…well, at me car- but I was in it at the time. I was leaving the courthouse, and had just pulled out of the parking lot into a side street and was headed for the main road. I saw his blue lights behind me, and I knw I hadn’t done anything wrong- i’d been in my car for maybe 30 seconds- and I figured I was in his way. So, I turned onto the main raod and pulled into a parking lot to get out of his way.
He pulled in behind me, POINTED HIS GUN AT MY CAR, and yelled at me to put my hands where he could see them. I was stunned. My first thought was that it was a joke. He yanked my car door open, and looked very surpised and flustered. Seems there was a BOLO out on a MALE (which I'm NOT) driving a "white vehicle". When he saw that I am female, he called in on his shoulder radio and asked for "more information" on the white vehicle. He asked for my license, and if I hadn't been so shaken up I would have told him to kiss my lilly white ass. He told me that he would have to file an incident report. FOR WHAT? I. Didn't. Do. Anything. Wrong.
I was so upset I was practically hyperventilating, and I had to sit and collect myself before drving back to the office. I am seriously thinking about filing a complaint against him with the police department- I think that if you're going to wave your gun around, you should have more information than "white vehicle"
Oh, and the guy with the BOLO? Seems he was drving on a suspended license. I figured he must have knocked off a bank or something.
The IR will cover his ass in case you decide to file a report later. And for the record, sorry you got all scared and stuff but he was only doing his job. It’s not like he pulled yanked you out of the car and threw you around or something.
OH PLEASE!! God forbid he as you for your license :gasp:
You poor thing :rolleyes:
Oh yeah, because only bank robbers are dangerous to cops. Besides, I doubt you have all the information here. Merely driving without a license is hardly something that gets a BOLO. You are probably missing a key fact somewhere.
I dont think you should complain about anything. You didn’t get harrassed, you were not belittled, and he did not harm you. Where is the complaint? Because you were scared? Sorry, cops have guns. Cops are scary. Shit happens.
The OP is relating something that happened to her. She can’t help it that she was scared and upset. The guy pointed a gun at her, something most people aren’t used to. She didn’t rant or make any generalities about cops, nor did she jump to any conclusions about the guy’s personality. Yeah, any complaint she may file will probably end up with a “meh” response as it probably should for the very reasons you gave, but cut the girl a break and quit being such a jerk.
Here’s the closest she got to actual criticism:
That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It is probably true that the guy had more info than that, but there’s no reason for you to jump on her case. Chill out.
Agreed. This wasn’t the officer walking to the car with his hand on his weapon, he was pointing the gun at the OP in an obviously threatning manner. People who are panicking often don’t act rationally and I can’t say that my first reaction wouldn’t be to hit the gas.
Sounds very unprofessional to me and I usually give the police the benifit of the doubt.
Bear_Nenno-
I would imagine that the reason he had to fill out an incident report was because he pulled a gun on somebody. I would certainly hope that such an extreme measure during a traffic stop would have to be documented. Yeah, it’s also, well, mainly CYA, but it’s not just because she was so upset. She was upset for a valid reason, because of something he did which was a mistake and thus uncalled for.
Katie-Sounds like he exercised some poor judgment. If you want to file a complaint, I would. I know cops have a very tough job and that mistakes happen, but as public employees, their mistakes should certainly be documented not only from their standpoint but from yours.
Having said that, I don’t think you should ever, ever tell a cop to kiss your ass, regardless of what you think of his job performance.
I doubt that ever got anyone anywhere.
Can’t fight city hall, and all that…
Yep, policemen as a class lost the last shreds of any benefit of the doubt they claim they deserve when I nearly collided with one who was attempting to run a traffic break on a freeway while driving an unmarked vehicle.
(In case you haven’t seen the kind of traffic break to which I am referring, it is where a highway patrol vehicle turns on its lights, and then proceeds to swerve back and forth across all lanes of the freeway. The unit then slows down and stops traffic, usually to give officers ahead the opportunity to clear debris or close lanes.)
In this case, I came up on a slight bit of congestion where a white sedan was moving more slowly than the rest of traffic, and appeared to be attempting to merge right so that it could exit or stop. As I finally passed this car on its left, it made an unexpected and sudden swerve back to the left, into and across my lane. He would have collided with me if I hadn’t evaded him.
There was no clue that this was a law enforcement vehicle, unless you count the exempt plates, which have a tiny ‘E’ in a circle on them.
Clearly, this dumbass cop thought it was his golden opportunity to run a traffic break, and didn’t let the fact that he was in an unmarked vehicle deter him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Since then, I have not given any police officer any benefit of doubt regarding their intelligence or common sense, and realized that, with a few exceptions, it was never wise to grant them such benefit in the first place.
