Location: California
Last night, I was at an intersection waiting for the light to turn green. Once my light was green, I started accelerating forward. Everything seemed fine, until halfway through, I suddenly hear a police siren turn on and tires screeching, all within a second right before my car suddenly got hit on my left by an officer. Thankfully I was mostly fine (just mentally shaken up and left with some strained muscles – already went to Urgent Care and got painkillers for it). My car though not so much: some holes torn into the side, bumper grill was torn off, torn wires, and the driver door is slightly misaligned. Airbags didn't go off and the damage seems to be mostly cosmetic afaik, so nothing too serious ig
During the report, the cop that hit me did admit to being distracted when he started accelerating as he was looking down to turn on his sirens or something (can't recall why specifically), thus didn't see me until it was too late. The officer making the crash report also commented that since everything lined up in my favor thanks to plenty of witnesses, it was more than likely that all the damage would be covered. I already filed a claim with my insurance and am just waiting to hear back from them.
Thing is, I'm also being told by various people about what to do next: "lawyer up and sue", "don't lawyer up, it's not worth it", idk anymore, I've never had to deal with anything like this. People are saying this is easy money and stuff, but idk, isn't it difficult to sue the police? Like, what's the next best thing to do here? Should I just handle this like a normal car accident through insurance?