A MOTORIST'S WORST NIGHTMARE

I have always maintained that a motorist’s worst nightmare is a traffic collision with a police car. No matter who is at fault, the motorist usually gets fucked. Even when it appears obvious that the officer caused the collision, it is most unlikely that the traffic accident investigation report will show the cop at fault. How come? That’s easy – cops look out for each other.

To avoid this problem, my department’s written policy was that it would not investigate any traffic accidents involving one of our police cars, turning that job over to the California Highway Patrol. Even when the CHP officer personally knew our officer, the motorist was not likely get blamed if he was not at fault.

In most accidents involving police cars, the officer is not at fault! However, because I love police officers, it pains me to say this - every day, throughout the country, some poor slob is going to get blamed for colliding with a police car when it was the cop who was at fault. And a motorist is likely to get blamed if he has an accident with an off-duty cop even though the accident was not his fault

Long ago, I saw a training film that showed a Miami motorcycle officer arriving at the scene of a traffic accident in which another Miami officer had run into a motor vehicle with his police car. Because it was obvious from the get go that the officer had failed to yield the right of way, the motorcycle cop berated his fellow officer in front of a crowd that had gathered. That was a training film , not real life.

Now we have four Miami cops caught on their own dashboard camera conspiring to place the blame on a woman when a police car driven by one of those officers crashed into the back of her car. Incidents like that garner nothing but disrespect for the police! Here is the story of that Miami police conspiracy:

CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST WOMAN FRAMED BY COPS
By Todd Wright

NBCMIAMI.com
July 30, 2009

Alexandra Torrensvilas was the target of cops who pinned a DUI on her for an accident they caused. Now she has been cleared of charges after the Broward State Attorney's Office officially dropped the four DUI citations on Wednesday.

But the saga is far from over as now prosecutors turn their attention to the four Hollywood police officers who made up an intricate story to cover for a February traffic accident involving a cop car. The scheme was caught on one of the officers dashboard cameras.

The disturbing video shows Alexandra Torrensvilas, 23, handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the officers get their stories straight on what they are going to say happened.

Officer Joel Francisco, 36, an 11-year veteran, crashed into the back of Torrensvilas' vehicle at a light on February 17 at midnight. The cop radioed to other officers who converged on the scene and hatched a way to bail Francisco out.

Officer Dewey Pressley, 42, arrives and questions Torrensvilas, who tells him that she has been drinking. The 21-year veteran officer seizes the opportunity and arrests her for DUI. But the plot thickens from there.

The cops begin to brainstorm believable excuses for the accident.

"As far as I'm concerned. I'm going to put words in his mouth. She went to accelerate and a cat jumped out of the window at which point he thought it could have been a pedestrian, which distracted him," Pressley tells Sgt. Andrew Diaz, another veteran of the force. "I mean what's the chances of hitting a f---in drunk when a cat jumps out of the window?"

Still, the cops run with the half-baked idea and rush to get Torrensvilas to do a Breathalyzer test so they can officially say she was drunk.

"I nailed her on the video. I already hung her on video. She said she has been doing a beer party," Pressley says. "She's gonna blow."

Then, another cop debates with Pressley on who is going to write up the fabricated report to clear their police comrade.

"I know how I'm going to word this with the cat so we can get him off the hook. I'll write the narrative," Pressley says. "We're going to bend this a little bit."

Civilian Community Service Officer Karim Thomas joins the three senior officers and the four cops go so far as to change the angle of pictures of the accident to make it look like Torrensvilas swerved in front of the cop car and caused the accident, not Francisco.

Throughout the tape, the cops acknowledged what they are doing is illegal, but when you are the law, there is nothing wrong with bending it for a fellow cop, one says.

"I don't lie and make things up ever because it's wrong, but if I need to bend it a little bit to protect a cop, I'll do it," Pressley tells Francisco after reassuring him no one will ever find out. "She's freaking hammered anyway."

The cops even do a final rehearsal before Villa is taken to the city lock up.

"We'll take care of it," one officer says. The others reply: "We're good."
The police officers are currently on administrative duty pending a state attorney's office investigation.