I believe the police would have arrived and after looking over the situation written a report of what they found.
They
might do that, but all it's going to say is:
that [the complainant] had discovered damage to [the] car had occurred during the night while it was parked in the driveway.
It proves nothing in itself, and in any civil proceedings it would be just about worthless. It's a two sentence report that takes five minutes to write and is never seen or heard from again. I wrote a few of them rather than try to explain the law to people who weren't listening. Most of the time I advised people to call their insurance company or their attorney, because there was no reason to believe it was anything other than what it really was - storm damage.
My time would be documented in one line on my workcard noting when I got the call, when I arrived, when I cleared and how I cleared it - "Information - no report."
Unless this occurred in some jurisdiction where they have weird laws that make no sense anywhere else in the country, no criminal act took place here. The wind in the storm apparently caused the trashy neighbors' basketball goal to fall and dent the car.
In civil court I don't have a clue what would happen in this case. It seems that the plaintiff would have to prove that the law required some duty on the part of the defendant to keep his/her basketball goal in place, and the defendant failed to do that. Then there is the whole force majeure thing working for the defendant (it was an old and ratty basketball goal, but God knocked it down with a strong wind - take your claim up with him, not me).
If it was me, and in Texas, and I wanted to pursue it, I would file the lawsuit in the local JP court and await the mandatory mediation meeting. If I couldn't get satisfaction there, I would continue with the lawsuit, bring my roommates to court to testify to the decrepit condition of the basketball goal. If I won, and they refused to pay, I think I would try to file a lien against their home. It may take years, but when it comes time to sell I think they'll find a way to cough up that $500.