I see this now and then. 3 or 4 cops and just 1 guy pulled over? Saw it last week. Is this because other cops are close by and have nothing else to do? Or does the first cop think he needs backup?
I usually see it in the smaller towns within the big one (L.A). that I live in. Some have their own police forces; some contract it out to the Sheriff’s Dept. But I will say the smallish towns I know within the county who have their own P.D.s all have reputations of being ass-holish. I live next door to one of them now, and it has a reputation for hard ass policing. There’s always a gajillion cars around a traffic stop … a gajillion plus if it’s a person of color who’s driving.
I think it’s mostly boredom with a small part of respect mah authoritah.
I always presume that the police feel they need that much backup.
I wasn’t in the area two minutes ago. How do I know that they haven’t been chasing this car all over town?
Not my area of expertise. But for sure the first LEO runs the license plate through the computer before they get out of their car. If the car comes back as hot or as belonging to a “frequent flier” in their database that’ll probably warrant calling for help early. Better to have 3 cops and no fight than 1 cop and a fight even if the cop wins.
Ditto after the cop runs the driver’s license, or the driver says he doesn’t have one.
Around here (contiguous suburb of big city) it seems like they typically use 2 or 3 cops for anything the least bit risky. And each has their own vehicle, so it’s easy to get what looks like a pretty big caravan for a pretty minor event.
Last week I dealt with a trespasser on my condo property. Guy was nutso, acosting residents walking the grounds, but not obviously aggressive. It was a quiet time of day when we called 911 after I and another resident had steered him towards a safer area. At about 5 minutes the first officer rolled up. By 15 minutes we had 2 sergeants and 4 officers to talk to this one unassuming deluded homeless dude. Most of whom just stood 20 feet away watching.
That seemed like more manpower than we really needed, but had he gotten it into his head to run or try to enter one of the apartments they might all have been useful.
Not germane to the OP but after listening respectfully for 15-ish minutes to this guy explain about the talking trees, the inauguration he’d attended yesterday, and a few other fantasmagorical things they asked him if he wanted a ride to the homeless shelter or if he needed medical help. He said no, so they asked him to leave our property and off he wandered. So in all a successful outcome. Score one for sympathetic patient policing.
High risk stop. Car/driver match a wanted car/driver. Driver came back wanted after license check. Driver is a frequent customer and is known to fight or at least resist. Sovereign citizen dick causing problems. Car was broken down on road and more squads with lights better alerts other traffic. Slow day and other units keep busy by backing up squad that made a stop. 15 other reasons. Anyones guess here is as good as another.
There are quite a few videos on Youtube of people doing 1st amendment audits where multiple units respond, and all the “suspect” is doing is videoing in public.
Friend of mine is having a really,really bad divorce. So bad he actually went to court which is very rare for a divorce. Last weekend his 16 yo daughter was visiting him out of state and was supposed to stay until Tues. but decided to leave Sunday at 6 pm. At 6:01 pm 4 cops pound on his door saying if his daughter doesn’t leave right then he’s under arrest. His soon to be ex wife contacted the cops where he lives to get the daughter out. I don’t know what he would have been charged with , maybe kidnapping. What a coincidence he told me this a few hours ago.
Used to be cop cars were two to a car, now many dept run solo officers, so if the perp might have a gun or has a warrant, then sure, call in a backup or two.
Wait, so the daughter leaves two days early and they knock at the door?
And there is something he is not telling you as a extra stay at the non-custodial parent is usually a matter for the courts, not the cops.
I very rarely see that sort of thing here, but I did see it once. A fairly serious crime of some sort had just been committed and the radio news had a description of the vehicle. On a freeway heading out of town I saw a car of that exact description pulled over on the side. There was a cop car directly in front of it, one directly behind it, and a third directly beside it. Whatever was going on there, that guy definitely wasn’t going anywhere. I admired the way they managed to get it so perfectly boxed in.
First time I got pulled over, five squad cars ended up on top of me. It was in rural Indiana, sophomore year of college. I was driving with a couple friends to Daytona Beach for Spring Break. I was speeding (about 20 over) and crested a hill. I saw a cop car in the opposite lane and it turned on its lights as it passed me. I was looking in my rear view, and I was able to see him when he got out of the dip I just drove through, and he wasn’t turning around, so I thought he was going after someone else. At any rate, I dropped my speed to the speed limit.
Right when he was almost out of my line of sight did I finally see him pull a U. I just waited for him to catch up with me (so I continued doing my speed.) Once he was behind me and it was clear he was pulling me over, I got off to the shoulder. Rolled down the window and put my hands on top of my steering wheel where he could see them. Next thing I know there’s two more squad cars on top of me from the other direction. And then one more shows up from behind me. So four cop cars on top of me. I’m like, what the fuck is going on?
