Spot the difference
Check out this story and see if you can spot the number of ways it departs from what would have happened here in Tucson. (I have slightly edited the story for brevity)
Why I always call the Toronto Police when a car driver does anything dangerous
Submitted by Kevin Love on December 31, 2008 – 12:14pmI was returning from the grocery store with a front basket full of assorted groceries. Suddenly, a man driving an SUV passed me, pulled right in front of me, slammed on his brakes right in front of me and pulled into an on-street parking spot.
Fortunately, I avoided being hit. The very next thing that I did was take out my cell telephone and call 911.
After a few minutes, along came Police Constable Tom Parmigiano of 14 Division “B”. The SUV was still parked there, so he ran the plate number through his computer.
The owner of that SUV is, among other things of interest to the police, currently prohibited from driving. Within five minutes, three more policemen showed up. One of them was the police supervisor.
One of the policemen stayed outside while the other three went and searched the building into which the driver had gone. After a few minutes they came out empty-handed. They had wanted me to stick around until that point so that I could identify the driver if they were able to find him.
This is one of the most important reasons why I always call Toronto Police whenever I’m the victim of car harassment or any other dangerous and illegal behaviour: Violent criminals rarely make model drivers.
Usually when I lay a complaint, I don’t have witnesses. But the Toronto Police always follow up on the complaint and interview the driver. I figure that the experience of having a policeman show up at his home to discuss his behaviour will have a deterrent effect upon bad actors.
So let me conclude by strongly encouraging everyone to get the license plate number and call Toronto Police whenever they witness or are victims of dangerous or illegal acts by motor vehicle drivers. At the least, a policeman will be visiting the driver to discuss his behaviour. At the most, you may be helping Toronto Police to apprehend some of the most serious of criminals
Here in Tucson, you can’t get the police to visit a driver even after they have deliberately and violently assaulted a bicyclist with a baseball bat. I guess they do things differently in Toronto.
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December 30th, 2009 at 12:15 am
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