HAMTRAMCK (WXYZ) - Action News Investigator Scott Lewis takes on a hit and run accident, a case that the police refused to handle. The trail leads to a woman with a horrendous driving record and a long history of avoiding the consequences. It involves a car accident caught on tape. It's not a serious crash. Just a fender bender.
But the story is not about the damage. It's about what the police didn't do when the hit and run victim called for help and what they would have found if they had acted on his complaint.
The woman fleeing the Channel 7 Investigators has no business behind the wheel of a car. Her license is suspended. And she just ran a stop sign. But this is nothing unusual for Rebecca Alwagih. Check out her driving record: it's six pages long. She's been caught driving on a suspended or invalid license 13 times. She's been cited for driving without insurance, speeding, ignoring traffic signals, not restraining her kids, and making illegal turns.
Alwagih has warrants out for her arrest in Birmingham and Detroit. She owes Detroit $2,100 in unpaid traffic fines. Alwagih has been thumbing her nose at the law for for 14 years, and she's still driving. Worse yet, she may have gotten away with another one at this gas station in Hamtramck. It's a hit and run accident caught on gas station a security camera. You can decide whether it was Rebecca Alwagih behind the wheel and whether the police should have gone after her. An SUV comes flying into the parking lot with it's headlights off and, plows into the back of Joe Zago's car.
"When I got out of the car to see what happened they threw it into reverse and their lights were off and they went, you know, full speed back onto Caniff and just took off back into Hamtramck," said Zago.
Joe and his employee, who was standing outside the car, chased after the hit and run driver. Joe got the plate number.
His employee got a good look at the driver's face, and the gas station security camera got the whole thing on tape. Joe called Hamtramck police and figured it was a slam dunk. But when officer Amy Buchl showed up, Joe was stunned. Officer Buchl told him, "we don't take accident reports on private property".
"I thought that if someone left the scene of an accident that it's a criminal issue at that point. It's a hit and run," said Zago.
"And she said, 'No, we don't, if you don't like it you can come down to the station and talk to my Lieutenant'."
And that's exactly what Joe did. He drove to the Hamtramck Police Department and went inside to talk to the officer Buchl's supervisor.
To Joe's, surprise, Officer Buchl was already there, waiting.
"And she's leaning back with, you know, her arms crossed like this, and had a big grin on her face. And the other two cops that were up at the front I told them what happened and they said, 'oh yeah, we already heard, we're not investigating it,' " Zago recalled.
They told Joe Zago to have a good night, and that was the end of it, until he called the Action News Investigators.
So who's right here? Action News checked the state motor vehicle code and it does say that police are not obligated to take reports on accidents that happen on private property.
But there's another section of the law that applies specifically to Joe's case. And he's right, it wasn't just an accident, it was a crime. Section 268 of the Motor Vehicle Code says if you have an accident on private property open to travel by the public, and you leave the scene, it's a misdemeanor that could get you 90 days in jail and $1,000 dollar fine.
So you have a crime, caught on tape, with a license plate number, and a witness who says he can identify the driver, and Hamtramck police didn't do anything. But we did.
"The bumper obviously has to be replaced. My light's broken. My trunk is screwed up over here," said Zago.
Joe's car took a hit, but the SUV that hit him left some DNA behind, plastic parts that fell to the pavement during the crash.
So the Action News Investigators did what Hamtramck cops probably should have done. We ran the license plate on the SUV that hit Joe's car. It took only a few minutes to find the car, a 1996 Durango. It came back to a house just 2 and a half blocks from the accident scene. The front end damage was easy to spot. The Durango was registered to a 64-year-old woman.
But the eyewitness said the driver was much younger than that. So the Investigators put the Durango under surveillance. Before long we saw a young woman driving it. And when she pulled up in front of her house one day, we were waiting. It was time to grab those broken parts and have a candid conversation.
"Are you missing some parts from your car," asked Lewis.
"Not that I know of, no," said the driver.
"Did you rear end someone down at the gas station at Caniff and I-75," asked Lewis.
"No, I didn't," she responded.
We weren't about to take her word for it. Lewis took a close look at the front end or her SUV and there was no question about it.
The parts came off this Durango.
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