Ask the cop

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
281

I have a question I’ve always wanted to ask a police officer.
Why do police always go after the young drivers? I’ve seen this happen in many states I’ve lived in over the years.

I’ve had it done to me as a kid in Indiana in the early 70’s, seen it done to co-workers kids in North Carolina, New Mexico, and Texas in the late 70’s and 80’s, friends kids in the 90’s and my own kids in the 00’s.

Once, my son was followed all over town by a police car untill he got scared and pulled into a friends driveway, where the police officer then turned on the flashers, blocked the drive and wrote him a warning tickit for a burned out brake light.

282

Hi Badge, add me to the pile of “great thread” folks…

I have a couple of questions. MrSalieri2 is a reserve captain for the county, whch includes in our case everything but a paycheck, so I have a little bit of knowledge about The Man :), and a handful of funny stories about human behavior.

My first question pertains to police shootings. In my medium-sized town (600,000) there have been in the last ten years or so several high-profile incidents of white police officers shooting black suspects fatally, with ensuing media & community brouhaha. Sometimes said brouhaha seems totally justified to me, sometimes not; I don’t usually express much of an opinion about the incidents since I figure I wasn’t there, how would I know? I would wish neither to be a cop nor to put myself on the wrong end of one’s gun.

(I do have opinions, they just tend to be about stupid asshats who say things like “Why didn’t he just shoot the gun out of his hand?” Obviously, asshats, a) life is not a movie, and b) most officers clearly aren’t Haywood, but more on this later.)

Anyway, seems to me nobody asks a community who by nature bridge the traditional gap between shooter and shootee, namely black cops. What’s their take, can you say? As law enforcement officers with the same responsibilities and pressures as the rest, as black men and women who must experience racism in our flawed society, they must have a unique perspective, relating to both sides. I’d really like to hear it. Any help for me here?

Regarding skill with firearms, I am terrified at what I learn of our cops via MrS2’s experience. Fer instance, a guy started spraying bullets at a pair of officers here in 2002, from I believe his house, when they came to serve a warrant. They did in fact shoot him dead. The county guy fired 7 shots and connected with 4; the city guy fired 13 with only 1 hit. EEK. Annual qualification is the rule here; stationary targets at the range I believe, 70% accuracy to pass, and I understand a huge percentage of cops almost never draw their weapons apart from this. Practice shmactice. This scares the living crap out of me. Is this widespread or do we have a bunch of slackers here?

Keep up the good work, Badge, it’s nice to see this thread’s alive!

283

Hi Badge, add me to the pile of “great thread” folks…

I have a couple of questions. MrSalieri2 is a reserve captain for the county, whch includes in our case everything but a paycheck, so I have a little bit of knowledge about The Man :), and a handful of funny stories about human behavior.

My first question pertains to police shootings. I hope this comes out sensibly since I’m finding it hard to phrase concisely. In my little city (600,000) there have been in the last ten years or so several high-profile incidents of white police officers shooting black suspects fatally, causing pain and anguish for damn near everybody. They do shoot white guys, too, of course, when necessary, but the same levels of outcry don’t occur, & we don’t hear about it much. One hears accusations of racism ranging from profiling to genocide, and since I’ve never been involved I don’t have informed opinions. I stay out of it.

(I do have opinions, they just tend to be about stupid asshats–some in the media–who say things like “Why didn’t he just shoot the gun out of his hand?” Obviously, asshats, a) life is not a movie, and b) most officers clearly aren’t Haywood, but more on this later.)

Anyway, seems to me nobody asks a community who by nature bridge the (in these cases) gap between shooter and shootee, namely black cops. What’s their take, can you say? As law enforcement officers with the same responsibilities and pressures as the rest, as black men and women who must experience racism in our flawed society, they must have a unique perspective, relating to both sides. I’d really like to hear it. Any help for me here?

