I have news and it's not great although not completely unexpected based on the rate of progress here. Apologize if I'm rambling here but I am stressed, confused, and disappointed overall at the state of policing. Following my post here on 12/20/14 the VPD Constable replied back via e-mail on 12/21/14 confirming that she had received the e-mail I sent her with the attachments for the quote from Dent King on 11/24/14. She finally called me today at 9:55PM (12/30/14) and here's what she had to say:

She hadn't spoken to the other driver involved whatsoever. The significance of this is when she left my house on 11/20/14 she asked me how I would like to proceed and at that point I didn't really want to press any charges and asked her to basically speak to the other driver about the incident (as per first post in this thread) She also explains that this case is of low priority.

She claims she spoke to some traffic officers about it and that the only thing that they could charge the other driver for was running a yellow light, in which case she stated many times that she would also have to charge me for too based on the video evidence. IMO this is her trying to scare me out of proceeding any further with this case by saying I'll get myself in trouble. I call her on this and ask her how would the unsafe lane change, passing on the right lane with parked cars, and getting out of his car which are all 100% shown in the video legal. She goes back to the fact that I ran a yellow light and says she can't pick and choose elements of the video to bring to court, again giving me the impression that she's trying to dissuade me from proceeding further. She tells me that she doesn't see grounds for any criminal charge and when I told her that the only reason I brought up mischief is that it was what was recommended to me by Cst. James Hooper, a well respected VPD officer that I spoke to following the incident, she said something along the lines of 'she respects the opinions of her colleagues'.

This other thing she said made my blood boil, regarding the damage and why she won't proceed with the charges. She says that it is not clear whether the driver actually kicked my car because it is beyond the frame of the dash cam footage. Mind you, in the footage you clearly see the other driver get out and walk in the direction of my drivers side door and a loud smack noise that actually shakes the camera. Apparently none of this matters to her. Her second point about this really pushed me off the edge, she claims that there is no proof that the damage was not there before the incident so the link cannot be directly drawn to the suspect. So if this is true, if you don't regularly have your car inspected by a third party for damages and don't have a 360* dash cam good luck trying to make this type of claim. The only way I could've proved this would've been to whip out my phone and started recording which is illegal and frankly it all happened too fast (between him opening his door and kicking my car is a total of 5 seconds), hindsight is 20/20 and I guess I'll have no choice but to break the law next time.


I am curious what my options are here, one friend suggested escalating it and speaking with a member of VPD that deals directly traffic or mischief. The other option is a media blitz to put pressure on VPD/this officer to take the real problem more seriously instead of threatening me with chicken shit yellow light tickets. I'm frankly disgusted by the inaction, she told me she 'could not locate him at that time' when I asked why she hadn't spoken to the guy yet. She tells me "could not find any offences" that the person who got out of the car would meet other than the chicken shit yellow light ticket. She tells me my behaviour on the road was not acceptable either, I did not say this to her at the time but how the fuck do you go comparing running a yellow light vs. an illegal pass on the right, an unsafe lane change, and getting out of your car and kicking someone's door?

/rant

Sucks to hear the frustrating news, but as you were saying yourself, I am hardly surprised by how things are turning out.

Again, ultimately, the best I can say is, consider your options and whether the investments in time, effort, and possibly money is worthwhile to nail this scumbag. If vindication is your goal (or what you deem to be more important), then by all means, go for it. On the other hand, if you value your time, effort, and money more, putting the matter behind you now is entirely understandable too.

So you ran a yellow, not a red. Last time I looked you can't get a ticket for going through an intersection on a yellow, or else they would just have green and red

Incompetent officer, imagine if she was the victim, pretty sure she wouldn't let the guy off that easily. Just seems like a lazy person at work to me.

You should escalate this by filing a complaint with the police department. You deserve a better response.

Send the original video to the media and the email correspondence with the officer. Shaming the guy on news network might do more than an officer talking to him as I'm sure some of his friends may see this or even his family and they may decide on an intervention as they may not know this side of him.

That's absolutely ridiculous. He got out of his fucking car and kicked your vehicle. That's no longer considered illegal?

This officer is a complete disgrace. Email the video to Steele on your side, or other news outlets. If they end up giving you a ticket for "running a yellow" I would happily chip in to pay it as long as this asshole gets what he deserves.

I get it, cops somewhat need to prioritize their efforts, but this is just a sad attempt at police work.

EDIT:
What that officer is saying is basically that this entire program:

http://drivesmartbc.ca/police/qa-mak...mplaint-police

is a farce and she is too lazy to do anything about it. If all it takes is a license plate, and for you to say you are willing to go to court, then the video evidence should be just gravy. We invest in dashcams to ensure shit like this doesn't happen, now the officers are just going to make that effort and aide useless?

Next time I see a cop car I'm going to hop out and kick it, since apparently that's completely legal now...

