Inquest into the Death of Jordan Alexander THORSAGER
Deceased
Jordan Alexander THORSAGER
Demographics
23y, male
Date of death
2019-02-14
Finding date
2021-06-27
Cause of death
multiple injuries sustained in head-on motor vehicle collision
AI-generated summary
Jordan Thorsager, a 23-year-old motorcyclist, was killed in a head-on collision with a car driven by Kylee King, who was evading police while under the influence of methylamphetamine (20 times the impairment threshold). Senior Constable Gordon and Constable Harris, following King in a marked police vehicle, failed to properly disengage from pursuit when she moved onto the wrong side of the road, a critical safety trigger under WA Police Emergency Driving Policy. The officers did not convey full risk information to Police Operations Centre, preventing the duty inspector from making informed decisions. The coroner found the officers' conduct contributed to the death through policy breaches and failure to terminate pursuit when required. Key clinical lessons: methylamphetamine-affected drivers pose extreme danger regardless of police involvement; communication failures between operational staff and supervisors can have fatal consequences; and proper escalation and disengagement protocols save lives.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Drugs involved
Contributing factors
- failure of police officers to disengage from pursuit when Kylee King moved to wrong side of road
- failure to communicate full risk information to Police Operations Centre
- duty inspector at POC did not receive complete picture of dangerous driving behaviour
- continued pursuit despite policy-mandated triggers for termination
- driver (Kylee King) operating vehicle while severely impaired by methylamphetamine (0.2 mg/L, 20 times impairment threshold)
- evasion of police by deliberately driving on wrong side of road at high speed
Coroner's recommendations
- WA Police Force should give priority to seeking funding to implement dash cam technology in all police vehicles that undertake emergency driving, along with associated infrastructure and personnel to manage and review footage
- The technology should, where possible, provide real-time live feed of footage to the Police Operations Centre so duty inspectors and team leaders can make informed decisions when running evade police incidents
- This would allow similar to Police Air Wing footage capability where POC staff can see firsthand what is occurring and make decisions based upon that real-time information
Full text
Related cases
Source and disclaimer
This page reproduces or summarises information from publicly available findings published by Australian coroners' courts. Coronial is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any coronial court or government body.
Content may be incomplete, reformatted, or summarised. All court orders for redaction and non-publication are respected; documents with technically defective redaction have been excluded from the database entirely. Always refer to the original court publication for the authoritative record.
Copyright in original materials remains with the relevant government jurisdiction. AI-generated summaries and tagging are for educational purposes only, may contain inaccuracies, and must not be treated as legal documents. We welcome feedback for correction —