Park City officer loses license after lying about investigation in fatal accident, report says

A former Park City police sergeant who failed to properly investigate a fatal accident and then lied about why he didn’t take extra steps in the investigation had his license revoked this week.

Christopher Shields, who worked for the department from August 2013 to November 2022, did not dispute any of the facts laid out in the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training order revoking his license. He signed the document dated on Monday.

KCPOST oversees officer certifications within the state.

Shields cannot apply to be a Kansas officer again for five years.

Shields was a sergeant when he left less than two weeks after the Oct. 27 fatal accident. A call to a number associated with Shields was not answered and a message was not returned.

No one at the police department could be reached as well despite multiple calls.

The accident, based on details from the KCPOST and media reports, involved two vehicles. KSN reported that 70-year-old Paula McKinney died after she was headed west on 53rd Street South, tried to turn into a convenience store and was hit by a 26-year-old Wichita man driving eastbound. He was injured in the accident, which happened just before 6 a.m.

The police department’s procedure requires officers to take measurements involving the accident if someone is triaged code red, which means critical. Shields was “acting in a supervisory capacity” at the time of the wreck, the KCPOST document says.

McKinney was originally triaged yellow, or serious, but it was changed seven minutes later to red. Shields was not “specifically made aware” of the change but it was updated in the call’s log that he had access to.

A rookie officer asked if measurements needed to be taken, but Shields said no because he didn’t know, or check, whether the triage had been changed, the document says.

Shields called for two tow trucks.

At 7:11 a.m., as one of the vehicles was being towed, another officer told Shields that the woman had been transported to a hospital in critical condition.

“EMS told me yellow,” the document says Shields replied. “I’m going with what EMS told me.”

An autopsy says “EMS records indicated that she was alert and oriented, before suddenly decompensating.”

The second tow truck arrived and removed the second vehicle. Shields cleared the scene at 7:41 a.m. and went back to the police station.

At 7:44 a.m., Shields, now knowing the woman had been triaged in critical condition, called a captain and told him he was “unaware of the triage change until after he cleared the scene,” the document says.

He asked the captain for advice on what to do. Roughly 30 minutes later, Shields learned the woman died.

In his report Shields wrote: “Once back at the station I pulled the call on my MCT and noticed that (McKinney’s) triage had been downgraded to code red with a GCS of 3.”

GCS appears to stand for Glasgow Coma Scale, which is a measurement of how responsive someone is.

Shields also told multiple officers that he didn’t know of the change from yellow to red until he was back at the station, the document says.

“Despite his assertions in writing and to other PCPD officers that he did not know of the triage change until he returned to the station, body cam footage clearly shows (Shields) being notified of the change by another officer,” the document says. “He responded in a flippant manner and took no steps to verify the information, alter his response to the collision scene, or preserve the scene.”

Additionally, the document says, Shields later admitted to a KCPOST investigator that he learned about the triage change at the “collision scene when told by other officers.”