The officier that pulled me over was very polite. He asks if I saw him, and I said, “Yes, but I watched you and thought you were on your way on another call. You didn’t turn around until I almost couldn’t see you anymore.”
He asks me to the passenger seat of his car, so I go with all the paperwork and license, etc. We shoot the shit about spring break and we were headed to Atlanta that day to stay at a friend’s, and he talked about the collapse of the Olympic Stadium as it was being built, yadda, yadda. He actually bumps me down to under 15 mph over the speed limit instead of the 21 over or whatever he clocked me at.
After a couple of minutes, squad car number five, a sheriff, shows up and asks my passengers for their IDs. I finally ask the cop, what’s with all the squad cars? He says, “oh, we’re just a little on edge. The other day we had a runner and we got a couple cars dinged up in the pursuit. I thought we were gonna have another chase on our hands.”
And that’s it. I end up with like an $85 ticket or something, he wishes us well on the rest of our trip, and off we went. (I was kind of shitting bricks as one of the passengers had just smoked a bowl in the car about an hour before we got pulled over, and I was yelling at him not to fucking smoke in the car.)
I live in a relatively affluent, low crime town. My wife was at a hair salon, carelessly left her purse hanging on the coat rack near the door. A guy pops in, grabs the coat casual as you like and walks out of the door. Someone sees him do this, but no one wants to chase him (all occupants of the salon were women). The salon called 911.
No fewer than five police cars and officers/sergeants/detectives showed up. Purse was found in the parking lot with cash and cell phone missing. Someone noticed the color, make and model of the vehicle. Unsurprisingly it turned out to be someone connected to an employee at the salon with form for stuff like this.
More than an hour later I arrived to pick up my wife (this was before ubiquitous cell phones, my wife had one, I didn’t). There were still three police cars and officers in the parking lot.
In Kansas City we had a junkie ex-girlfriend of my neighbor bleeding, screaming and banging on doors in the hallway of our building after smashing the glass front doors and breaking in cutting herself badly in the process. It took the police 45 minutes to show up. The ambulance arrived earlier but they didn’t want to deal with the woman without the police, do they just waited outside.
This is what I have been told, but I can’t find a reference to back it up, so it may not be a GQ worthy answer. The Boulder (Colorado) Police Department has a policy that in suspected DUI traffic stops a supervisor is always called to the scene. I at least have confirmation bias in usually seeing one or two police cars at a traffic stop, but very rarely lots of policy cars.
Not only backup protection, but witnesses, especially with a lot of people watching for and recording the police, waiting for “excess force”.
Better for nearby police to be on site ready to help if necessary, rather than just patrolling.for the short time the stop should take.
Since there are many possible reasons for this, and we are getting more anecdotes than factual responses to the OP, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I’m wondering if protocol is to stop if you see a colleague has stopped someone. We have some current or former police who may be able to comment.
My “please fix your left headlight sir” garnered (eventually) three cars. But I don’t know if they were summoned or just happened to be passing by and saw us. They didn’t rush in with lights ablaze or anything.
Some are just rubber necking like anyone else would if they had the chance. That and police officers have each others back when ever possible and that is for the most part a very good thing.
So now my one data point, as some of you may know I was stabbed next to my heart at home one night and I called the cops. Two showed up within a couple of minutes along with an ambulance and arrested the perpetrator (my GF) almost immediately and I lost conciseness and passed out as they arrested her. So four people were there with more coming.
Six months later we went to court and the assistant DA went over the list of people who could testify for the state and there were over 50 cops on the list. It seems that every officer in town and neighboring towns came over to check it out and chat with their buddies. Now this happened at around 1:00 in the morning on a Sunday so you think they would have been out pulling people over for DUI’s but since I live in a very low crime area it must have peaked their interest.
I could see 10 people being needed to investigate the crime and secure the scene, but over 50? Just wow. I do recall talking to the detective in the hospital and him telling me that it was the biggest crime in the last ten years in my town so I guess everyone within police scanner range picked up on it so that they share the story.
Whether it is mandatory or not would depend on the SOP of each individual agency.
On my department if another unit is making a contact in my sector and I am in service I will roll up. If the other officer says “I’m good” or points 2 fingers in a directional mode it means he does not need any help and I just keep moving. There is nothing in our SOP that says I have to respond unless the contact squad requests it.
In short, I think the message that is sent is “Don’t even think of trying to flee or fight your way out of this.”
On my friend his soon to be ex-wife faxed a court order on custody to the local cops and also called the cops where he lives in Indiana and that’s why the cops showed up. I guess there is not much crime in Muncie IN.
One reason his divorce is so bad is his wife has not budged 1 inch in the negotiations. Retired judge told her she is not getting what she asks for and she simply does not care