WESTFIELD – A Southwick man who told police that his vehicle was stolen at three different locations was charged with filing a false police report after his car was found in a ditch in Southwick.
City police reports that the man came to the station at 2:23 a.m. Saturday and reported that his car was stolen by two Russian men who stopped his car and pulled him out of it through a window.
Officer Matthew Schultze reports that the man first came to police attention early Saturday morning when he was seen spinning the tires of his 2009 Volkswagen Rabbit on School Street near the police station.
The vehicle was stopped and, after delivering a warning, Officer Jeffrey Vigneault reports that he advised the man to go back to his home in Southwick.
The man later told Schultze that he went to an Arnold Street bar and said that his car was stolen from the parking lot there.
When asked if his car was stolen from the bar’s parking lot or the nearby municipal parking lot, the man’s account changed and he next said that it was stolen on South Maple Street by two Russian men who stopped his car there.
The man said that a car had been following him, with emergency flashers illuminated and horn sounding, before it stopped him.
When asked how the car following him forced him to stop he said that the car had cut him off.
When the man resumed his narrative, the site of the stop changed to College Highway in Southwick and the man said that the two white Russian men had approached his car and pulled him from it through a window.
Schultze asked the man if he had been wearing his seat belt and the man virtuously replied that he had.
When asked how the men had been able to pull him out the window without first reaching inside his car to release the belt, thus making themselves vulnerable to a counterattack, the putative victim had no coherent reply.
He said that once outside his vehicle the men threw him to the ground and struck him but he could not say if they used fists or feet.
He said that, when they stopped assaulting him, one of his assailants returned to their car while the other entered his vehicle and both left.
The alleged victim said that he got a ride to the Southwick police station to report the crime.
Schultze reports that he received a call from Southwick police who said that they had become aware that Westfield police had checked the man’s vehicle status recently and said that about 2 a.m. he had come to their station, with visible bruising, and reported that his car had been stolen in Westfield but refused to say exactly where or how it happened.
Southwick police provided him a ride to the Westfield police station.
Officer Matthew Preuss subsequently reported that the man’s car was found, with significant damage, in a ditch next to College Highway in Southwick. He reports that a crack in the windshield is consistent with an injury observed on the man’s forehead.
Lt. Michael Lacroix reports that, before he completed the stolen vehicle report, he read the man the statute regarding the filing of false police reports and advised him of the penalties provided for making such reports.
Lacroix reports that the man said that he understood the law before signing the report.
A criminal complaint was filed charging the man with making a false police report.
