- A Calgary car owner returned from a few days away to find her car had vanished
- Neighbours informed her that her Hyundai was damaged by a SWAT-team armoured truck
- The car was reportedly left on the sidewalk, then towed away and impounded
A Calgary resident recently returned from a weekend trip only to find her car, a late-model Hyundai Accent, had apparently been towed away. This itself is not newsworthy—it happens frequently in big cities. What absolutely is newsworthy was the resident’s discovery that her car had been towed away because it was badly damaged by a police strike team, and then left as collateral damage on the sidewalk.
In speaking with local media, Mackenzie Hardy said she and her boyfriend were puzzled by the absence of her car from its usual parking spot in northwest Calgary after arriving home from a couple of days away just before Christmas.
Neighbours quickly appeared, telling her (and showing device-captured footage proving) that an armoured vehicle that was part of a police response in the area had impacted her vehicle and drove it up onto the sidewalk. After departing, cops allegedly chose to leave the stricken Hyundai where it was, a decision which obviously led to it being towed by the city, since cars aren’t supposed to be on sidewalks.
Video and images provided as part of the Calgary news broadcast show the heavily damaged Accent rudely shoved onto a berm, with an armoured truck nearby and various suited-up responders standing around looking at the thing. In other words, there is no way this impact was unknown to the tactical team.
Other photos show an angry gouge in the Hyundai’s front quarter panel at about the same height as the tactical truck’s rear bumper. It isn’t unreasonable to suggest the truck’s driver snagged this car while pulling up curbside to their destination, dragging and pushing it up onto the sidewalk.
Hardy says she’s out a significant amount of money thanks to a newfound need to rent a car or take transit to her place of work. By the way, this incident happened over a month ago, yet Hardy is still seeking recourse or even basic answers from the cops and city.
“Serve and protect” apparently turned into something more like “swerve and connect” in this case. Stay vigilant, folks.