witnesses had detected what they described as the odor of alcohol on McGovern's breath. He also was observed consuming gum and mints.

Nevertheless, the reports do not indicate that McGovern underwent any sustained questioning. As the hours passed, he remained at the scene but was not given any sort of sobriety test; he agreed, and then refused, to undergo a voluntary blood draw.

By the time bureaucratic and other steps to require McGovern to undergo a mandatory blood draw were completed, it was 4 a.m. No alcohol or drugs showed up in his system.

Clearly, what police encountered that night on Westfield Road - a colleague crushed to death, another a potential suspect - was terrible. Cops are human beings, too.

But they are professionals, trained to respond to emergencies. The absurdly protracted process of drawing McGovern's blood is reason enough for the Attorney General's Office to take another look at the case.