Bellevue Police Officer Kevin Bereta is still recovering from a nasty fall onto I-5 last August while escorting Vice President Kamala Harris’ motorcade.
The fall happened on August 15, but per the Bellevue Police Officer’s Guild contract, he and any injured officer have 180 days of health coverage before it lapses. So the officer has hired an attorney.
“You got to understand he fell off a bridge, a 60-foot bridge,” said Bereta’s attorney, Mo Hamoudi.
Officer Bereta fell about 60 feet from the Michigan St. bridge onto I-5 while trying to keep pace with the motorcade.
“The task requires you to travel at high speeds and to maneuver at high speeds. It’s because the motorcade, the secret service moves at high speeds from one location to the next for security purposes so he was just doing his job.”
Hamoudi added, “He was negotiating a turn trying to follow the vice president’s vehicle and he couldn’t negotiate it because the speed that he was going.”
Officer Bereta spent about a month in the hospital after suffering a list of lengthy injuries from several fractured bones, torn or severed ligaments, and spinal cord injuries. The officer’s recovery clock started ticking, because of the injury clause in the Bellevue Police Officer’s Guild contract.