Prioritize what work tho? Its not like this city has to deal with murder and rape every day.

In fact, they are just making more work for themselves by positively reinforcing assailants to continue raging in public.

I am just disappointed in how the police refuses to even do the due diligence. The response that OP received is the similar response that two of my acquaintances received when they were victims of physical assault. The constable refused to contact the other side (even when their contact information was provided) because the constable deemed the case was "low priority" and "low chance of conviction". This was after weeks of voice mails similar to OP.

OP, next time just get out of your car and knock that guy out. The police won't come after you anyways just like how they won't go after this rager. Probably got more "high-priority" cases to solve

I wasn't going to be the one to say it because you inevitably get the responses from other people that "you have no idea what cops get to deal with on a daily basis", "what do you know about all the stuff they have to do everyday", etc.

Then following right behind that you will get the two white knights of this section coming to defend the actions of every police officer in the history of the world. So really no point in going down that route, because police officers are clearly incapable of doing wrong...:drunk:

It's sad because people who read this type of story are now going to behave exactly like this. So now the situation was only perpetuated by the inaction of the police.

You should try to contact media sources.

Her threatening me with the yellow light ticket isn't really the issue, her point is that the ONLY thing she would charge the other guy for is running a yellow light. I could give a flying fuck how many yellow lights this guy runs, how is giving him a yellow light ticket going to help the situation?
If it meant me getting a yellow light ticket and him getting a criminal charge for mischief that's a different story.

I made a short clip easy for people to download and share (all of 3MB) https://www.dropbox.com/s/l0qt515eyg...10080.mp4?dl=0

Posted on my IG here with a somewhat abridged statement compared to what I've posted on RS
Instagram

Would appreciate if anyone could help spread the word!

That's some bullshit that the officer is spouting out.

I was recently involved in a road rage incident as well, and after talking to an officer of the Richmond RCMP earlier today, I was pretty much told the exact opposite of what the VPD officer told you. The RCMP officer went through my footage, and picked out every single thing he could pin on the driver, then discussed with me which charges/fines I wanted them to go ahead with. I picked two of the most easily provable ones (Following too close [$109] and failing to dim headlamps [$86]). There were a bunch that he gave me though, including "Driving without due care ($196)", "Driving without consideration ($386)" that were harder to "prove" if taken to court. I ended up choosing the two cheaper ones because there was solid video evidence.

The officer then asked me if I wanted to charge the owner (No points, but pretty much indisputable because the license plate was clearly captured), or the driver (Points, but will likely be disputed). I chose the driver since there was a decently clear shot of his face on camera as well. He also said that tracking down the owner/driver is very easy since they have access to all of their information.

I feel like the officer that dealt with your case is just lazy and didn't want to go after the other party. Your case is a lot more serious than mine too, since there was physical contact involved. Shame that the officer won't do anything about it -_-

Being in your position and YOU having witnessed the kick to your car by buddy, I can imagine how pissed you are... But the truth is, what she said to you is right. And I will tell you why I think it is (from my experience as a police officer and having recommended numerous charges against people for various offences).

1) As she stated, she cannot pick and choose which violations to to serve in a given incident. If there is evidence from a video that you disclose, showing infractions committed by both parties, it would be biased of her to only charge him for the ones he committed. The traffic infractions have nothing to do with the mischief allegation. They may have lead to why he reacted the way he did, but the MVA are treated separately.

2) Looking at the video, people can assume that the damage was caused by the guy since he walked up to your car, and caused a loud bang, and you can even see your car move a bit... but she is right when she says you or no one can prove the dent was not there prior... and that the force he applied actually did not cause any damage... just a sound and some car movement. Is it likely he caused the damage, yes. Can it be PROVEN without a reasonable doubt during trial that the exact damage you are claiming was caused by him? No. And that is the problem.

Your best bet really is going after him civilly... or provide the police file number and letting ICBC decide on how to proceed with it... It is a lot easier to prove your case in civil court than criminal court. And at the end of the day, criminal court isn't pursued for monetary reimbursement.. it is to punish the accused for committing a criminal offence.. If you want monetary reimbursement, civil court is pretty much your only option.

PM if you need certain things clarified.

every incident is different. every road rage incident is different. drive without due care is 368 ... consideration is 196.. anyways, I don't know which officer you dealt with, but certain offences like drive without due care are umbrella offences and if you decide to charge with that, and also "speeding" or follow too close, it could and probably will be considered double jeopardy if charged with both or all three.......

As others have said bring this shit to CBC or CTV, Would love to see you on Judge Judy if need be :awwyeah:

Yeah, I was told that they are umbrella charges, meaning that I wouldn't be able to choose anything else. However, they were still laid out for me, unlike OP's officer's response.

I'd be down for chipping in some money if you get a ticket for pursuing this.

