Cop rear ends BMW driver, then charges driver with assault with a deadly weapon

[willtel]

Unreal, you just can't make this stuff up.




Officer Down in Redondo - Page 1 - News - Los Angeles - LA Weekly

Officer Down in Redondo

Originally Posted by LAWeekly

Brian Hitchcock was headed home from his job as a technical writer for Skechers in Manhattan Beach last June when he pulled up at a red light next to Hermosa Beach motorcycle officer Anthony Parente. Parente was driving to headquarters after a 12-hour shift on his police motorcycle.

The light turned green and both their lives changed forever.

As they took off, Parente moved in tight behind Hitchcock's BMW 323 and activated his siren. Hitchcock hit his brakes, and Parente rear-ended Hitchcock's car, which sent Parente somersaulting through the air. He landed upside-down, his boots sticking in the air, in the backseat of Hitchcock's top-down convertible.

"The siren spooked me. I instinctively hit the brakes to see where it was coming from," Hitchcock, the 59-year-old Harbor City man, tells L.A. Weekly. "Next thing I know, the siren is blaring and the officer is in my backseat. I couldn't hear, and I couldn't think."

Hitchcock got out of his car, which was stopped in the middle lane on Artesia Boulevard — the lane that engineers refer to as the No. 2 lane — just past the intersection of Artesia and Ford in Redondo Beach. He asked Parente: "Do you need some help?"

Parente said he needed his radio.

When he heard Parente's call of "Officer down!" go out at 6 p.m. on June 8, Hitchcock realized the officer was well enough to call in — but he started to worry about his own fate.

"I realized this could be twisted around to look like I was at fault," he recalls.

Indeed, the police immediately investigated the collision as a criminal act by Hitchcock: assault with a deadly weapon.

A press release issued by the Redondo Beach Police Department framed the incident as the fault of a driver who appeared to stop short in order to injure a police officer — a far more sensational angle than a cop rear-ending a car because he turned on his siren while tailgating.

Parente was, by his own written admission, only two to three feet behind Hitchcock when he activated his siren, far closer than law enforcement training guidelines.

When someone anonymously e-mailed police and the Torrance-based Daily Breeze a cell phone photo showing Parente's boots and legs sticking out of the BMW's backseat like an outtake from Weekend at Bernie's, the WTF picture went viral — and mild-mannered Hitchcock was depicted as an anti-police vigilante.

"If somebody uses a vehicle to intentionally put somebody in a position where they could receive great bodily injury, that is assault with a deadly weapon," Redondo Beach Police Department Lt. Joe Hoffman told the Breeze.

Retired L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. Lt. Roger Clark, an expert witness in hundreds of cases, who has no ties to Hitchcock or Parente, says police are trained in vehicle pull-overs to understand "that when the driver suddenly becomes aware of the siren, they sometimes stop in the middle of the road as an instinctive reaction. When you tailgate a driver, that's an obvious problem."

Police reports and witness statements show that a monthlong investigation by Redondo Beach Police into Hitchcock's background found no evidence of anti-police bias.

After that, Redondo Beach Detective Mike Strosnider invited Hitchcock to a let's-be-friends lunch at Subway on the pretext that the investigation was over. It wasn't. Strosnider secretly recorded the lunch in hopes of capturing incriminating comments, but came up empty, according to his own report.

Undeterred, Strosnider asked Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley's office to pursue a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon. Cooley declined. "We found insufficient evidence that Mr. Hitchcock intentionally stopped short," Jane Robison of the DA's office tells the Weekly.

So Strosnider asked Redondo city prosecutor Brenda Wells to pursue a misdemeanor criminal assault charge against the baffled and outraged Hitchcock. Wells agreed.

On Nov. 9, Hitchcock was charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of reckless driving and one count of reckless driving with injuries resulting. If convicted on all three, the writer, who is recently widowed, faces three years in jail.

Hitchcock, who has Type 2 diabetes, says the relentless quest by beach-city police to criminalize an accident has caused him personal, professional and financial havoc.

"Of course this wasn't deliberate," he says. "Why would anyone bring this kind of grief on themselves?"

His lawyer, Thomas Beck, claims that city prosecutor Wells "is knowingly carrying water for the Hermosa Police Department."

