A few years ago during a snowstorm, I was flagged down by this kid who had gotten into a MV accident with a truck on a one way street. I helped arrange for a tow and assisted him in exchanging papers with the less than compliant driver. He asked me to take the accident report, but I told him he could just go down to the local BPD district station to take care of that. I let the young man sit in the cruiser with me while he waited for the towing company. We chatted a bit and he told me his father was a lieutenant for a department on the North Shore. Then he asked if he could have my contact info, "just in case" he needed it in the future. No problem, I gave him my name and the number to the station.
A few weeks later, I received a message that he was looking for me, so I gave him a call back and he told me he was having a problem with his insurance company and asked if I would write them a letter stating what I saw. After speaking with one of the day sargents about it and getting the go ahead from him, I told the guy that I would do it, but I didn't know if it would be much help because I did not actually WITNESS the accident. He said, hey, whatever you can do would be great. So, I jotted out this letter stating what I had observed as I rolled on scene, which was basically the conditions, directions and locations of the vehicles, and I mailed it out to him.
A few days later when he received it, he called me and questioned the content of the letter. I told him that I had said to him prior that all I can do is say what I saw, I cannot make any judgements or assumptions or outright LIE (which is really what he wanted me to do) because I did not witness the accident. He didn't seem too happy about that. A few hours later, I got a phone call from one of MY lieutenants chewing me out about some LT from this North Shore dept. that called to make a complaint about me. :roll: I explained the whole story to him and covered my ass by telling him to speak to the day sargent who gave me the "OK" to even get involved in this poop. He said he would look into it and I never heard anything back about it. :no:
You know, I tried to be nice, and that was the thanks I got! ](*,)