http://www.laweekly.com/2011-02-10/news/officer-down-in-redondo/ "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."
Seriously?
(cliffs)
Motorcycle Cop hits driver, driver hits brakes, Cop lands in back seat of convertible, Cop files charges.
The whole article is worth reading, though.
unfortunately, most cops = massengill
Wow.
Cell phones, sometimes everyone having one is useful...
Isn't it the responsibility of a following vehicle (no matter who it is) to avoid hitting the car in front of him?
And how exactly can you "put on the brakes to quickly" This (strangely) was the drivers admission.
aircooled wrote: Cell phones, sometimes everyone having one is useful...
Linke borked, but if you're talking about recording a traffic stop with a cell phone camera, remember that you can't do that in states with 2-party wiretapping laws. Like Mass. 
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Imagine, a car out stopping a motorcycle.
Had he rear ended the cop, it would be the same story. What a farce. I hope he wins.
Yea the driver looks like a real BAD ASS mother berkeleyer to me 
sound like the cop is in a bad spot with his boss and is trying to get out of it.
Paul B
The best part of the story for me was:
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.
Intimacy issues?
Yep, "soft tissue" will do that.
Me thinks the cops strokin' this accident for all it's worth.
I don't know which is more embarrassing to the police dept. the fact that the cop ended up in the back seat of the car or the cover up that is going on afterwards.
I'm betting the guy will end up on Letterman, Oprah, or one of those fake news shows that's so popular with the 20something crowd.
The officer is wrong and trying to use his police status to avoid having to take responsibility for the accident he caused. Which is further compounded by the department's knee jerk reaction of backing this officer in this.
The officer should apologize and take his lumps as I'm sure he would advocate that any citizen should do the same. Then the department should apologize and fix the citizen's car as it was their employee's actions that caused this.
But we all know that as a citizen you are always at a disadvantage when dealing with the police in these matters. It's wrong but the police are literally above the law in most cases like this.
Marty! wrote: Me thinks the cops strokin' this accident for all it's worth.
No joke. I wrecked my bike at the track, in the neighborhood of 65mph, bounced my head off the ground hard enough to give me a SEVERE concussion.
This happenend on Sunday, I was at work on Tuesday. Only reason I didn't go on Monday was so I could make sure my hip was OK.
What an enormous Bob Costas.
Is it just me or are the police getting more and more out of control? Lots of stories about cruisers crashing into civilian vehicles, destroyed police cars, and general nasty behavior on the part of the badge holders. I know here in Charlotte, NC, it seems like every few weeks or so there's a wrecked police car making headlines. Maybe it's just the endless media saturation. Give some guys a gun and a badge and bad things happen.
years ago, I got pulled over by two motorcycle cops for an expired inspection sticker (car had just had the transmission replaced when the inspection lapsed.. I was going to get it inspected later that day) and they pulled this "CHiPs" manuever where one pulled in behind and one in front..
well, the one in front dropped his bike as he pulled in front of me... knowing they are heavy, I got as far as opening the door to offer help when I got yelled at to get back in the car.
They wrote me up for everything they could find wrong with my car..
I didn't read the story, but is it possible the guy in front saw the cop with lights blazing pull up behind him and stood on the brakes in anger? I understand that it is the responsibility of the person following to be able to react to all the person in fronts actions, but is it illegal to intentionally slam on the brakes to try to cause the person behind you to hit you?
read the story... it's a lot different than that
mad_machine wrote: read the story... it's a lot different than that
Just read it, fun stuff! If the cop wins all the middle aged out of shape recently divorced white guys in the area should riot! 
Datsun1500 wrote: so the cop says he got within 3 feet of the guy with his top down and activated the siren? Can you imagine how loud that was? Is anyone surprised the guy hit the brakes?
Uhh...the cop apparently was.
I saw a link to this story a few days ago.
I don't trust what passes for "journalism" these days, but if the report is anywhere near accurate, the cop's claims are an attempt to avoid embarassing disciplinary actions. His department just made things a lot worse by prosecuting the driver.
It's way too late to avoid the "embarassing" part now; the public servants have done themselves a big disservice.
Law Enforcement acting above the law? Shocker.
A few years ago one of our company trucks got sideswiped by an off duty officer driving their patrol car. It was completely her fault and she was very apologetic and admitted fault. Until the chief of police showed up and negated everything.
We had to pay to repair our own truck.
Did it ever say why the cop was pulling him?
This whole story is a joke. This is one time to hire a lawyer and go after them. First of all, I would never have met them at a meet and greet afterward.
The cop's story was that he sped away from the light and cut him off, even though the victim has 2 eye witness accounts that state just the opposite.
This part absolutely infuriates me. How much of a Bob Costas do you have to be to try and pull this off?
LA Weekly said: 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.
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