Yesterday was a rough day for Portland Police Sergeant J. Santos, who was riding his bike along NW Cornell Road in the morning when a car buzzed past within inches of him, almost hitting the off-duty officer. Then the driver got worse. Much worse.
Take it away, police press release!
The driver, later identified as 68-year-old Larry Fornshell, passed Sergeant Santos and continued on. When both came into town to a traffic control device, Sergeant Santos rode to the right of Mr. Fornshell’s car. Fornshell turned right, into Santos. Just prior to the intersection of Northwest 25th Avenue and Northwest Lovejoy Street, Mr. Fornshell stopped abruptly. Santos said he had to ride to the left of Fornshell’s vehicle into the oncoming traffic lanes to avoid hitting Fornshell’s car and slapped Fornshell’s vehicle with his hand. When Santos and Fornshell came to the intersection, Fornshell put his vehicle in reverse and attempted to hit Santos on his bike. Santos jumped off of his bike and ran with his bike to the sidewalk. Fornshell then hit Santos’ bike as he was holding onto it. Santos jumped out of the way to avoid being struck and Fornshell left the scene of the crash. Santos remembered the license plate number from the vehicle and called 911.
Last evening, March 22, 2011, Fornshell was located and arrested for the Hit and Run and Attempt Assault.
You sir, are justly boned.
From bikeportland.org:
“Investigators are looking for witnesses who might have seen the incident at NW 25th and Lovejoy. If you saw anything, please contact Det. Kevin Warren at (503) 823-3761.”
If a car driver had been rude to him, would he have tried to ram the car?
Yeah, I saw something.
I saw similar events happen to me and friends several times, and once when I actually called the cops they said the woman who was driving lived all the way out in Milwaukie and “nothing’s going to happen to her anyway, so what do you want me to do about it?”
CC +1
You can’t really blame the driver for trying. Statistically speaking, the odds that he’d get charged for hitting an unidentified person on a bike are stupid low.
Yup, I was just thinking, “Well certainly this will do something about the high, high number of motherfuckers in cars who blithely attempt to kill pedestrians, bikers and other people in cars, knowing full well that they’ll never be charged with anything.”
-1 to the press release for the redundant “continued on”.
I had a very similar incident happen to me on fremont. I had the license plate number, the driver got out of his car and chased me around it as I dialed 911 and did not stop until he realized I was talking to the cops. They said they were sending someone, I waited an hour and no one came. I got so cold I had to leave. I made 3 more attempts that week to make a report but was given the run around. The sad truth is that unless someone does this to a cop nothing will happen to them.
also was this guy driving a black volvo, because he actually looks an awful lot like the guy I am talking about.
I’m going to produce a comic inspired by this story. It’ll be called “Blabby Gets Busted.”
TSW for COTW.
I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!!
Good thing the cop only hit the car with his hand and didn’t spit on the car or he’d be the one charged with assault.
Oh, he still wouldn’t have been?
What a photo, did they check his truck for child sex workers?
ah! the solution is obvious. if we can get more cops to commute by bike, maybe something will be done about this kind of shit which happens every fucking day, all over the fucking city.