Regarding skill with firearms, I am terrified at what I learn of our cops via MrS2’s experience. Fer instance, a guy started spraying bullets at a pair of officers here in 2002, from I believe his house, when they came to serve a warrant. They did in fact shoot him dead (heard about this via hubby not news so am assuming all parties involved were of same ethnic background, whatever it might have been). The county guy fired 7 shots and connected with 4; the city guy fired 13 with only 1 hit. EEK. Annual qualification is the rule here; stationary targets I believe, 70% accuracy to pass, and I understand a huge percentage of cops almost never draw their weapons apart from this. Practice shmactice, is their attitude, I went to the academy way back when and that’s enough. This pertains not only to weapons training but ground fighting and other forms of combat whose appropriate terms escape me. It scares the living crap out of me. Is this widespread or do we just have a bunch of slackers here locally?

Keep up the good work, Badge, it’s nice to see this thread’s alive!

284

Dammit, double-posted while editing. Luckily, both posts say what I meant in slightly different ways, read whichever you prefer. Wish I could edit!!

285

Ahhh, thought of another question…

What kind of problems in general would the police prefer the public to fix themselves; ie what kind of calls do cops find annoying and consider unecessary?

I remember on an episode of COPS the officers getting called out to check on some guy selling flowers by the road that someone had complained about. They were complaining about having to go the whole trip, and noted that even when they know nothing bad is happening they have to go out and check it out.

Or what about some moron being a pain and refusing to leave my store only to smile and walk out when the cops show up and ask him to go? - Would the police prefer me to just toss the guy myself bouncer-style and not bother them?

Some things obviously police do want to handle themselves - they wouldn’t give me the go-ahead to take my baseball bat over to my ex-Gf’s apartment to retreive my TV that she won’t give back- but what things should someone do for themselves (should in a real-life sense rather than a technically legal sense)?

286

But its September :confused:

287

LOL.
Just in case you aren’t kidding… this thread was started in Dec 02 and my reply took place on the second of December 02. Technically not winter, but close enough that I didn’t care.

288

Folks, I thought this old thread was dead. I’m sorry these replies are so late

It does come from the way that we write reports. Personally, I think it sound ridiculous, too! I laugh whenever I listen to cops talking to reporters and using “cop speak”. I always tell my officers to speak normally, as it helps break down the walls between cops and citizens.

And no, we talk to each other in an entirely different way - not the way I would want them to talk around citizens! :slight_smile: By that, I am refering to the macabre humor that cops (and firefighters, paramedics, ER staff, etc.) use to deal with the horrible stuff we experience.

289

No, I don’t think that the system is sexist. Yes, a man will “down the woman”, but only if he makes the decision to punch her back. There are other options. Self-defence requires using only the force necessary to defend yourself, not clobbering your opponent.
It’s true that we arrest far more men than women, but women do get arrested. It’s fairly rare (in my experience) to see both parties having been assaulted. Usually it is very clear that one person was the aggressor.

**

I’m not a civil attorney, but I would assume that they would be able to sue. That’s why most employers would never fire a person until there is a conviction.

290

I really don’t have much of an answer to this, because I haven’t seen it. I really don’t see the officers that I work with focusing on young drivers any more than anyone else. I know that I certainly don’t.

However, I do see that young people are worse drivers (on average) than older drivers (this is born out by accident statistics nationwide). So many of these stops may well be because the young drivers simply commit more traffic violations, and it just seems that they are being targeted.

Of course, that doesn’t explain what happend to your kid. I can’t imagine why that officer was after him like that.

291

I’ve talked to a couple of black officers about this over the years, as I had the same questions. They tell me that the black community doesn’t care about their opinion, because they have obviously “sold out” to the system. It’s a no win situation.

**

Nope, that is very common. Even with the best training (lots of training time, dynamic targets, tactical scenarios, etc.), most cops don’t shoot very well in a real shoot-out. There doesn’t seem to be any way to completely get past the effects of the “fight-or-flight” syndrome.

292

That varies widely, depending on the department, work-load, etc. I work in a very small town, and I don’t mind handling just about anything for my citizens. For instance, I continually tell our motel people to call us before asking disorderly guests to leave. I think it is safer to have us there.

I do believe most cops would like it if people would talk to their neighbors about neighborhood problems (noise, loose dogs, etc.) before calling us.

293

Hi, Badge! Thanks for letting this thread be revived. It’s a great one.

Like many Americans, most of my contact with police is through TV. I enjoy watching COPS occasionally, and whenever I do, I am astonished that 99% of the suspects shown lie through their teeth, usually badly.

