A border patrol officer who crashed his van into a civilian car blamed the accident on the other driver — but little did he know, the civilian had a secret camera installed in his vehicle.
The video evidence makes it quite clear that the border cop caused the crash and lied about the details in subsequent reports.
The other driver was “Ted,” of Lawrence, New York, a technology blogger for dealspin.com. He had recently installed a Timetec Roadhawk Dashboard Camera in his vehicle, capturing the windshield’s view of the road. Ted was driving down Rockaway Boulevard last week when he cruised through a green light at an intersection and crashed into an oncoming border patrol van that had made a left turn from the other side of the highway, according to ABC News.
It was an illegal left turn, according to a sign prohibiting left turns at that intersection. What’s more, the border cop had run a red light, according to video evidence.
The video footage shows that the crash was quite bad. Luckily, no one was badly hurt. Ted, however, was shaken, and immediately called the police.
The border patrol officer immediately began insisting that Ted had caused the accident, according to Ted’s account:
A few minutes later, as I was on the phone with 911, the driver of the van, a big burly guy in plainclothes, came running over to me with his U.S. Border patrol badge exposed, screaming “Didn’t you see the light? Did you not see the light?”
When the (real) cops came, the driver further accused me of going through a red light and causing the accident. All the passengers in the Border Patrol van repeated the same line: that I went through a red light.
Ted wasn’t sure what had actually happened until he reviewed the footage at his home:
After I got home, I uploaded the video, and lo and behold: The light was green! After reviewing the video a few times, I realized exactly what had happened. The US border van had white and blue lights flashing on top of the van, causing the 2 cars in the left and center lanes to stop and let the van make a left turn (which was an illegal left, as you can see in the video). I was in the right lane, so I did not see the flashing lights, because from the driver’s seat, the Border Patrol van was blocked by the other 2 cars. Furthermore, red flashing lights might have caught my attention, but faint white and blue lights in bright sunlight did not give me any indication of an emergency vehicle approaching. Not that the van had any excuse for ramming into me. I spoke to an accident attorney today, and he told me that, even in the event of an emergency, an emergency vehicle must take care and caution while driving, especially when they are doing something improper such as cutting into ongoing traffic. And anyway, what could have been the border patrol emergency? Were Canadians invading JFK?
But that did not stop the border cop from filing a report that blamed the accident on Ted. The report claimed that the light was red for Ted, when in fact, it was red for the cop.
Ted did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At dealspin.com, he wrote that he will keep his readers informed of any updates on the situation.
