The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Wednesday that the cause of the SUV crash that seriously injured professional golfer Tiger Woods earlier this year has been determined but that they cannot publicly disclose it due to privacy concerns.
“A cause has been determined; the investigation has concluded,” said Sheriff Alex Villanueva in a video conference Wednesday. “We have reached out to Tiger Woods and his personnel — we need — there’s some privacy issues on releasing information on the investigation, so we’re going to ask them if they waive the privacy, and then we will be able to do a full release on all the information regarding the accident.”
“You have an accident and you have deliberate acts,” said Villanueva, reports USA Today. “It’s an accident, OK. We’re reaching out to Tiger Woods to be able to release the report itself, and nothing has changed from what we know and what we learned throughout the course of the investigation. And everything we did turned out to be accurate.”
Woods, 45, was injured back in February while driving to a photoshoot in Southern California. The first sheriff’s deputy to arrive on-scene said that Woods didn’t know how the crash happened but was alert and capable of answering basic questions, reports The Los Angeles Times. Authorities did not obtain a search warrant for his blood to test for drugs.
Villanueva previously referred to the crash as “purely an accident” and said that he didn’t expect any charges to be filed. Officials subsequently obtained a warrant to search the SUV’s black box, which, as USA Today previously noted, requires law enforcement to establish “probable cause that a crime was committed, even if it’s just a misdemeanor.” Law enforcement, however, suggested that the black box search was a matter of simple routine.
“We have all the contents of the blackbox, we’ve got everything, it’s completed, signed, sealed and delivered. However, we can’t release it without the permission of the people involved in the collision,” said Villanueva.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office told the Los Angeles Times that no charges have been filed in the accident.
Villanueva’s remarks come over a month after Woods was in a severe car accident after which first responders had to extract him through the windshield using an axe and halligan. Woods spent several days at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he received emergency surgery on his right leg before he was transferred to another hospital for further treatment.
Two weeks ago, Woods announced in a statement that he had finally returned to his home state of Florida, where he planned to continue recovering from his injuries. At the time of his accident, Woods was visiting Southern California to host a golf tournament.
“I am so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement that I have received over the past few weeks,” remarked Woods. “Thank you to the incredible surgeons, doctors, nurses and staff at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. You have all taken such great care of me and I cannot thank you enough.”
“I will be recovering at home and working on getting stronger every day,” he concluded.
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) March 16, 2021