Wells says only, "I'm confident I have sufficient evidence to win a conviction."

Hitchcock responds, "I will not take any plea bargain. This was an everyday traffic accident. He was too close when he put the siren on, and I put the brakes on too quickly."

The aftermath of the accident was something of a Keystone Kops affair. Hitchcock was swarmed by more than a dozen police officers from three departments and interviewed for two and a half hours.

Hitchcock says he was accused of deliberately causing the crash, "standing over [Parente] in an intimidating manner" and "sarcastically" asking the officer if he needed help.

Parente, 6'1" and armed with his duty pistol, claimed to be so afraid of Hitchcock — a gray-haired, fairly out-of-shape man in a Hawaiian shirt — that Parente feared Hitchcock would snatch the shotgun from his fallen motorcycle.

"I knew this was an intentional act," Parente wrote in a five-page report submitted Sept. 6.

In his written narrative, Parente says he was "moving in and out of traffic" — gliding between cars and straddling lanes, as many motorcyclists do — but was not sharing a lane with anyone when he stopped at the red light.

Parente tried to pull Hitchcock over, he wrote, because the motorist cut him off after the light turned green. Parente claims that Hitchcock, in the curbside lane one over from Parente, "accelerated greatly" on the green light, and cut him off in the middle or No. 2 lane.

"He's lying about both those issues," Hitchcock says.

Hitchcock says Parente's motorcycle was straddling the middle lane and the No. 1 lane — next to the median — when Hitchcock "pulled up squarely in the No. 2 lane, [and] centered [my car] as best I could with him right there."

When the light turned green, Hitchcock says, he accelerated in a normal manner, but "Parente turned on the siren while I was changing gears from first to second. I never got above 20 miles an hour."

The two eyewitness drivers closest to the collision supported Hitchcock's version.

Kim Weller of Manhattan Beach told Strosnider that she saw "a gray convertible in the No. 2 lane next to a police motorcycle in the No. 1 lane. When the light turned green, the convertible accelerated normally. The police motorcycle immediately pulled in behind the convertible and activated its lights."

Denise Bustamente of Redondo Beach told Strosnider she "noticed a police motorcycle near her, perhaps straddling the No. 1 and 2 lanes. In the No. 2 lane was a convertible. As the convertible left the intersection with a green light, the police motorcycle moved in behind it."

Beck says he's eager to put the facts in front of a jury. "It's a crime for Parente to file a false police report. And he's their chief witness."

The day after the wreck, Parente was reported to have "soft tissue" injuries. Since June he's been on paid medical leave, and apparently not having much fun. "The assault has caused me some intimacy problems with my spouse," he wrote at the end of his report. He did not respond to several calls from L.A. Weekly seeking comment.

"He can hide now, but he'll have to answer in court," Beck says.

[stomachmonkey]

Curious to know why the officer was pulling him over to begin with? Article does not say.

Bet it was he was pissed the driver pulled up next to him while he was lane straddling.

Seems fishy since nearly anyone who is sober is on their best behaviour when in close proximity to the popo.

[slakjaw]

Omg lol

[67R69S]

If that article is accurate those cops are just plain dirty. That motorcycle cop should man up and admit he screwed up. He put himself in that position behind the car. The City Prosecutor should be ashamed.

[porsche4life]

Anyone else smell that?

[willtel]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Curious to know why the officer was pulling him over to begin with? Article does not say.

Its in there.

Originally Posted by Crooked_Cop

Parente tried to pull Hitchcock over, he wrote, because the motorist cut him off after the light turned green. Parente claims that Hitchcock, in the curbside lane one over from Parente, "accelerated greatly" on the green light, and cut him off in the middle or No. 2 lane.

[A930Rocket]

I'm at a loss for words....

[Jeff Higgins]

We had a very similar incident in Shoreline, WA several years ago. An off-duty cop rear ended another motorist at a stop light. Mr. off-duty got on his cell phone and got his on-duty buddies out to the scene pronto. They wound up charging the other motorist, who was sitting there stationary at a stop light, claiming this motorist had cut the cop off and had slammed on the brakes.

