Lack of coordination between shifts.
On a Friday at 5:30 in the morning I heard a loud bang outside my apartment. A car’s emergency alarm got triggered. So I looked at my Google camera video and I saw that there was a collision to multiple parked cars. Then emerged a white car from behind the collided cars, driving fast down the road. I clipped the video and saved it.
I went outside my apartment and found 4 cars were hit. I left my name and number on their windows to contact me for the clip that I had. I also called 911 to let them know what I saw. The call was made at 6:09 AM & at 6:21 AM I got a call back from a police officer saying that they found a car down the road that was broken down. He then asked me to tell him the color of the culprit car that showed up on my video. When I told him it was a white car, he corroborated that that’s the broken down car that they found down the road. It had lost a wheel, from the collision, of course. I thought voilà they solved the case of who the hit-and-run driver was. I was certain that they would attach their finding of the culprit car to my 911 call and that it would be connected to the reports made to the victims of their crashed cars.
At 10 AM I received a call that there are police outside wanting to talk to me. I told them that I had the clip from my camera and otherwise that I got a call from the police earlier that they found the car that hit the other cars. I was sure that they had found out from the other team that they found the culprit car. But these police knew nothing about the other police Incident that found the white car. I asked them why there is not a coordination of the 2 reports? Of course they couldn’t answer that and they told me further that really they have no more business with me because I’m not the owner of one of the crashed cars.
The reason there was not a coordination between the two reports, I found out later from the Precinct, is that the incident of finding the culprit car happened on the midnight shift and the police who came later to write up a report of the crashed cars, were from the dayshift. So the reports from the different shifts apparently are not automatically connected when they need to be.. A police from one shift has to ask about the report from the other shift but how would they even know to ask? It’s only I, who is in the position as a mere witness, who knows that the two reports were not merged. People can argue about Democrats and Republicans, but this is straight out incompetence and bureaucratic nonsense. This is the type of thing that we encountered with the 911 terrorist attacks when the investigation commission determined that the government was not connecting the dots.
But I still thought that it’s just a matter of time that the two reports will be connected, but no, come to find out later from the victims of the crashed cars, that on their report it is stated that NO information is known about the car that hit them. One of the victims went into the station, but the police would not reveal anything about the incident of finding the car. They told her that she, the victim, has to get the officer who wrote up her report to inquire about the other incident report. But when she later tried to locate the officer who wrote up her report, the officer was never in and the Precinct wasn’t even familiar with the name written on the report.
I then tried, myself, to get the police report of the culprit car but I was told that the Precinct will not disclose anything to me because I’m not a victim - I’m only a witness.
In the meantime, an insurance agent representing one of the hit cars contacted me as to what I know about the incident. His client had already given him the video clip that I had. So of course I told him that we’re missing a key element of the police’s finding of the culprit car and the insurance information that would be gotten from that hit and run driver, so that it shouldn’t be paid out of the victims’ insurance company. I suggested to him that since he is representing the victim car that he would be able to get the incident report
of the culprit car being that he is representing a victim, who is an interested party. I was also expecting the neighbor to persist with trying to locate the officer who signed off on her own collision report, but she gave up. And as a matter of fact, she’s not even going to claim it on her own insurance, even though it was a loss of $3,000, because a similar thing happened to her once before, and the insurance company after she claimed the damage, tripled her premiums.
I let time go by and I got back to the insurance agent to find out whether he followed up with the other incident report whereupon he displayed impatience saying that he already has an incident report from his client and if his client wants to get further information that would be up to him to do. I didn’t understand the whole thing because the insurance agent is from the client’s own insurance and wouldn’t that insurance want to file a claim against the hit-and-run driver’s insurance company? He said he understands, but it’s almost like people are walking through their jobs like robots, not understanding the dynamic of getting the offending driver of a hit-and-run accident of 4 cars to be accountable to pay up for the damage that he caused. The police are shuffling through their job and even the insurance agent is shuffling through his and when his client’s insurance is raised to triple the premium I guess the insurance agent will still have a job because people don’t have choices to go to a different insurance company because they all collude to raise the premiums.
I find it very disheartening that people were victimized by a hit-and-run, and that the police know who did it, but they won’t coordinate the release of the information to the victims. Is this not a disgrace? I would think that in the information age of computers, that such information could be connected so easily. I submitted a written complaint to the police commissioner but so far have heard back nothing. We want to believe in our police departments but when they act like this it really leaves you scratching your head.
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