Maverick and or other law enforcement...

[JB73]

Hit and Run question:

Tonight at a local gas station I witnessed a hit and run. The driver of the SUV that backed into the other vehicle was in front of me in line.

He purchased 2 1/2 gallons of orange juice, paid with his credit card, and used a reward card for that brand of gas station.

I remembered him because of the odd purchase at 9:30 PM, and the cashier asked "you making screwdrivers?" and he said emphatically "NOOOO"

the driver of the hit vehicle was fueling at the time, and stood there dumbfounded. another clerk of the station was outside having a smoke, and myself, him and about 6 other people witnessed this.

they backed into the guy, we heard the crunch pretty bad, and they sped off. I watched a second to see what the guy who was hit was going to do, then hopped in my car to chase them down and get a plate number. I lost them 2 or 3 blocks away.


Anyway, this guy paid with his credit card. I can Identify him, his voice, and he had a tattoo on his left shoulder (he was wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off. he was 5' 10" possibly 5' 11" short dark brown hair, and a really deep low voice. White, and mid 30's age.

The police station is 2 blocks away, and I past it trying to chase the guy.

I went into the police station and gave them all this information.

I felt I needed to, as I told the gas station people once I got back and they didn't seem interested in helping this guy out. me I have been hit and run 2 times in my current car and it really PISSES me off.



My question is will the police use this information and really try and find this guy?? they can get his name from the credit card receipt, and the reward receipt he left at the counter.... but can they legally get that info without a warrant? if they have to wait that long the receipt will be lost in the 1000's of others since then, I doubt anyone will look through a week or months worth of receipts.

will I be called in to testify in any way? (I will GLADLY do it to catch this A hole)


MAN I hate people that hit and run. they should lose their license for a year flat out.

[SaburoS]

I'm not a police officer but if it happened on private property and did not involve injury or death, it's a civil matter. The police usually won't get involved outside of making a police report.
That's in California anyway, not sure how it's handled in other states.

[JB73]

Originally posted by SaburoS
I'm not a police officer but if it happened on private property and did not involve injury or death, it's a civil matter. The police usually won't get involved outside of making a police report.
That's in California anyway, not sure how it's handled in other states.

that's what I was afraid of.

what if the gas station attendants willingly gave the name and info to the guy that was hit?


I guess that is another legal matter, and that's where my questions are going.




I want to see this guy in prison lol. it offends me so much hit and runs.

[lasersailor184]

Warrants are only required if the owner of the information does not want to give up the information, or refuses access to private property.



Anyway, I fully experienced the Cop's lack of will to do anything this past week.  Someone broke into my jeep, cracked the center dashboard casing, and cracked the dashboard itself, and then tore out the stereo and took with him the bridle.

We called the police (who showed up 4 hours after he said he would) to show him the problem, as well as tell him about people acting suspiciously and how the jeep was parked where only people who had been back there could have seen it.

He didn't care, didn't even take down half the information.


He won't do anything about it.  We damn near had to tell him to his face that he would be filing a report.

[Rich46yo]

Its not a "civil matter". A crime is a crime and it doesn't matter if it happens on pvt or public property. Without a complainant however there wont even be a report made. The coppers probably told you they would just to make you happy. The guy that was hit would have to either call, or go in, make a report, then it would be investigated by a "hit & run" unit, or, traffic unit.

                            Its common for people who had their cars broken into to want crime Labs to show up, dust for prints, and scores of detectives to be assigned to "look for leads". Just like its common for people to exaggerate X 6 the time it takes us to get there. Where I work we have bodies stacked up to the ceiling so a theft of auto is fairly low priority. Ive never had one wait more then 1/2 hour however, and then only that because the dispatcher didn't give the assignment out.

Originally posted by SaburoS
I'm not a police officer but if it happened on private property and did not involve injury or death, it's a civil matter. The police usually won't get involved outside of making a police report.
That's in California anyway, not sure how it's handled in other states.

[Maverick]

There are a couple of things here that bear on the situation.

First the victim of the H&R has to file a report. Unfortunately the Police in most cases can't just take a 3rd party report when there is a victim still available to be the reportee.

This may be a criminal matter now since it involved a failure to exchange info. I say may, because I don't know what the statutes of the principle jurisdiction are. If there is no law stating it becomes criminal to fail to exchange info on a private property collision then it reverts back to a civil situation, in other words law suit.

As far as your potential to have to testify, possibly, as it all depends on the above circumstances. If the victim files a report for insurance purposes but refuses to prosecute even with 100% ID of the suspect, don't count on hearing about it again. If the suspect doesn't contest the issue and either pleads or gets a deal to settle, same thing.

If the victim is willing to go the whole way on this hopefully he was able to talk the clerk into giving him the credit card info or at least the clerk copied it down for the Police. There are a lot of things that ca bear on this so it's hard to give you a specific answer.

I do want to say good job on wanting and trying to help. All too often folks will be right there and see everything including the license plate and later tell the investigating Officer that they saw nothing at all or got there after it was all over.

[Meatwad]

Here if you do a hit and run and the person guilty of it is caught, they are usually fined and/or arrested

[Hornet33]

It's all going to depend on if the victim files a report with the police, and if the police are even willing to investigate. That being said, did you give the victim all of your information and an explanation of what you saw? As long as the victim has your information to give to the police then they might contact you.

Stuff like that does suck. I got hit one time and the girl took off right after it happened when I told her I was going to call the police. I was lucky and got the tag number off the truck and gave that to the officer who called it in. Within an hour they caught her. Come to find out she was only 15 with no liscense, driving her boyfriends truck who didn't have insurance. I sort of knew the guy who owned the truck so we were able to make a deal outside of the courts to get my truck fixed so he didn't get totaly screwed. I ended up working at the same job as him a few months later. He helped me get the job and we became really good friends. Weird huh??

[DadRabit]

S!

§ 550.024. DUTY ON STRIKING UNATTENDED VEHICLE.  (a) The
operator of a vehicle that collides with and damages an unattended
vehicle shall immediately stop and:
      (1)  locate the operator or owner of the unattended
vehicle and give that person the name and address of the operator
and the owner of the vehicle that struck the unattended vehicle;  or
      (2)  leave in a conspicuous place in, or securely
attach in a plainly visible way to, the unattended vehicle a written
notice giving the name and address of the operator and the owner of
the vehicle that struck the unattended vehicle and a statement of
the circumstances of the collision.
   (b)  A person commits an offense if the person violates
Subsection (a).  An offense under this section is:
      (1)  a Class C misdemeanor, if the damage to all
vehicles involved is less than $200;  or
      (2)  a Class B misdemeanor, if the damage to all
vehicles involved is $200 or more.


Class C misdemeanor is just a ticket.  Class B they go to jail.  Still an offense.  Texas Traffic Code.  Hope this helps.

S!

[bj229r]

The driver of the SUV will prolly sue you for character assassination, then the police will investigate you and find a 10 year old unpaid parking ticket and arrest you, whereupon you will lose your temper with the absurdity of the whole situation, causing the cop to beat the crap out of you, then tossing you into a drunk tank where a REALLY big black guy named Marcus will have his way with you...ya will prolly get off with 6 months probation if you're LUCKY:D