FWIW I used to work with an engineer who was also a certified accident reconstructionist ("The One", ask Z about Brad G).
One day he calls me into his office and shows me a grainy picture of what looks like a broken coil spring. He's always quizzing me about random shit I'm and I'm getting kinda sick of it so after 3 or 4 guesses I say a light fixture filament, (if I was a comedian there would be a joke about a light bulb appearing over my head right about now) ie the thing that gets hot and makes light in incandescent bulbs like the halogen headlights and brake lights in most cars.
Instead of explaining the graduate level physics of light bulbs (ie right hand rules or when metal gets hot it breaks easier) I'll just quote from the
page that that picture came from:
When a headlamp is on, the filament will have a temperature of over 5000°F. If the velocity of the filament is suddenly changed, i.e., by an impact, the filament will deform (bend) before breaking. If the filament is cold, no filament deformation will be noted.
In this case it doesn't look like the Acura's (I don't think they are LED) reverse lights even come on? He doesn't hit the car that hard but I'd have to guess he's either disconnected the rev lights or pulled this scam before (duh) and broken the rev light filaments.
Either way the cop should know some of these warning signs (like the car has only been owned 1 week before it got hit) and if he's trained right should put it in his accident report.
But having the guy on camera asking you to fork over cash in lieu of filing and accident report is pretty badass. I wouldn't have pointed out the camera just to try and nail the guy on as many fraud charges as possible.