The city “ultimately fired” the driver of a Department of Public Works trash truck who struck and killed a coworker in a narrow alley last year, Mayor Brandon Scott said after Wednesday’s Board of Estimates meeting.

Scott said the driver “lied when initially asked about what happened.”

The mayor’s announcement comes on the same day that Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates’ office published a memo saying the investigation of the crash was “tainted,” and outlined why no charges were filed against the driver of the truck.

Timothy Cartwell was working as part of a three-man crew along the 1800 block of Baker Street Nov. 8 when the driver struck him. There was less than 8 inches on either side of the truck when it was centered in the alley, according to the state’s attorney’s office.

Emergency responders transported Cartwell to Shock Trauma with pelvic fractures and life-threatening injuries. He died later that night.

The call to emergency responders originally came in as a “person who passed out while working,” so only a medic responded initially.

Once DPW officials made it to the site of the crash, they contacted the Baltimore Police Department because they needed a police report, the memo says.

Based on an investigation, the memo says, Cartwell was beside the truck when he was hit, and there is “no evidence” the driver reversed the truck at any point.

The driver was allowed to leave the scene of the crash in a Lyft, according to the memo from Bates’ office, which was a “significant error” since it meant police could not interview the driver or administer a blood test.

In a statement, Bates said it is “evident that DPW Solid Waste employees have not received proper training on how to stay safe while performing these duties.”

“Additionally, missteps in the investigation by DPW hindered any potential legal efforts to determine if the driver was impaired,” Bates said.

There is “no evidence” of criminal negligence or a moving traffic violation in this case, according to the memo, and Cartwell was “likely never trained” on the dangers of walking alongside the garbage truck.

However, the memo concludes — in a typeface different than the rest of the document — that the investigation is “tainted” because of “the gross negligence of DPW’s actions,” meaning prosecutors “cannot proceed and cannot make a determination.”

The driver went to Shock Trauma and spoke with Cartwell’s family, according to the memo, before going to a police station and then a hospital, where he was given a drug and alcohol test more than seven hours after the accident.

The breath test for alcohol “was of no value,” according to the memo, and the drug test came back negative.

Matthew Garbark, director of the Department of Public Works, said at a press conference that a “tremendous” amount of training was put in place last summer in the wake of a separate heat-related death of sanitation crew member Ronald Silver.

“I don’t know how or when that individual may or may not have been trained, but I can tell you now that everyone is trained fully before they ever get on a truck,” Garbark said.

The city reached a “groundbreaking” deal last month with the union representing sanitation workers that includes a 19% raise phased in over three years and new safety measures for employees.

Patrick Moran, president of the local union that represents Baltimore’s sanitation workers, said in a statement that the memo from Bates’ office shows the city and DPW “failed on multiple levels” to keep workers safe.

“More still needs to be done by the City to hold agency leaders accountable, ensure all investigations are done in a timely and thorough manner, and that tragedies like this never happen again,” Moran wrote.

The Banner’s Emily Opilo contributed to this report.