Raptor's story of the day -- getting hit by a car while walking.
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 59,377
Likes: 1,618
From: La Crescenta, CA
Raptor's story of the day -- getting hit by a car while walking.
This is a doozy. Wicky's thread about getting flipped off and the posts reminded me of it. Maybe it'll take my mind off the crap that's happened to me today.
Mrs. Raptor and I were living on the beach in Marina del Rey. One Saturday night we decided to walk to dinner. On the way home, we're walking along a dimly lit alley and a GMC Jimmy (nobody called them SUVs back then) sideswiped me, knocking me into Mrs. Raptor, flattening both of us. He kept going and I chased after him on foot screaming at the top of my lungs. He was way ahead, but I saw him park. By the time I got to the car, no one was around. I called the cops. The senior of the two officers had known my (recently deceased) dad on the LAPD. They took a report and said "We're sure he hit you, but we're not sure if he knew it, so we're not going to charge him with a felony hit and run."
We went home, both pretty sore by now, and proceeded to get totally shitfaced. 6 AM the next morning, There's a loud knock on the door. It's a uniformed LAPD sargeant. He says "That was an off duty LAPD police officer who hit you last night." He made me lower my pants so he could shine a flashlight on my by now bruised ass. The cop's car sat there with a beer can between the seats. (He was coming home from a party.)
I get a letter from the cop's bank saying he didn't have auto insurance.
We got an attorney and sued my insurance company for the uninsured motorists coverage max. Internal Affairs interviewed us in our attorney's office.
It took two months to get a police report and it was nine pages long. It said the vehicle never hit us and I was angling for medical reimbursement: "Are you hurt Mr. Johnson." "Well, I'll have to see my doctor on Monday to find out." It claimed they examined me and didn't find any dirt from the street on my clothes. (It was dark, two hours later, I was wearing jeans, and they didn't look.) We were trying to pin a bum rap on a poor off duty cop. It devoted several pages to an amateurish effort to make it look like I was faking the injury.
The thing of it was -- I wasn't badly hurt, Mrs. Raptor was. Apparently the energy from the impact went through me and really nailed her. She was off work for over a month. We had to cancel plans to go to India to see a total eclipse of the sun and Nepal to ride an elephant and see tigers at Tiger Tops in Chitwan Park. A real bummer.
The cop was one of those Hollywood Station Vice officers in the scandal about partying with underage girls and alcohol after hours in the station parking lot.
It went to arbitration with our insurance company. Waiting in the arbitrator's lobby, waiting to testify, I found out that the senior cop who wrote the police report and had known my dad was good buddies with the cop that hit us. The arbitrator said ":What's with this police report? I've seen murder investigations that weren't nine pages long."
Nice, huh?
Mrs. Raptor and I were living on the beach in Marina del Rey. One Saturday night we decided to walk to dinner. On the way home, we're walking along a dimly lit alley and a GMC Jimmy (nobody called them SUVs back then) sideswiped me, knocking me into Mrs. Raptor, flattening both of us. He kept going and I chased after him on foot screaming at the top of my lungs. He was way ahead, but I saw him park. By the time I got to the car, no one was around. I called the cops. The senior of the two officers had known my (recently deceased) dad on the LAPD. They took a report and said "We're sure he hit you, but we're not sure if he knew it, so we're not going to charge him with a felony hit and run."
We went home, both pretty sore by now, and proceeded to get totally shitfaced. 6 AM the next morning, There's a loud knock on the door. It's a uniformed LAPD sargeant. He says "That was an off duty LAPD police officer who hit you last night." He made me lower my pants so he could shine a flashlight on my by now bruised ass. The cop's car sat there with a beer can between the seats. (He was coming home from a party.)
I get a letter from the cop's bank saying he didn't have auto insurance.
We got an attorney and sued my insurance company for the uninsured motorists coverage max. Internal Affairs interviewed us in our attorney's office.
It took two months to get a police report and it was nine pages long. It said the vehicle never hit us and I was angling for medical reimbursement: "Are you hurt Mr. Johnson." "Well, I'll have to see my doctor on Monday to find out." It claimed they examined me and didn't find any dirt from the street on my clothes. (It was dark, two hours later, I was wearing jeans, and they didn't look.) We were trying to pin a bum rap on a poor off duty cop. It devoted several pages to an amateurish effort to make it look like I was faking the injury.
The thing of it was -- I wasn't badly hurt, Mrs. Raptor was. Apparently the energy from the impact went through me and really nailed her. She was off work for over a month. We had to cancel plans to go to India to see a total eclipse of the sun and Nepal to ride an elephant and see tigers at Tiger Tops in Chitwan Park. A real bummer.
The cop was one of those Hollywood Station Vice officers in the scandal about partying with underage girls and alcohol after hours in the station parking lot.
It went to arbitration with our insurance company. Waiting in the arbitrator's lobby, waiting to testify, I found out that the senior cop who wrote the police report and had known my dad was good buddies with the cop that hit us. The arbitrator said ":What's with this police report? I've seen murder investigations that weren't nine pages long."
Nice, huh?
Thread Starter
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 59,377
Likes: 1,618
From: La Crescenta, CA
In the arbitrator's office, the cop that hit me was undercover and looked like a 
ing hippie. The cop that wrote the police report pretended that he didn't recognize me.
When Internal Affairs interviewed us, when they were finished and were walking away, one of the cops turned around and said "Oh, yeah, how did you know he was an off duty police officer?" (ing smart ass) I said "Because a uniformed sargeant woke me up at 6 AM the next morning and told me, just before he made me drop my pants to look at the injury." The cop replied "I wish I had that case." I said "That case IS this case." They just walked away. Assholes!
ing hippie. The cop that wrote the police report pretended that he didn't recognize me.When Internal Affairs interviewed us, when they were finished and were walking away, one of the cops turned around and said "Oh, yeah, how did you know he was an off duty police officer?" (
ing smart ass) I said "Because a uniformed sargeant woke me up at 6 AM the next morning and told me, just before he made me drop my pants to look at the injury." The cop replied "I wish I had that case." I said "That case IS this case." They just walked away. Assholes!
