Policemen Dispute Cowley Accusation

A charge by Human Relations Commission Director David C. Cowley that a city patrolman's laction at an accident scène ["borders on criminal negligence" is disputed by the Ann Arbor Pólice Officers Association. Cowley's charge stemmed from a contention by Mrs. Lillie Pinder of 425 N. Main St. that her son, Jimmy Johnson, 16, was knocked unconscious and received a broken thumb and bruises when his bicycle was hit by a car at W. Washington and Seventh Sts. on Oct. 9. Mrs. Pinder said Patrolman George Gallas failed to provide medical attention for the boy, told him to walk home and did hot make put an accident report. Members of the Ann Arbor Pólice Offïcers Association say the facts of the case are not aS Cowley presents them. They say the youth was asked several times by Officer Gallas if he were hurt and the teen-ager "insisted" he was not injured, Association members said. State law does not require an official accident report to be made out if there are no injuries and if total damage does not exceed $200, they point out. The car involved was undamaged and the bicycle was not worth $200, the officers say. To "protect" himself against the charges now leveled, Gallas might have made out an accident report but under the circumstances of the mishap he was not required to do so, officers say.