Any opinions on my brief discussion with a cop?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So it’s Xmas Eve, and I drop into a convenience store on my way home to get a (soft) drink. There’s a cop in the parking lot, in his car. I think he’s interested in one of the gals that works there, because he’s frequently inside rapping with her.

Don’t know how the weather is where you are, but here in the sunny southeast, it’s been unseasonably cold. I know that cold here is not “real” cold, but it’s still been a good 10-15 degrees cooler than normal so far.

So, like any good chill-disliking Suthin boy, I leave my truck running (to keep warm air blowing)–something that I’ve done many, many times under similar circumstances.

There are one or two people in front of me, and when I make my purchase and get out of the store, I see both doors are open on my truck! The cop is standing outside the store, also, and I look at him with a “WTF!” expression. I’m thinking “Have you been watching people rummage around inside my vehicle?”

He then informs me “There’s a city ordinance against leaving a running vehicle unattended. Somebody could have jumped right in and driven off, and then you’d have to be giving me a call to help you out. I could have given you a ticket, but I’m not. Merry Xmas.”

I didn’t actually know there was such an ordinance, but I certainly wasn’t surprised. I have heard of other places with similar laws. I thought that was one of thosed unenforced laws.

But here’s the real question:

Do you think he was really interested in the fact that the vehicle was left unattended, or that he thought this looked like a good opportunity to possibly nab someone for open containers or some other similar crime? Does the fact that the vehicle was being used in the violation of a law (ordinance) give sufficient probably cause to warrant a search (which I doubt that he did)?

2

He saw you walk in. He was there watching your truck. No one was going to steal your truck. He was being nosy and hoping maybe you had some pot/open container in the truck. Under the circumstances it’s very possibly an illegal search IMHO. Since he let you go, no big deal. In the future, have two sets of your truck keys in the winter. That way you can lock 'er up when you run in for a soda.

3

“There’s a city ordinance against leaving a running vehicle unattended.”
Same here, this is a very common law. You could have got a ticket.

4

A friend at work told me this story this am:

She was away from her house when she got a call. One of the idiots she shares her property with, decided to burn down his Christmas tree in the backyard. In North Florida (and other parts), we’re still in the middle of an ugly three-year drought. Therefore, everything outside is very dry and crispy. The fire spread, burned down Bubba’s trailer, half the yard and was encroaching on my friend’s trailer. So she gets a call from a neighbor who informs her that the fire department is at her house, trying to save it. My friend hops in her car and hauls ass (probably to free the dog, who was penned up outside next to the trailer). On the way, she gets pulled over by FHP. $145 ticket later, he sends her on her way. Wouldn’t help her get to the fire, because that would be “driving unsafely.”

IMHO, cops are getting out of control. Not just the ones in LA, either!

5

You act as if there was a time when cops weren’t out of control. Let’s see…

Rodney King - cops beat the living shit out of a guy. The majority of people in the area weren’t too pleased… (1990’s)

Kent State - Ohio state governor orders national guard to fire on a bunch of hippies protesting 'Nam (1960’s)

Prohibition - cops are ordered to stop “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, te importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes…” (US Constitution) by any means necessary. (1920s)

The Whiskey Rebellion - twenty farmers don’t want to pay taxes. Three thousand soldiers called forth to tell them they will pay taxes. (1780’s)

Since when are cops starting to get out of control?

And to the OP, yeah, that cop was an asshole. But whatcha gonna do?

6

Oh, yeah. I just remember another stupid law story, this one from Texas, in more recent times.

A guy crashes his car w/o wearing his seatbelt. This was probably a good thing in that situation, because if he was wearing his seat belt, he wouldn’t have gotten out in time before the car exploded. A week later he got a ticket for not wearing his seat belt. Absurd, isn’t it?

7

Or, along the same lines-

He saw a man wearing a lot of heavy clothing leave his truck running while he ran into the convenience store, and the cop’s first thought was “snatch and run”. Therefore, he decided to check out the truck in order to ensure that an armed robbery wasn’t going to happen right under his nose. When it turned out you were just a customer looking to keep your truck warm, he admonished you because you caused his blood pressure to rise while he was trying to hit on a cute girl.

Was it illegal? Probably. Was he a hard-ass? Yep. Did you present him with a ‘situation’ that he needed to take a look at. Yep.

But that’s just my opinion, and I’m one of those cop-loving Republican bastards.

8

Another opinion, the cop used the opportunity to mess with you and impress the girl inside with his macho police-like behaviour.

9

Without apologizing for the actions of the cops, it should be remembered that this “guy” was speeding, driving erratically and attempting to evade a stop. They didn’t just pick some person off the street and beat him. It was a legitimate stop that was totally fucked up by four cops who were apparently incapable of doing the right thing.

Again, not apologizing for the actions of the Guard, but the Guard is not “the cops.” Also, there had been violent actions from these “hippies” over the past three days: throwing beer bottles at cars, starting bonfires, blocking traffic, breaking windows in local businesses. They also burned down the campus ROTC building on May 2, and the cops who were there made no attempts to stop them. When firemen showed up, they were attacked and their hoses slashed by protestors.