I can see the police’s POV, but I had to admit this crap is really annoying. I had this kind of thing happen about 15 years ago, when I got pegged for a too brief halt at a stop sign. I was in a business suit and opened the door to stand up and get at my wallet out of my back pocket. (It was a small car and I’m a big guy). I had the door about 6 inches open when the young policeman (son of the police chief) literally screamed at me with his police car megaphone to get back in the car. I almost peed my pants!
I can understand the need for caution, but sometiimes it’s a pisser. If I ever get stopped I always stay in the car these days.
No, the reason we have cops in the first place is so that people are able to live out their normal, daily lives without having to worry about whether someone is going to point a gun at them for no reason. Stow the :rolleyes: unless you’ve got something to say that doesn’t make you sound like a total jerk.
katie, you have every right to be freaked out and annoyed by this. Yes, cops have a rough job, but they also have a shitload of regulations they have to follow. This guy was being extremely sloppy, and that’s the charitable description. You need more information than just “white vehicle” before you even start going up and yanking people’s car doors open, much less pointing a deadly weapon at them. That’s true in any city, and doubly true in a town like Athens where you’ve got so many young college students driving around.
That must have been very scary having a gun pointed at you. Sorry you had to experience that. The last time I was pulled over for ‘fitting the description’ it was over quickly and the cop was actually fairly pleasant. He even apologized for the inconvenience afterward. I think if he’d pointed a gun at me I’d still be cleaning the stain off of my seat.
Yes, astro, sometimes it can be a pisser. But you didn’t go crying to the police department that an officer spoke in a loud voice to you.
I don’t think brushes get much bigger than that! sidle I wasn’t saying he had to fill it out simply because she was terrorfied. But it’s common place to fill out an IR for such an incident because people like to file complaints. He will fill out the IR to justify his actions.
So we should forget being rational because someone has hurt feelings? I don’t believe thinking logically is being a jerk.
Maybe so. But what exactly do you call this? "He asked for my license, and if I hadn’t been so shaken up I would have told him to kiss my lilly white ass"? It kinda sounds like some sort of rant to me. Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor, yes I considered her feelings. But I also consider them irrelevant. He did not intentionally scare her. Who knows, maybe he even felt bad afterwards. Maybe he met up with a partner later and talked about how bad he feels for scaring the piss out of some lady? Should I consider his emotions too? Not really. They are not relevant to his actions.
No, and neither will katie1341. If she reports it it’ll be because** he pointed a gun at her.**
Bear_Nenno, you DO realize this isn’t the Pit, right? She’s just been frightened out of her wits. She didn’t post to rant about how awful police are, she posted about her gut reaction to a terrifying moment. If you don’t commiserate, then sit there and roll your eyes all you want but for christ’s sake, don’t hijack this thread into a discussion about whether her gut reaction was right or wrong.
Katie, how awful for you. Take your time, let your head clear, before you make a decision on whether to report it or not.
Sorry you had to experience that. I think I would have to file my own incident report on that one. Seems to be a rather blatent over reaction for a trained officer.
I understand exactly why katie is upset. The police often are unclear in their signals when they are pulling people over, or trying to go around traffic, or… who ever knows what they want to do. All she was trying to do is get out of their way and one false move could have gotten her shot. What if she has short hair and he thought she was a man?
My sister and I were driving at night, in the rain, on a section of highway with no street lights. Ahead of us we see police lights and flares on the road. It looked just like what they set up to guide cars around an accident. We slow way down and try to see the way to go around…the lights are really bright and blinding us, one officer is just waving a flashlight around in a random pattern. Someone stepped in front of the car, we stopped and opened the window. They screamed at us for not stopping. I looked out my window and there was a rifle pointed right at my face. It was a road block. How were we supposed to tell.
Turns out we were near a prison and there had been an escape. This happened almost 20 years ago and it still keeps me awake if I think about it at night.
Putting words in peoples’ mouths is fun, huh? I believe I said it specifically does NOT absolve him.
I didn’t think I was treating it as such. But you’re right. It’s her support thread and I’m not supporting her. So I won’t come back in here. Sorry to hijack. Maybe all I should have said was
Bear_Nenno, I realize that in the grand scheme of things, what happened to me is not a huge deal. Both police officers and citizens have come out of police-citizen encounters a lot worse off than being scared. And if being scared s***less after having had a gun pointed at me makes me a wussy crybaby, well I guess I’m a wussy crybaby.
I am basing my statement that the officer had only info about a "white vehicle" and the suspended license warrant on what he said to me and what he said to the dispatcher. Before I make a decision about whether or not to file a report, I'm going to get a copy of his incident report and see if I can get a copy of the dispatcher's BOLO. If that's indeed all the info he had, and I decide to file a report, it will be because he had no business even pulling me over, much less pulling a gun, not because the big, bad policeman scared me.