An Eventful Saturday

WRITTEN BY CUBBY

Last Saturday afternoon Nate and I were making run into town to visit the local Richmond brewery when we happened upon a car (white Honda) vs. motorcycle accident about a minute after the crash. No Police or Fire Department vehicles were there yet. We were behind a line of about four cars and had an excellent view of the accident scene in front of us. The Honda was facing us and the motorcycle was on its side under the car's bumper. We couldn't see the driver of the motorcycle, but we didn't really have too much time to look because things got a whole lot more interesting real fast.

I saw some woman engaging the driver of the Honda through the passenger window. She was highly animated, flailing her arms about. We couldn't hear what she was yelling (windows were up, air conditioning on, and were too far away). We witnessed the driver of the Honda suddenly back up and drive away, allegedly fleeing the scene of the accident and allegedly committing a hit and run. The woman was clamped onto the car trying to keep it from leaving, but had to let go.

Nate was driving, and as the vehicle sped past us, Nate did a U-turn in the middle of the street and started chasing him. There was another vehicle in front of him (red truck) who must have seen what all had happened, and as the Honda was swerving all over the road trying to get past him, the red truck matched his moves and prevent him from getting away. Nate and I were a few car-lengths behind watching it all. A couple of blocks up the street, and by some gigantic coincidence, a cop had another driver pulled over for an apparent moving violation.

The truck stopped next to the cop car and alerted the policeman. Nate and I pulled up behind the Honda and boxed him in, preventing his escape, until the policeman could arrest him with his gun drawn! It was so cool!

As the alleged hit and run driver was trying to get away, I remembered I could shoot video with my handy iPhone, so I turned on the phone and put it into video mode as fast as I could. I shot this short video (shown at the end of this post).

I thought for sure the guy in the Honda was going to back up and crash us, or worse. We didn't know what was going to happen next. I didn't even notice there was a cop there until he seemingly appeared out of nowhere with his gun drawn. It was like one of those scripted reality TV shows! In my head I kept hearing "Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do?"

The video's not much -- just a few seconds as the arrest was about to be made. I was afraid the cop would spot me with the iPhone then confiscate it as evidence, leaving me without a phone for months. I didn't want to risk that so I stopped recording. What you don't see is the cop pulling the young man out of the car, handcuffing him behind the back, then calling in for backup. We left at that point. We had a brewery to get to!

Nate uploaded the video and a brief summary to the local Richmond TV news tip line, and we watched the news that night expecting to see at a minimum a two-second clip of the cop coming around the Honda with his gun drawn (I figured the TV station would use that bit as a teaser during the broadcast), but the story didn't even make the news. It turns out there was a second hit and run in Richmond on Saturday, one involving a death, and that one got all the air play. Our little hit and run was just too boring to even report.

This is a link to Cubby's blog: Here