For the traffic enforcers out there

[wantin150]

ShortBuSX,

It is unfortunate that you feel the way you do. There is no point in my continuing to address the issues here as what I say will not change your prejudice against Law Enforcement and will only lead to further, pointless discussion. Have a great evening.

 

[user00000]

quote:

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To those of your serving honorably

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Thank you XS650, and back atcha for your military service!

 

[wavinwayne]

This won't add anything valuable to the discussion, but it might make it a little more interesting. Here is a list of my encounters with the police, since I started driving in 1989:

Several speeding tickets that I deserved in early 90's - Officers attitudes were always neytral & never asked to search my car (& I had cars that looked like they should be searched)

Stopped at a license check late one night in '91. Forgot I had left my CO2 pistol (Beretta look-alike) laying on the rear floorboard. Officer made me get out of the car & put my hands on car. Checked out my "piece", gave it back (asked me to put it out of sight) & sent me on my way without incident.

Spring '93 - Decatur, AL - I was 20 years old & stupid. My loudmouthed friend & I had been drinking beer one night. He mouthed off to a guy in McDonalds, who proceeded to kick his little butt outside. I pulled the guy off once he'd had enough. Cops were called. We were just pulling out of the parking lot when the cops arrived. The biggest one (300 lbs at least - FAT guy) told me to get out of the passengers seat. I told him I wasn't going to. He politely told me that if I didn't get out, that he would help me out. I decided I didn't require his assistance. A search of the car (it was borrowed from my friend's girlfiend's Mom) revealed a very, very, very large amount of marijuana in the trunk. We were both hauled off to jail. Long story short, we weren't charged for the dope; we both plead guilty iin court to a misdemeanor "minor in possession of alcohol" charge, paid a fine & went on with life. Funny thing about that case - the cops didn't impound the car, nor did they seize the beer that we had in the cooler in the trunk, even though we were both under age. I never did understand that. Cops were all polite throughout this ordeal.

Lastly - again I was younger & very stupid - In 1995, one evening after work, I was stopped by an AL State Trooper for going 70 in a 55. I had been drinking (too much) at a pub that afternoon. I was driving a car with limo tint on all the windows & the officer couldn't see me until he got to the driver's window. I was also carrying a loaded Glock under my front seat. I was arrested, charged with DUI, had my pistol seized, & my CCW permit revoked. I was polite to the trooper, & he was as polite as can be expected in return. I plead guilty to the DUI, paid my fine, lost my license for 3 months, had to go to a class on alcohol & drug abuse, did my time in the county slammer, & when all was said & done, the trooper told the local sheriff he didn't have a problem with me getting my pistol & CCW permit back. This was the last incident I have had with law enforcement. I learned the lessons such an encounter is supposed to teach, & I will never repeat the stupid choices I made.

Oh well, those my "Cops" stories. I hope you all won't think less of me now.

My whole point is that cops were always nice to me, even when they had good reasons not to be.

 

[ShortBuSX]

quote:

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Originally posted by wantin150:
ShortBuSX,

It is unfortunate that you feel the way you do. There is no point in my continuing to address the issues here as what I say will not change your prejudice against Law Enforcement and will only lead to further, pointless discussion. Have a great evening.

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Believe it or not I am capable of change and a full blown appology is not beneath me, and my reason for discussiong this is for a better understanding, but I recon everything is debateable.

Let me end on this note, maybe an indication of why I might be so "prejudice".

I have had several things stollen from me in my lifetime, Ive reported every one of them...I have never had anything returned to me, nothing found and no follow ups or "Hey! We caught the guy!"

I also worked a bicycle shop in my early 20s. One day an officer came in the shop pushing a very nice Cannondale(more than $1000), he said it had been stollen and had been in the impound for over a month and nobody had claimed it. We spotted our shops sticker on the bike and were stoaked, becuase we kept impeciable records of all the bikes we had sold and that the serial number was in the computer and that would give us the owners name, and being our customer, we knew that person would be pleased. The cop said "Nope! We came here to have it striped to be repainted...we are going to use it for parades."

Lastly...my ex wife and I were involved in a hit and run, guy ran 2 stop lights and then plowed into us at +50mph, the driver pulled over to examine his damage and then jumped back in and hauled arse. Cops showed up surprisingly quick..less than 5 minutes. The hit n run driver was heading west on an isolated(with surrounding swamp)for 30+ miles...his Toyota LandCruiser had significant damage and would have had to limp home, there are no off roads or anything...the cops refused to put out an APB or even have anybody from the nearby towns police investigate...nothing but a police report! In my eyes it would have been rather easy to catch the driver, given the tools provided to the officers.

