The Shoulder
The Shoulder
53
sharp-owl-753

Off-duty officer deliberately rammed us, police report is full of lies — what do we do?

I'm still shaking writing this out, honestly. I was riding shotgun with my cousin a few weeks ago. We merged onto a surface road from a parking lot, totally normal, no issue. Out of nowhere this big pickup starts tailgating us so aggressively I could barely see his headlights in the side mirror — that's how close he was.

My cousin changed lanes to let him pass. Instead of passing, the truck matched us, lane for lane, every single time. We genuinely got scared and sped up to create distance. The truck then drifted into oncoming traffic and sideswiped us hard enough to deploy the curtain airbag on my side. We pulled into a gas station lot, completely shaken.

The driver gets out and immediately flashes some kind of badge. Police arrive and the whole vibe shifted — officers were chatting with this guy like old friends while we sat on the curb asking for medical help.

The crash report we finally got says we were the aggressors. It says my cousin made an unsafe lane change and that the contact was minor and mutual. There's zero mention of the truck being in oncoming traffic at all.

Here's the thing though: a gas station on the corner had an exterior camera pointed right at the road. We got the footage. It clearly shows the truck crossing the center line and hitting us. We brought it to the attorney we'd been talking to and he said the angle was "inconclusive" and passed on the case.

We have the footage. We have a witness who stopped and gave us their number. We have ER records. And we're being told it's not enough?

Has anyone dealt with a situation where the police report was just… wrong? Like intentionally wrong? What are our actual options here?

12replies

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12 replies

  • 8
    genuine-tern-551

    The police report in my accident had errors too — not nearly as bad as yours sounds, but wrong enough that it affected everything early on. What helped me was getting a second and third attorney to at least look at it. Some will do a free consult and give you a real opinion. The first lawyer isn't the last word.

  • 17
    steady-stoat-715

    Please, please be careful talking to the other side's insurance right now. If an adjuster calls being all friendly and "just wanting to get your side," that recorded statement can and will be used to support whatever narrative is already in that police report. Don't give them anything until you have solid representation.

  • 9
    steady-fox-989

    I used to work claims and I'll be honest — when a police report comes in blaming one party, adjusters lean on it hard because it's an easy file to close. It's not that we were lazy, it's that we had hundreds of files. What breaks through that is objective third-party evidence like your gas station footage. The issue is making someone care enough to actually watch it closely. A good attorney will bring in an accident reconstructionist who can timestamp and map the video frame by frame. That kind of expert opinion is hard to dismiss.

    • 0
      steady-commuter430

      That lines up with what my adjuster told me too.

  • 23
    tidy-bison-870

    A few things worth knowing: police reports aren't automatically admissible as gospel in civil cases — they're one piece of evidence. Your video footage, witness statements, and medical records all matter independently. Also, if there's any reason to believe the report was falsified, there are complaint processes through the department's internal affairs and sometimes a state oversight board. That doesn't fix your case overnight but it creates a paper trail. Keep copies of everything — the video, every text with the witness, your ER discharge paperwork, all of it.

    • 20
      mellow-stoat-291

      I'm not doubting you, genuinely — but I want to ask: did you or your cousin say anything to the officers at the scene that could have been taken out of context? And when you say the footage "clearly" shows the truck crossing the line, have you had anyone outside your circle watch it cold with no explanation first? Sometimes what feels obvious to us reads differently to a stranger. Worth knowing before your next attorney consult so you're not caught off guard.

  • 19
    tidy-raven-726

    Not legal advice, but: the fact that one attorney passed doesn't mean your case is weak — it may mean it's complicated, and some attorneys avoid complicated. Cases involving law enforcement carry extra friction and some lawyers just don't want that fight. Look specifically for attorneys who advertise civil rights experience alongside PI work, or who've handled cases against municipalities. They're built differently for this kind of thing.

    • 13
      gentle-wren-278

      I just want to say I'm really sorry this happened to you both. You were scared, you got hurt, and now you're having to fight just to be believed. That's exhausting on top of traumatic. Please don't give up — keep pushing.

  • 17
    silent-dove-259

    However this legal stuff plays out, please make sure you're following up on the physical side. Airbag deployments can cause injuries that don't fully surface for days — chest bruising, shoulder strain, even mild concussion symptoms that creep in later. If anything feels off, go back in and get it documented. The timing of when symptoms are recorded matters more than most people realize.

    • 2
      level-offramp716

      Following up on this — any update on how it turned out?

  • 9
    daring-owl-756

    Get that witness locked in NOW. People forget details, lose phones, move away. Text them today, ask if they'd be willing to write down what they saw and sign it. Even a simple written statement helps. The video is good but a live human being who watched it happen and will say so is even better.

    • 3
      grounded-road-soul401

      Did the timeline change anything for you? Mine dragged on for weeks.