On a clear afternoon last month, Samantha Sakowski pulled her Nissan Pathfinder into a turn lane on Fowler Avenue.
Sakowski, 36, was working that day for a grocery delivery service and had just left a Walgreens with items to drop off at a customer’s home in Temple Terrace. Her three daughters were riding along with her.
Sakowski let off the brake and started a left turn across Fowler’s westbound lanes onto North Drive. At that moment, a Temple Terrace police officer crashed his patrol SUV into the passenger side of the Nissan at 74 mph.
Sakowski’s 6-year-old daughter, Leila, who was riding in the back seat, died at a hospital a couple of hours later. Sakowski and her other two daughters, ages 1 and 8, were seriously injured.
On Tuesday, after a four-hour hearing, a Tampa judge decided the now-former cop charged with vehicular homicide should have the opportunity to bond out of jail.
The hearing provided a look at how Zachary Krug’s defense attorneys, if the case goes to a jury, will try to explain why he was driving so fast that day: He was trying to catch up with a red-light runner.
Krug, 25, was fired and arrested Thursday on vehicular homicide and reckless driving charges in connection to the April 15 crash after investigators determined he drove his unmarked Ford Explorer through a red light and hit speeds topping 100 mph in a 50-mph zone seconds before the crash.
The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office filed a motion arguing that the facts of the case show a man whose job was to keep the community safe was now a danger to the very same community.
During the hearing, Krug, who also hospitalized after the crash, sat mostly motionless in a wheelchair at the defense table. He was clad in a red jail jumpsuit, a brace encircling his neck, his right leg bandaged.
A member of the department’s traffic enforcement unit, Krug was scheduled to begin his shift at at 3:30 p.m. that day. He logged into his in-car laptop at 3:37 p.m. while driving south on Interstate 75, according to city records.
Prosecutors played portions of video recorded by Krug’s dash camera. It shows him heading east on Fowler, pulling up to a red light at Morris Bridge Road, activating his lights briefly and driving through the red light.
A speed indicator in the corner of the video showed Krug accelerating as he continued west, hitting a top speed of 104.74 mph. The Explorer’s data recorder showed Krug braked about four seconds before the crash, slamming into Sakowski’s Pathfinder at 74 mph. It was 3:41 p.m.
The video played in court Tuesday was edited to end just before the catastrophic impact, but Assistant State Attorney Dawn Hart put into evidence photos showing the aftermath. The Explorer’s front end was smashed to roughly half its original size. The Pathfinder’s rear passenger side took the brunt of the impact, crushing the rear door into a deep V shape.
Other photos showed a stroller, a car seat and a couple of tiny children’s shoes lying on the pavement.
Krug did not have his lights or sirens activated at the time of the crash, according to testimony. There was no record indicating that he was responding to any of the department’s three active calls at the time of the crash or that he had started a traffic stop or pursuit, city communications supervisor Leslie Huchla said.
There was also no record of Krug calling in a traffic stop or starting a pursuit. The department’s policy generally limits pursuits to cases involving forcible felonies, such as robbery or battery. And officers are not allowed to use their lights to go through a red light unless they are trying to make a traffic stop or responding to a call.
Florida Highway Patrol Cpl. Chad Anderson, a traffic homicide investigator, testified that he worked with his entire chain of command to decide whether to arrest Krug and on what charges. Anderson said his office notified the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office about the charges but did not consult with prosecutors about the decision.
The Highway Patrol initially said Sakowski appeared to be trying to make a U-turn, but data from her Pathfinder showed she turned the wheel to the left and then straightened it, consistent with making a left turn, Anderson testified. Her grocery delivery customer lived on or just off North Drive.
Anderson noted that there were homes and businesses along that stretch of Fowler and that Greco Middle School was not far from the crash scene.
Hart asked Anderson if the crash would have happened if Krug had been driving the speed limit.
“We believe it would not have occurred,” Anderson replied.
Ralph Fernandez, one of Krug’s attorneys, showed zoomed-in photos from the dash camera video that he said showed a vehicle, possibly belching plume of exhaust, whose driver ran the red light at Morris Bridge Road. Krug stopped at that intersection, then continued through the red light “because he was being safe before engaging in pursuit of a violator,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez said the video shows Krug did not quickly catch up to that vehicle, indicating the driver was speeding.
Hart argued that facts of the crash and Krug’s prior traffic history — one ticket for running a red light, another for speeding 9 mph over the limit — showed a pattern of recklessness.
“While on duty, instead of protecting this community, the defendant posed a threat to the public with his extremely reckless driving and complete disregard for others on the road that day,” Hart said.
Fernandez said the crash was an isolated incident, that Krug has no criminal history and that he would be staying with his parents if released.
“He’s got the full support of his family, and we’re just going to see how far this goes in the criminal justice system,” Fernandez said.
Chief Judge Christopher Sabella called the case difficult “from all types of perspectives,” involving a loss of a child’s life and a law enforcement officer with no record.
“It’s a sad case, there’s no doubt about that, but I do not believe it is a no-bond case,” the judge said. “Not even close.”
He set a bond of $90,000 and required Krug to wear a GPS monitor, surrender his passport and not drive if released.
The hearing ended, and Krug’s parents and other family members watched from the gallery as deputies wheeled him away.
