So I was pulled over the other day…
And I was asked if I knew why I had been pulled over. I said I did not and was given a warning and sent on my way.
My question: Does it make a difference to you or to any other officers you know if the person admits to the crime for which you have pulled them over?
I remember going through the DARE program in the 5th grade. I do think it was a very good experience to have personal contact with a cop and see what he was like as a person, but I do think it might have had exactly the opposite effect than what they were going for: Now I’m not really afraid of drugs, and I’m even less so because DARE taught me exactly what the effects of different drugs are.
One of the most interesting things the DARE officer told me is in direct response to your question, cmosdes: Not all cops do this, but sometimes they use a trick where they ask, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” and what they really want is for you to tell them “Yes, officer, I ran that red light a few blocks back,” when all they did was pull you over for speeding. I say that’s pretty clever.
My questions:
My main important question: If you have a briefcase in your car with a combination lock (say, hypothetically, containing drugs) and a cop pulls you over, are you legally required to give the combination to the briefcase?
I live in kind of a small town, and the cops around here have a reputation for going on power-trips and giving people unneecessary tickets. (After all, it does keep the money rolling in.) I get the feeling that if some big emergency happened, they’d just call the police from downtown and let them deal with it, and if they were better police officers, they wouldn’t be working as small-town traffic cops. Do you think those assumptions are accurate, or am I way off base?
How accurate are radar guns? I’m a bit on an engineer, and my engineer sense tells me it would be really easy to get a false radar reading.
I probably already know the answer to this question, but I’ll ask it anyway: If someone pulls over and tries to pick up a prostitute, and one of them is really an undercover cop, do they have to say so? In fact, I have a different question: Are undercover cops posing as prostitutes really that common?
What’s the deal with people in movies pointing a gun at someone (presumably to fire if anyone makes any sudden movements) and then having the gun kicked out of their hand? Isn’t the whole point of aiming a gun that way to fire if anyone makes any suspicious movements? Are people really that stupid? 
Some people say females aren’t fit to serve in the military, because they sometimes have, er, girl problems. I say, if women can be cops, they can sure as hell serve in the military. Do you have any thoughts on the subject?
If you saw an 18 year old buying a bong, and they claimed it was for smoking tobacco, would you believe them for a second?
Just how secure are the police records? Again, I’m sort of an engineer, and I know firsthand just how easy it is to steal someone’s e-mail password (not that I’ve ever done any malicious hacking, of course.) Should I be afraid of someone looking through my private files, or altering them to make it look like I did something?
I live in a similar sized town and have to service a certain item in the local officers cars on an annual basis.
My question is how in the HECK do you guys manage to find anything in those trunks? At times I’ve literally had to spend 15 minutes rummaging around and re-arranging all the stuff they pack around.
I suppose it is more of a problem here in the rural areas than for your city brethern. Don’t imagine you have to carry sandbags for winter traction!
On another note, I’ve always wondered, considering how much time you have to spend behind the wheel, how can you stand to sit on all that stuff on your service belt?
I live in a similar sized town and have to service a certain item in the local officers cars on an annual basis.
My question is how in the HECK do you guys manage to find anything in those trunks? At times I’ve literally had to spend 15 minutes rummaging around and re-arranging all the stuff they pack around.
I suppose it is more of a problem here in the rural areas than for your city brethern. Don’t imagine you have to carry sandbags for winter traction!
On another note, I’ve always wondered, considering how much time you have to spend behind the wheel, how can you stand to sit on all that stuff on your service belt?
Are you referring to the characters in the movie, the scriptwriter and director, or the audience? Uh-scratch that, the answer is probably ‘Yes’ for any of them …
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As you experienced, I know far more about my residents than most of them realize. I know who is sleeping with whom, who lost their job, who is having financial trouble, etc. Between just seeing who is where and the fact that people seem to like to keep us informed, we know pretty much everything.
Interaction can be interesting. I live in the town where I work, so I see people in the grocery store every day that I have arrested. I often see that look of nervousness as they wonder if I’ll say anything. I pretend it never happened unless they bring it up.