So Im sorry...Im just not satisfied with the service provided(on any occassion).And the only thing these incidents have taught me, is that if you intend on finding anything, "looking" is going to be required...I look around, I see alot, and I am not pleased with my observations and I am not pleased with these agencies...I dont feel safe because of these agencies, but in my faith in my fellow man makes me so...I feel that my fellow Americans desreve better...and by better, I dont mean more cameras!!!

PS thank you for humouring me with your explainations and accounts.(I will stop posting in this topic now)

[ July 26, 2006, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: ShortBuSX ]

 

[TheTanSedan]

quote:

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Originally posted by Alcibiades:
"That's what comes of naming yourself after a famous turncoat"

--Maybe you're right! Actually, take a close look at Plato's "Symposium." Alcibiades' outburst at the end is classic, and is the only act of truthtelling in the book. That's why I chose the name. Plato was very devious in his writing. Good stuff.

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Yeah, have a degree in it. But the attribution to the real Alcibiades is slim. You may find Donald Kagan's recent book is a worthwhile read (on the Peloponnesian war), I enjoyed it.

That you thought your predicament funny, I can see. What could the historical Alcibiades thought of his at the end of his life?

Who'd have believed it, not being otherwise acquainted with him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades

 

[Alcibiades]

wantin150,

I hope it wasn't my story that got this going on a negative track. I tried to be clear that it was one guy out of four who I think was out of line. I had politely admitted my guilt in speeding without offering any argument whatsoever. He searched my car because I looked like a scruffy student, which may not be altogether unreasonable in a certain sense. But if I were ever to do something analogous as a teacher (also a public servant) because I was having a bad day or because I had preconceived notions about a certain "type" of person, I would be fired, and rightly so.

I generally feel good and grateful that there are cops around who have the job of "serving and protecting" our community and my kids. But it's an unavoidable fact that there are jerks in all jobs, or at least people who are ocassionally capable of acting like jerks, and among cops that can have particularly ill effects.

 

[ekpolk]

Well, I don't suppose this is adding much overall value to the discussion, but I just couldn't resist. Sorry. . .

 

[K-Man]

My perspective is different because I work in corrections and have gone through some similar training, especially in terms of observation skills and rules of engagement and enforcement with the crowd I watch over. I have had more training than many rural cops. I am also a field training officer, meaning that I help train new officers, and I have won awards for my work.

We correctional officers are supposed to maintain a professional demeanor with inmates at all times. If I were to use profanity or act belligerent toward an inmate, I can be written up and disciplined. When I write a charge against an inmate, my testimony isn't necessarily taken over the inmate's. And these are inmates, that is, convicted felons, not the public at large. We still must be courteous and professional. It doesn't matter what kind of day we've had. We still have to be.

Wantin150, what I see and hear about all the time with police during traffic stops is this:

(1) rudeness and loudness toward the vehicle occupants, and treating all citizens like perps;

(2) pulling over minorities for "driving while black" and the like and disproportionately searching their cars, then leaving the cars torn apart;

(3) "testilying" in court, and cops even joke about it, because their word in most jurisdictions is taken as gospel;

(4) in some jurisdictions, looking for excuses to confiscate a vehicle or valuables found in the vehicle to go into the general kitty thanks to civil forfeiture laws;

(5) general paramilitary-type excesses when dealing with the public;

(6) concentrating on traffic offenses to the exclusion of more important problems.

In many jurisdictions, by the way, simple traffic violations aren't even a criminal act but are generally handled as a civil offense. That's one reason it's so hard to defend oneself against such charges.

On point 6 above, I live near one of the most infamous speed traps in the nation. The cops actually work overtime just to write tickets. But the owner of a now-defunct business in the town complained to us that his shop had been repeatedly broken into and cleaned out and the cops were all busy working speed enforcement.

As a rule, the old saw about yesterday's schoolyard bully becoming today's cop is all too true too often. Newspaper columnist William Raspberry, now retired, once suggested that perhaps police officers should have a limit of 10 years working on the street because of the attitude he had seen himself too often among cops that all citizens were perps. He believed that some officers had simply worked the streets too long, which was why they had developed that attitude.

Sorry, but I'm on the fringes of the law enforcement community, and even I don't particularly trust or expect fair treatment from the police. And that's sad.

 

[moribundman]

My contact with LEOs is pretty rare. Some are more friendly or gruff than others, but that's okay as long as they behave in a professional manner. So far I've encountered only one cop who was a jerk.

There was an incident a few months ago, in which I wasn't pulled over, but almost had a motorcycle cop tear my head off. I was in the right turn lane at a red light. My lane went straight onto a freeway onramp to the right. One car was ahead of me. The lane to my left was also a right turn lane. A motorcycle cop approached from behind and stopped squarely in the middle of the road behind the car in the lane to my left, just where a bike should be. The cop was half a car length ahead to my left. I could tell he was miffed, because he shot angry glances at cars.