Governor Rhodes never gave any such order as you claim. The fact is that there were about 100 National Guardsmen, some of them college-aged themselves, confronted with about 1,500 protestors, many of them violent.

I do not for a minute excuse those shootings, since mostly bystanders were killed, but the situation was not how you describe it at all.

Can you please provide a cite for that “any means necessary” part?

10

SpinneZiege wrote:

If he was so injured as to be unable to undo his seat belt, how was he able to open the door and get away?

11

Your last rhetorical question is superceded by your first. I realize that you only have a “probably” here, but if, for the sake of argument (and I believe that still keeps with the spirit of what you wrote; correct me if I’m wrong), we stipulated a “yes,” then the cop’s motivations are irrelevant. An illegal search is an illegal search. If the cop thought Mjollnir was going in to rob the place, I’m sure there were all manner of legal courses of action available to him until he could determine whether Mjollnir was a paying customer or not. Laws against illegal searches don’t exist for the sole purpose of inconveniencing the police, and inconvenience certainly isn’t justification for breaking the law, especially for a police officer.

12

I remember hearing this, but I’m not sure where it happened. Maybe you guys will know . . . it happened about a year or so ago.

Cop pulls over a speeding motorist. Panicked driver explains that his wife is having a miscarriage, and he must get her to the hospital, because she’s bleeding tremendously. The cop lectures the weeping man on driving erraticly, and slowly writes out a ticket while the man begs and pleads to be allowed to take his wife to the hospital, saying that the cop can give him the ticket THERE. The cop refuses, continues the long lecture on driving safely, and when he finally allows the driver to go, the cop drives behind the man to ensure that he will not go above the speed limit. The wife dies while en-route.

Do you guys remember hearing this?

13

Are some cops assholes? Yes.

Was the search of Mjollnir’s truck legal? I don’t know.

Was it warranted (no pun intended)? Probably not.

How many times a year do cops hear the “I’m on my way to an emergency” excuse? Many, many times.

How many times a year is that excuse true? Much less than the number of times it is used.

Is an actual emergency an excuse for driving dangerously? No.

Are some cops assholes? Yes.

Are some of the people that cops have to deal with assholes? Yes.

14

If he was going to rob the store, the cops might reasonably suspect that the driver had a gun. So rumaging through the truck would make absolutly no sense. Wouldn’t they place themselves in a position to be ready to catch the driver/robber, so no one would be hurt if there was gunfire. The cops were being jerks. Show offs. It’s disgusting. The fourth ammendment is becoming the most abused right we have.

15

How the hell does that matter? The dipshit could have seen the blood if he cared too. Just because he’s too jaded to believe one of the citizens he’s supposed to protect is no excuse for letting someone die.

Just because cops hear a lot of lies does not give them the right to dismiss out of hand anything that they think is a lie, especially when the truth is verifiable at that very time and place!

It is damn well an excuse for driving quickly.

Are some cops assholes? Yes.

Are some of the people that cops have to deal with assholes? Yes. **
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16

Well, I don’t know police procedure, nor do I know what Mjollnir’s truck looks like (especially the interior); but the search might have been the cop’s way of figuring out Mjollnir’s intentions- he might have seen a box of shotgun shells on the floor of the cab (from Mjollnir’s recent hunting trip) and then realized during a quick search that a shotgun was behind the seat- making it more like Mjollnir was messy than he had a shotgun.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying- we can’t know. We weren’t there, we didn’t see the cop’s reactions, we didn’t hear the cop’s thoughts. Maybe he had a perfectly valid reason (though that doesn’t change the legality of his search; though, I’m not quite sure the search was illegal). Maybe he was just being a jerk. We don’t know, and probably can’t know.

17

It damn well is not. It is a reason for driving quickly but it is not an excuse. The fact that your wife is dying in a hospital is not reason enough to excuse you killing someone on the way there. That fact that your dog is in danger is sure as hell not an excuse.

By stopping such a speeding (and likely reckless) driver the cop is doing his job and protecting “one of the citizens he’s supposed to protect.” He is further protecting all of the unsuspecting citizen’s on the road with the speeder.

18

His wife was dying in the car. He didn’t just want to be with her. He wanted her not to die. Self preservation outranks law.

Ambulances break the speed limit for exactly this reason.

Cops break the speed limit when they feel they have a reason to. If this cop had his head about him, he should have put his siren and lights on and cleared a way to the hospital going as fast as necessary, whether with the couple following, or with the wife in his car and the husband driving at the speed limit to the hospital. He was right in pulling them over to begin with, because he didn’t know what was going on, but once he found out, he should have done something to help.

19

Oops, sorry about all the italics in the last post. I intended to italicize “in the car.”

20

Tzel, you are right, I am wrong. I misread the story. I was thinking that the guy was rushing to his wife, who was already at the hospital. As told, that cop should absolutely be fired.

Whether the event described happened is another story.