I actually kind of stumbled into this career. I had actually planned to be a paramedic and was a volunteer firefighter/EMT. I got talked into being a reserve police officer (I thought it would be good experience towards paramedic), and discovered to my surprise that I enjoyed police work far more than firefighting. And I got extremely lucky that I was able to get hired at the department where I wanted to work.
We’re hoping for an admission of guilt to add to our report. It really doesn’t carry that much weight, since most people who fight the ticket come to court and say, “I never said that”!
Also, some officers may decide to let you off with a warning if you admit your mistake. Others may decide to write you because you admit you did it and it wasn’t accidental. So there’s no real advantage to admitting or denying. Do you what you feel is right at the time.
Hi Badge, great thread.
I had the same type problem as the younger kids mentioned about skating at the tennis courts, except my kid was skateboarding in front of ** our house **. The officers who came were very belligerent and scary. They claimed to have come on a “noise” call (it was 11 pm on a Friday night) but my next door neighbor told me the next day that he had “never heard 'em”.
I agree with something earlier ~ what has happened to the suburban P.D.‘s? All of our night patrols are full of big ol’ strapping guys with severe haircuts and mirror shades. They even wear combat boots. In the aforementioned situation, the two officers quickly called for backup and I had 8 of these Rambos swarming all over a handful of pre-teens in my front yard. What gives with that? The boys were respectful, docile, etc. yet the officers kept getting up in their face and bellowing at them. The whole thing has me totally freaked out. Frankly I’m scared to let my kid out of the house. Heck, I’m scared to leave the house.
sorry for the rant. 
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I don’t think any place would require you to give up the combination, and in Washington I couldn’t search your briefcase without your consent or a warrant. Here we cannot do “probable cause” searches, and even if I have reason to arrest you and can then search your car incident to arrest, I cannot look in locked containers.
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I’m not sure I understand the first part of your question, but I can address the second. I think I am a pretty good police officer, and I work in a small town because I want to, not because I can’t get a job in a larger department. I’m know cops that work for small agencies because they would never be hired by a larger agency, but that isn’t always the case. Some of us just prefer a smaller town and agency.
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They are very accurate. They are calibrated regularly by a certified technician, and the officer tests the unit before and after every stop to make sure it is reading accurately. There is some skill required to make sure you don’t pick up false readings (we call them ghosts) and to be sure that you are reading the right vehicle if there are more than one in the radar cone.
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No, we never have to tell people that we are cops. That urban legend has worked for undercover cops for years, and we love it!
I believe those sting operations are pretty common, because they are an easy way to interrupt the sex trade (another thing that I don’t think should be illegal, but society in general disagrees).
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Never let the movies tell you anything about police work (or most of real life). I’ve never heard of someone kicking a gun out of any cop’s hand.
Also, unless the person is armed with a deadly weapon, we wouldn’t shoot, even if he makes a “suspicious movement” (there may be exceptions, such as we reasonably believe the person is armed, they are known to be dangerous, and they suddenly reach into their jacket for something. In a perfect world, we should wait until we see a gun before firing. In the real world, waiting that long may be fatal).
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I totally agree. Some of the very best cops I know are women, and I’m sure they would be great in the military as well.
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Not a chance, and it doesn’t really matter in Washington. Here it is illegal to sell paraphernalia that is intended for drug use, and no one would ever believe that a bong is for anything else.
Very secure. The national system, NCIC (National Crime Information Center, operated by the FBI) is operated over secure phone lines (so no one can dial into the system to hack in). Our internal records systems are run the same way. When my department finally decided to make the internet available, it took a year to design a system that would prevent any chance of being hacked.
Of course, I’m sure someone with enough skill, time and money could possibly get in, but I’ve never heard of any criminal information system being compromised.
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It ain’t easy! But you never know when you’ll need some of that stuff. We just keep the stuff we use most often near the top.
You just get used to it. But lower back problems are a very common complaint for cops. It’s better since most of us have switched from the heavy leather belts to nylon.
Sounds like you have good reason to rant.
