In March of 2005, my father, Suleman Ahmed Khan, was leaving an Acme grocery store in Bordentown when a driver failed to yield to pedestrians in the parking lot, and hit him with their car. The impact was so severe that according to witnesses, he flew back five or six feet and hit the ground, resulting in massive head trauma, hemorrhaging, and other injuries. When the police and EMTs arrived on the scene, they assumed that because of his name, and because of his brown skin, he could not speak English and put a “language barrier” in their report. As he lay there struggling and fighting for his life, they made the decision to send him to a non-trauma hospital despite the fact that a trauma center was virtually the same distance away.

I was the first one to reach the non-trauma hospital. Nurses asked me if my dad spoke English because of the “language barrier” in the report; my father was in this country for decades and we spoke to him in English 95% of the time. During these critical hours after he was hit, he suffered greatly, including throwing up blood over and over again. As I tried to briefly communicate with him when I first arrived, and essentially heard his last words, his eyes slowly began to close and would never open again. By the time he was taken to a trauma facility about five hours later, he’d fallen into a coma. Doctors drilled a hole into his head to relieve pressure, but it wasn’t enough. He died three days later.

Their seemingly deep-rooted, almost casual racism fostered an utter disregard for my dad’s life.

Losing a loved one in this manner is shocking, devastating, and a horrific ordeal by itself, but the way in which the Bordentown Township PD behaved and treated my family only exacerbated our pain and suffering. Their seemingly deep-rooted, almost casual racism fostered an utter disregard for my dad’s life, his value, and in turn our own worth. It is why I began raising the alarm bells about that police department nearly 15 years ago, but unfortunately nobody took my concerns seriously.

There were days upon days when the police department wouldn’t return our phone calls as we tried to figure out what exactly happened. Even as my dad was dying in the hospital, doctors were asking us if he hit his head on something before hitting the ground or hit the ground directly after he was struck because they didn’t have such simple, vital information from the police. In the days and weeks that followed, there were many other phone calls to the Bordentown Township PD that were not returned, and we received a letter from the Burlington County Prosecutor’s office stating that their “investigation” into the incident was closed literally a day after his death. My family and I searched for answers on our own.

The Sunday after my dad’s death, my uncle and I put up fliers everywhere and distributed them outside of the Acme grocery store asking if anyone had witnessed the incident. We ended up locating several people who said they did, and eventually had a few of these witnesses deposed who told us that there were at least 15 to 20 people surrounding my dad after he was hit. They told us that the driver was speeding and others told us that cops refused their statements even though they were willing to go on the record. One witness that was deposed by our attorney said, “I noticed that the vehicle was traveling faster than any other vehicle in the parking lot... If the driver was not driving as fast as she was, the driver should of been able to stop her vehicle before hitting the pedestrian.”

When we finally received a thin police report more than a month after the fact, it only included one witness statement — a witness who corroborated the driver’s account of not speeding.

As our calls to the Bordentown Township PD went unanswered, the chief at the time, Danny Kiernan, instead made comments to a local newspaper expressing his own personal opinion as to what happened. “Everybody who witnessed the accident said the woman was not driving recklessly,” he said. “It wasn’t like she was racing through the parking lot.” The reporter who wrote that piece also cited this chief as saying that the “driver was only driving about 5 mph at the time.”

Never once did he call us back.

Frustrated with the Bordentown Township PD’s behavior, my family and I took our concerns to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s office, headed up at time by Robert Bernardi. Not only did we have them reopen their investigation into the case, but also filed complaints about the police department’s pattern and practices and their culture of racism and negligence. My mother and I met with members of this office and two detectives in early July of 2005. It was at that point that we learned that the driver was never even checked for drugs or alcohol. We discovered that the accident was never reported to the DMV’s fatality unit which can separately revoke or suspend a driver’s license in fatal accidents. The county assured us that it would be reported.

At this time, my family and I were also given additional pages to a police report that we never had in our possession. These pages included a lengthy handwritten statement from the driver with her version of events, as well as a “careless driving” summons issued to the driver that was dated about a month from the incident. Despite Burlington County’s reassurances, the DMV’s fatality unit later told our attorney at the time that they received a report of the accident “some time ago” but when police faxed over the file, only a cover sheet came through. The rest of the file was incomplete and therefore the DMV was unable to move forward with any suspension of the driver’s license.

After a supposed investigation, Burlington County claimed they found no wrongdoing on the part of the police department. It was apparent even then that the county wasn’t taking our concerns seriously, nor were officials interested in truly holding Bordentown Township police accountable. I decided to take the matter to the state and contacted the Office of the Attorney General, Division of Criminal Justice (which oversees all 21 counties in the state of New Jersey). I sent paperwork, including the deposed witness statements, and outlined the police department’s suspicious work and behavior.

Following their own alleged investigation, I was told that the state would not pursue the matter further because of the one witness in the police report, as well as the driver’s handwritten statement — nor did they find any wrongdoing on the part of police. In December of 2005, I received a formal notice from John J. Dell’Aquilo, the deputy attorney general of the Prosecutors Supervision and Coordination Bureau stating in part: “Based on my review of the case, I have determined that there was no abuse of discretion on the part of the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office or the Bordentown Police Department regarding the handling of this matter.”

As if this entire ordeal weren’t enough, we were forced to attend many court hearings, during which we were treated in a manner that can only be described as atrocious. I was able to get a reporter from NBC Philadelphia to look into the case, and after one of these court dates, this investigative reporter had tears in her eyes as she spoke to my mother and I outside of the courthouse in Bordentown. To quote her: “They treated you guys like you were the criminals.” Unfortunately, her piece never aired.

The reporter was absolutely correct; they did treat us as if we were on trial. The judge yelled at my mother at one point. The prosecutor barely spoke with us and instead stood alongside the driver. I asked the judge to explain why the careless driving ticket was dated nearly a month from the accident; he said he could not explain why. The prosecutor, who should be prosecuting on behalf of the victims (us), continuously made statements defending the driver and asking for leniency. At one point the judge was actually going to suspend the driver’s license for 30 days but the prosecutor advocated against it, saying that it wasn’t necessary. In the end, this person who ended my father’s life, paid around $200 dollars for the careless driving ticket plus court fees. My mother lost her husband, and my three siblings and I lost our dad forever.