The car in front of me started going when the light turned green. The car in front of the cop also took off, but the cop remained sitting right there and I immediately got a bad feeling about this. I also noticed cars approaching from behind in my lane. So I decided to go ahead in my lane, which was clear and get on the freeway on-ramp. My bad feeling was correct. As soon as I started moving, the cop revved his bike and jumped ten feet forward and over the white line into my lane. He then slowly backed off his bike and yelled at me "Didn't you see me there?" I didn't answer the question that was meant to provoke an argument, but said "You want to discuss this in court?" He shot me more angry glances, shook his head and took off flying. I went on the on-ramp and saw him weave through traffic going at least 90 mph. Maybe he had to do overtime or something.

I got pulled over the last time in '99. Actually, I pulled over as soon as I saw the cop peel out from behind a bush from where he clocked me going a "a little fast ands still accelerating" (about 20 mph over the posted speed limit on a remote highway with almost no traffic). He didn't give me a ticket.

 

[Gary Allan]

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Originally posted by farrarfan1:
I only stopped in to see if there was any update to Bio-T's medical conditon and then saw this topic. The only thing I got from this "discussion" is that starting a pointless topic based on incomplete, unverifiable data, presenting one side of the issue ( second hand from neighbor and son) and asking a question that has no answer in order to draw out angry responses and blanket condemnation to affirm your (belief?) (feeling?)towards a segment of society (police officers) isn't limited to the new members.Apparently veteran members are willing to look at half the story and draw conclusions.

Yes I've been there. State Trooper for 27 years.

Wantin150 you have much more patience than I do. Stay safe and save your energy for the next shift.Your wasting a lot of it trying to make your points.

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Well, I didn't just state this based on my neighbor. I've seen the full spectrum ..and I obviously have relatives and friends that were cops. My PA State Trooper (retired) is a Recon Marine. His tougher then nails attitude was kinda built in. Yet he never was "punitive" in his enforcement of the law. My BIL, as much as he was a pain, was strictly business.

Yet I've seen anger where none should be warranted ..and actually wondered if anyone had any insight into why. There may be some perceived purpose to it (apparently not - and those who display this are obviously, either temporarily or permanently, miserable).

This obviously inspired a "dumping" upon police officers by some ..which was surely not my intent.

One would think that in your travels ..you've run into someone just like I am asking about. This person surely exists everywhere.

But to all our fine members who are, or were, in law enforcement ..let me say that I'm confident that you aren't the focus of my investigation. I'm fairly confident that you're doing your jobs in a favorable manner and representing law enforcement as a respectible public servant to the communities that you work in.

Mod? Lock, please! (forgive me for I knew not what I did

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[wantin150]

Is it fair to say that we all agree to disagree then?

Gary Allen,

I hope the mods do lock this thread before it really gets out of hand. As a statement to you, and on a public forum, there is no one explaination for the behavior which you described. Nor should it be tolerated. Sometimes, as in the written word, some things can be mistaken for others. This "strictly" business attitude is often mistaken for anger. But as I have said, I wasn't there to be your (not you specifically) friend at that time. I was not necessarily into small talk which can often be mistaken for rudeness. My approach was strickly "I need this...for this...reason. This...is what you did and this...is what I am going to do." There were no if's, and's, or but's about it. The side of the road isn't the place to argue your case because frankly, I didn't care about the why's or how's of your problem. I will also say thatthe positive influences I made more than outweighed any negative.

Thank you for your post. Hopefully some people learned something which can make them a better person and have a different outlook on things.

Dave

 

[Bio-T]

I must have been brought up in a different generation, but I have always been taught to respect a person of authority and to show that respect if addressed. I have known some of the finest LEO's in my lifetime and I am sure I will meet more.

Time to close this. Way off track.

Tony

[ July 26, 2006, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: Bio-T ]

 

[Jimbo]

wantin150,

I wasnt going to add to this thread until reading your post. I have seen your type of defense of police misconduct many times before. The "you will never understand because you arent one of us" thing does not hold water in a free and orderly society. If the pressure is too much and the job too dangerous, quit and do something else.

I am not a left-wing wacko. If anything I have been accused many times of being extremely right-wing.

The "culture" of a department starts at the top and there are some departments that have a strong military-style culture that leads to the us-vs-them thinking. Los Angeles has typcally had this type of departments. New York, on the other hand, tends to have a more "community service" police culture. This is a difficult balance, but essential, because the general public needs to trust in order to respect the legal system.