Has it been your experience that suspects lie almost all the time, or are COPS’producers just choosing the segments with the lying ones to make better TV?

If even most supects lie, let alone 99%, I’m not at all surprised that so many cops come to have lousy attitudes!

294

No, that is completely accurate. I am constantly amazed at how often (and how badly) people lie to us. Even when I myself witnessed someone do something, they will swear to the death that it didn’t happen!

I do think that has a lot to do why cops don’t trust anyone, even in their personal lives.

295

Ahh, the thread has returned from its slumber.

I was talking to some people and they gave me the idea for a question. It seems that when these people go out and drink at a club or concert, one guy stays sober. He does, however, get high. While to me, this is pretty much as dangerous, my question is this: If they got pulled over and you had a suspicion that the driver was high, but he had no drugs in his possession, what could you do? This is assuming he didn’t do anything dangerous like drive off the road or swerve into oncoming traffic in front of you (and could stand, talk okay, etc).

Part of my curiousity about this situation is what power the police would have if pot were legalized.

296

Um… I thought that getting high was one way of not being sober. But I know what you mean: sober as “not drunk” only.

If the person could drive properly, stand, speak properly, etc, he or she would by definition “not be impaired”, right? Therefore, no problem.

I assume that, if marijuana were legalised, the usual restrictions against impared driving would apply; the source of the imparment would not necessarily make a difference. I’m also assuming that there’d be a known standard of impairment for marijuana, for which people could be tested, similar to blood-alcohol level for alcohol.

Badge, do the anti-imparment laws look first at behaviour or first at acts?

In other words, do the laws start out with something like “drinking more than X beers per amount of body mass is bad, because we have shown that this causes impairment in 90 percent of people; therefore we will not permit anyone to drive after drinking that much alcohol,” or do they start with, “if a person can’t perform task X, they can’t drive, no matter how much or how little they’ve drunk”.

If someone had drunk a lot of alcohol or performed the equivalent for other drugs, but was unimpaired, would they be arrested?

297

Well, I guess I mean if someone drank a 6 pack, but could drive, stand & speak properly, an officer would give him a breathalyzer if he suspected anything. Some people can drink large quantities and still sound and act somewhat sober. The question is if an officer suspects you’re high, what action can he take?

Let’s assume it’s for a minor traffic infraction or a faulty brake light, and that the person doesn’t fall down or anything when they get out of the car. Maybe he’s glassy-eyed, or has a certain odor on his clothing, or keeps giggling, calling the officer dude and shoving twinkies in his mouth…
In my previous post, sober=not drinking.

298

I would call for a DRE (Drug Recognition Expert). These officers have extensive training in identifying the objective signs of drug impairment. If the DRE determined the driver was under the influence, the driver would be arrested for DUI. The only difference is that instead of being asked to provide a breath sample on the BAC machine, the driver would be asked to provide a blood sample (in Washington, you have the right to refuse the test, but your license will be suspended and the refusal can be used against you in court).

In Washington, the full title for DUI is “Operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor and/or drugs”.

Also, there are two ways to be DUI: either impaired (even if you are under the legal limit) or over the legal limit (even if you are not impaired).

**

The legislature would probably have to rewrite the DUI laws considerably. Presently, having any THC (or any other drug) in your system while driving is per se illegal. If marijuana were legalized, I would think they would have to come up with some objective standard for intoxication, like we have with alcohol.

299

In Washington, there are two ways to be DUI: Either impaired (no matter what your actual Blood Alcohol Level is, or over the limit (over 0.08 BAC, regardless of how it affected you).

Actually, there is a third type of DUI here: Having a BAC of over 0.02 if the driver is under 21 years old. Obviously at that level (that’s about half a beer for most people) almost no one would actually be impaired, but since the driver shouldn’t be drinking at all at that age, the rules are much more strict.

300

Hi, I’m from the UK.

  1. My only idea of what US police might be like comes from TV shows. :eek:
    How accurate are/were:

Law and Order
Starsky and Hutch
Hill Street Blues
NYPD Blue
CSI

  1. Over this side of the pond, the regular police are not armed (they have specialist armed response units on call.)
    There are pretty strict gun control laws for the public.
    What are your views on the different cultures?