There were any number of witnesses - like a dozen or so - who saw the whole thing from an adjacent park. The responding officers refused to take statements from them and also refused to take their names. The witnesses, of course, were as outraged as the cited motorist. So, they banded together, lawyered up, got the media involved, and viola - they actually beat these dishonest scumbags at their own game. Mr. off-duty lost his job and, if I remember correctly, so did one or two of the responding officers.

It doesn't sound like Hitchcock has any such witnesses to help him out. That's too bad. But, on the other hand, what would they have to add that was not in the officer's report? The officer readily admits he was only a couple of feet off of Hitchcock's bumper when he hit the siren. That should settle it right there.

Edit - oops, it looks like Hitchcock does have witnesses corraborating his version. This should get fun.

[RWebb]

they guy is lucky he is well-off

if the cop did this to some poor person they'd be SOL

[Vin-barrett]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Bet it was he was pissed the driver pulled up next to him while he was lane straddling.

+1

and sour grapes after the fact (the embarrassment of falling into his back seat)

[HelmetHead]

Should have shot the cop for breaking and entering!

[MotoSook]

"The assault has caused me some intimacy problems with my spouse," he wrote at the end of his report.

Shaking my head.....if this isn't obvious fluff to dramatize the report...what is? Those dipsheets need to be fired.

[Rikao4]

and Cops wonder why ...
know there are good ones..
outnumber the bad hundredfold..
but it's rally around your trash..
one can only hope the next time..
he stays down..

Rika

[techweenie]

Gotta love the notion that a 90s 323i convert "accelerated greatly..."

And what reaction time do you need to have to stop in sync with a car 2-3 feet ahead of you? Everything to exonerate the poor driver is right there in the officer's statement.

Bad cop. No donut.

[Zeke]

I've thought about this for a couple of hours before posting. I'm prone to assign blame to both.

The way I interpret the scenario is that the cop pulled in behind the Bimmer just as he was shifting. You know how you do catch up with the car ahead of you when they shift. The cop was too close. But then, for the driver to hit the brakes was a mistake. I'm sure he didn't hit the brakes with the idea that he wanted the motorcycle to bang up his car. And maybe he actually DIDN'T know the cop had pulled in right behind him, but I'm gonna doubt that a bit given the top was down on the cabriolet.

I'm having to take the position that 2 fools met and the Devil had a holiday. I just avoid cops at all cost. Nothing good can come from contact with the police.

[Tobra]

I disagree with your analysis Milt.

If I rear end someone because I am following too closely, does that mean that they assaulted me?

I thought if you rear ended someone you were pretty much automatically at fault, especially if you are changing lanes also. It says right in the book you have to maintain adequate space from the car you are following, even in a chain reaction deal where a car hits you and pushes you into the car in front.

It appears that the LEO in question tells a tale that does not match up with anyone else who witnessed this. So either everyone else is making it up, or the cop is. If he was cut off, as he purports, how is it he is in front of the "perp" when they get to the signal, why did he fail to light the guy up when he actually cut him off?

This is a simple case of a cop who needs to get a job mowing people's lawns.

[Rikao4]

he's a bad cop..
....only knows what else he's done or forged..
it's the others helping him that really bugs me..
little difference between them and those down south..

Rika

[willtel]

Originally Posted by Soukus

Shaking my head.....if this isn't obvious fluff to dramatize the report...what is? Those dipsheets need to be fired.

I believe it. After she saw that picture I bet she was too embarrassed to bang him!

[vash]

Originally Posted by Tobra

I thought if you rear ended someone you were pretty much automatically at fault, especially if you are changing lanes also. It says right in the book you have to maintain adequate space from the car you are following, even in a chain reaction deal where a car hits you and pushes you into the car in front.

.

i feel this way too. if i rear end anyone..i have zero arguement. the fool can do a 4 wheel skidding stop on the freeway..i hit him, and i think it is still my fault. i was following too closely. right?

cop is an idiot. i would take it to court and tell everyone..call TMZ police on them.

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by Soukus

Shaking my head.....if this isn't obvious fluff to dramatize the report...what is? Those dipsheets need to be fired.

Sounds like he might be fishing for an early (disability) retirement to me.