Crime photos a smashing success
UPDATED: 2007-03-13 02:47:30 MST


By BILL KAUFMANN, SUN MEDIA

Have lens, will travel. Dave Watling, top, is seen with the digital camera he used to capture a hit-and-run, below, while it happened in Calgary. Posting the pix on his blog saw 50,000 hits in three hours.(Jim Wells, Sun Media)

It’s a candid-camera arrest that has city police shaking their heads in grateful amazement and the Internet buzzing.

On Saturday afternoon, Calgarian Dave Watling said he and wife Heather were southbound on Bonaventure Dr. S.E. at Southland Dr., when they noticed a silver Acura RSX with two males inside hurtle past them in the left lane.

“This kid came flying by me and plowed into a Mercedes 300,” said Watling, 43. “I asked my wife Heather to grab my camera.”

After rear-ending the Mercedes halted at a traffic light, and possibly damaging a nearby taxi, he said it became clear the Acura’s driver was attempting to flee.

Watling, who’d squeezed off several photos from inside his vehicle, stepped out to take a few more to document the suspect’s licence plate.

The Acura then sped away into a nearby Wal-Mart parking lot, said Watling.

“The guys in the Mercedes and the cabbie went after him, but lost him,” he said.

But the suspect couldn’t escape Watling’s prying lens, which captured not only the vehicle’s licence plate number but the driver’s boyish features and orange T-shirt.

“It’s important because all the driver has to say for an alibi is ‘someone stole my car,’” he said.

The Acura’s driver’s side headlight, possibly damaged in the collision, is also clearly visible in one image.

And other eyewitnesses, he said, consistently recited the wrong licence plate number captured so vividly by Watling’s camera.

When police arrived on the scene, said Watling, they were both startled and amused at his digital evidence.

“The one guy was just howling,” he said.

Sgt. Peter Prins said such citizen assistance is extremely rare.

“It’s kind of nice to have those photos — it makes it easier for us,” he said.

Watling’s photos will be valuable evidence against a 17-year-old who’s been charged with careless driving and hit-and-run, said Prins.

The accused can’t be named under provisions of the Youth Justice Act.

Watling’s arresting photos have also become a sensation on the Internet, ringing up 50,000 hits in a three-hour period yesterday after being posted at an auto enthusiast site.

“It’s gone to three or four other websites and people are just jumping all over it,” said Watling.