Video of a man trying to open a woman’s car door while being pulled over at a Vancouver intersection is being “disturbed” by police.
In footage posted to Instagram and Reddit, the man is seen standing in front of the vehicle near Oppenheimer Park and blocking it when the light turns green.
“Get out of the way,” the driver is heard saying. “I have to get to work.”
The man did not die.
The driver insisted she posted the video not to shame the man, but to encourage others to lock their car doors.
“We don’t know what state the people who cross our path will be in,” he wrote.
Vancouver Police Department spokesman Sgt. Steve Addison doesn’t believe the late August incident has been reported yet, but he has reviewed the video.
“Someone walks up to their car, starts trying the door handles, stands in front of their car, puts their hand in the car, that’s going to be terrifying to some people,” he said.
“These are things we’re seeing more and more, not just in the downtown Eastside, but elsewhere in the city.”
Indeed, Addison can relate, having had an experience of her own that she also describes as “puzzling.”
While driving to work in his personal vehicle, and not in uniform, he and other drivers were confronted and yelled at by a stranger. They also stopped at an intersection in the east center.
Addison has been a police officer for 16 years and said he was caught off guard.
“What I did was look for an exit strategy,” he recalled. “I’m off duty, I’m in my personal car, I’m not ready for this.”
The woman who posted the video shot near Oppenheimer Park managed to get away when the man became distracted.