One thing: Were you actually there? I’ve had parents come to complain and tell me that their kids were police and cooperative, when in fact they were anything but. I don’t know, but it is possible that one or more of the kids did something to create the problem, or maybe the cops had some dealings with some of them in the past. Just possibilites.
If it did happen just as you’ve described, then I don’t see any excuse for the kind of behavior. The Officers probably did have a call, or they wouldn’t have been there. But a noise complaint doesn’t justify that type of response.
If I were you, I’d go see whoever is in charge for your area. I would hope that he or she wouldn’t want the officers behaving in this manner. You can file a formal complaint, or you can just let them know about the problem in hopes that they will deal with it.
I have a question-
Last year, some friends of mine and I went to a small independent theater downtown to watch a movie. After I had pulled out of the parking I suddenly remembered to turn on my headlights. About half a block down a cop flashed his lights and pulled me over. At the time, I was very neatly dressed and well groomed, while my friends were not neatly dressed nor well groomed. The officer asked us for our ID’s and asked us a couple of questions. He told me he pulled me over because my lights were off when he saw me. I explained (truthfully) that I had just pulled out of a parking lot and remembered to turn my lights on. The officer commented, “You look like a decent fellow, so I’m going to let you go with just a warning.” then he let us go.
What I’m wondering was, did the officer decide not to give me a ticket solely based on my appearance? He was certainly far more suspicious of my passengers than me.
I wasnt’ there at the time the first cruiser got there, but I was there within 30 minutes. Of course, I can’t speak for how they acted before I got there, but I stood out there with my son (they wouldn’t let him go in the house) until it was all over. I do think that there was one kid there whom they had been looking for. He is now 86’d from my place.
I’m kinda afraid to go to the chief about it. He’s brand new, and although I knew the old chief very well (I was an engineer for Public Works for 4 years) I don’t know the new chief at all.
(if this posts twice, 'scuse me)
My SO suggested I go talk to the school liason officer about it. I guess that’s probably a good idea.
Appearance can make a difference (it probably shouldn’t, but it does). However, I’m guessing that he pulled you over to see if you were drunk. Forgetting to turn on the headlights is a classic clue that the driver may be intoxicated. Once he determined that you were sober, he let you go.
Not if you want something accomplished. The SRO has no authority to deal with this, and as a fellow line officer he probably won’t want to take it to his superiors. Officers are usually very reluctant to do anything that might get another officer in trouble.
I’d take this opportunity to get to know the new Chief. Since he’s new, he may not know how his officers are behaving and might actually appreciate the imput.
Just a bit of advice: don’t go in angry and demanding things be done. Most cops resent being told what to do and will resist. If you just tell him what happened and your concerns, he is more likely to address the problem.
Good luck.
Um excuse me
:raises hand sheepishly from the back of the room:
I think you missed my questions
Thanks
No, he got 'em. The reply was back on page 4. If I did it right, the following link should go to that post. Badge’s reply
Update: probably M&P but; I saw the chief’s secretary at the gym and she assured me that the chief would like to know about this kinda thing. She’s trying to talk me into going to see him about it.
So: Thanks ! Badge, for getting me started.
I’m an emergency doc, so I talk to a lot of cops. Good folks.
My question. Weren’t you a little bit peeved when Cop Rock got cancelled after just a handful of episodes?
Very cool thread.
My question (of course, answers may vary etc etc).
Say I’m driving in your district (I’m from Canada) and I get a ticket. When I return to Canada, do I still need to pay the ticket? I believe American infractions cannot prevent me from renewing my tags but will I get in trouble/go to jail if I’m seen again in your area? Are there laws that force me to pay even though I’m not american?
I’m pretty sure there has to be something, otherwise I could just rack up dozens of tickets on my way to say, florida, and throw them out the window.
Also,
What’s kinds of weapons are available to police in your area? I heard LA police, due to some older issues involving 2 criminals in body armour, are packing m-16s and other high-end weapons. Does you department have access to “big guns”? Do you pack more than just your sidearm and shotgun?