While what you have in quotes is generally true, they do deal with a lot of shit, this officer comes across as lazy to me.

OP's officer did lay it out... she said if the other driver were to be charged for MVA offences, he would have to be as well. You think it is fair to pick and choose WHO to charge when, during an incident there were offences committed by both parties?

responses posted in red. OP, please understand i am not trying to belittle your situation, just posting a response/observation regarding the situation.

edit:

as a crim major i'd imagine your pursuing some sort of work in law enforcement? getting a criminal charge (such as assault) over something like this would seem short sighted dont you? any potential for future employment would probably be extremely limited due to the fact that you would have a criminal conviction. an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind right?

Did you watch the clip?

There is NO VIDEO EVIDENCE that the guy kicked OP's car. It sucks, but that's just the unfortunate fact. OP could take the guy to court but it wouldn't even take a law clerk to offer alternate explanations for what the video shows, including the "perp" just pushing on the roof while the OP smacks his dash, or the "perp" smacking the window.

THE VIDEO DOES NOT SHOW THE PERP KICKING THE CAR. PERIOD.

And given that, it also does not prove that the perp caused the damage to the car.

Is the cop being lazy? I don't think so. Sure she could track the guy down and write him a ticket for assaulting your car, but if he disputed it in court, the video evidence OP has provided would not be useful to convict him; it would have to rely entirely on OP's testimony, and becomes a he-said/he-said thing. Rather than being lazy, she's making good use of her time by not wasting any of it on a lost cause.

I get the frustration with video evidence, I really do. I work with surveillance systems, I've seen plenty of clips where it's perfectly clear what's happened... but from a legal perspective, you don't see the perp actually do the crime, and so the video isn't of use.

We had one where an SUV was broken into in an underground parking lot, late at night... video had a guy coming from right under the camera in an underground parking lot, going around the far side of the SUV, and coming back around a few minutes later with an armload of stuff. Other cameras showed him entering the garage, and we even got a perfectly clear shot of his face when he looked straight into a camera (the cop who reviewed the footage said he was well known to them).

Problem was, none of the views actually had him breaking the window, opening the door, or taking anything out of the SUV, so on its own, it wasn't enough to even arrest the guy on, because simply going around a vehicle and then carrying stuff away from it isn't a crime. The investigating cop said that IF he was found in possession of something that could be proved it came from the SUV, the video COULD be some decent - though not great - supporting evidence, because it still didn't prove that the guy actually broke into the vehicle.

So, accept the fact that your wonderful expensive dashcam isn't going to be useful for this particular type of thing (some guy kicking your door). It may show him raging, but it doesn't show him causing damage. End of story.

Okay fine based on the above comments OP should just abandon his current path, re-contact the police based on that "Make a complaint" hotline, and tell them the OP's plate number and tell them he is willing to testify in court that the driver is a fucking menace.

The OP can abandon the video evidence since it is apparently useless and simply do this:

The importance of this for me atleast (may not be the case for the OP) isn't the money, it's so that this dickface learns a lesson that if you plan on trying to assault someone in another vehicle the hand of the law will come down and bitchslap the shit out of you.

I just don't understand why the officer isn't even talking to the stupid other driver, atleast go tell the fucking guy that there was a complaint, and that if they receive another similar complaint the matter will be taken seriously.

Pretty much exactly what it says the officer will do in the link I provided:

I'm sorry but the fact that she didn't even inform the other driver of the complaint, shows that she isn't doing everything she could be. I mean come on, atleast go tell the fucking guy, they have video evidence of him harassing another driver, and that this type of behavior is extremely dangerous for all parties involved.

guaranteed that guy would think twice about getting out of his car the next time, and thats the end goal of this entire thing; curb this intolerable behavior.

The reason why I'm not interested in proceeding through civil channels is that I'm not particularly bothered by the damage. What I am bothered with is that there are no repercussions, not even the slightest slap on the wrist/conversation was had. It's an awful message to send IMO, that people can go around road raging with zero legal consequences but at least now I know VPD can't be counted on for relatively minor nuisances. It seemed eye opening for at least a few forum members and friends in social media, all I can do now is educate and get that point across,.
This whole debacle is over and done with but the lesson lives on, I'll take matters into my own hands from now on and can't recommend otherwise for these types of situations.

Agree'd she should tell the other driver that there was a complaint.

Definitely eye opening for me, I would under similar circumstances have done exactly as you did, avoided an altercation and proceeded through proper police channels, to get this dealt with so the individual hopefully learns their lesson.

Now though, i'm thinking if I ever find myself in this scenario I'm just going to either do this:


or get out and lay a fucking beat down on the guy myself.

I don't think the police want people dealing with stuff like this themselves; therefore, its of utmost importance they do their absolute best to deal with it themselves when it is reported to them. In this case I don't think enough has been done.