Cop delivers traffic ticket to driver's home hours after confrontation, Ottawa man says

It was a road incident that escalated quickly last month. 

An Ottawa man says he caught it all on camera, the moments leading up to a confrontation with an off-duty police officer.

Matt Baczynski says he had passed the driver on the shoulder of a two-lane road, which led to a warning that the officer would be visiting his home later that day with a ticket.

He says the incident lasted only a few minutes if that, but he ended up with hundreds of dollars in fines and six demerit points. 

Baczynski says he was on driving on Mitch Owens Road, coming up behind the off-duty officer.

"By the time I got to his tail, I got a little bit close and had to brake really hard to slow down to 65 kilometres an hour," Baczynski said. "Shortly after that he turned on his blinker to turn left and as he started braking, just near Bowesville Road, I decided to try to manoeuvre around him and pass him on the shoulder, there’s a paved shoulder here. From what I understand that’s legal and I’ve always done that."

Moments after, he says the driver cancelled the left turn and instead followed behind him. At one point, he said someone used an obscene hand gesture from the vehicle. 

"He decided to come up on my right side cause the light turned red and at that point he yelled to open the window," he said.

The video supplied to CTV News Ottawa includes audio where a man can be heard yelling, "Put your window down. Hey guys, I’m an off-duty police officer, you run me off the road again and I’ll be paying you a visit tonight, you understand that? Slow down."

Baczynski says about six hours later there was a knock at his door.

"He served me with a careless driving ticket as well as he took the time to look into my file and could see that I didn’t update my sticker so he gave me another ticket for $110," he said.

The two tickets totalled $600 in fines and six demerit points.

"Quite the tally for just passing someone on the shoulder," Baczynski said. "This experience has left me feeling very vulnerable, I’ve lost a lot of sleep and worried about the future of my driver's license. I’ve had a clean record. I have for many years."

He says he reported what happened to the Ottawa Police Service professional standards unit within days.

Ottawa Police declined an interview with CTV News, but says they do not confirm or deny the existence of an ongoing investigation, adding that all complaints are taken seriously and will be investigated.

"I would like to see an apology from the officer personally and that he is held accountable for his actions," Baczynski said.

He says he also wants the tickets dropped.