Ask the cop

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
301

TV is never a good reflection of real police work. Some are better than others. I’m told that NYPD Blue is very accurate, but that is a world away from the way we do police work where I am. If I ever tried questioning a suspect the way that they do, I’d be suspended!

CSI is so inaccurate that I can’t stand to watch it. I understand that they are taking shortcuts that are required to fit things into an hour show, but it still drives me crazy. And I now have people that I deal with getting upset with me because they can’t understand why I can’t do the things that CSI does to solve their crimes.

One of the most inaccuate things on TV is how an officer involved shooting is handled. In real life, after a shooting an officer would never just continue on with the rest of their shift and finish the investigation. The officer is would be put on leave until the shooting is reviewed, and many agencies now require that the officer receive psychological counselling before being allowed back on the job. Taking a life, even when completely justified, can have a huge impact on an officer.
**

I don’t give a lot of thought to gun control laws, since I don’t expect much to change. Guns are a part of our culture, and there is a lot of good and bad to that. I must admit it would be nice not to worry about everybody I stop being armed. You would not believe how many guns I come across on a daily basis.

302

I thought there would be the usual problems depicting professionals working, in just a 45 minute slot.
I am glad to hear that the aggressive interrogation of NYPD is not everywhere (although there are TV series that are far wilder).
CSI gives a fascinating glimpse into painstaking support work, so I think it was inevitable that the police side of things has to be too ‘compressed’.
But surely ‘Law and Order’ makes an effort to show the suspect’s legal rights?

A very fair and informative summary - thank you.
There certainly is a cultural difference on this side of the pond - in 50 years, I have only seen armed police a few times (all at Heathrow airport, where they carry automatic weapons because of the hijacking risk), and literally NEVER met anyone who has a gun at home.

303

I do think that Law and Order does a good job, and I’ve been impressed a few times with their knowledge of the little tricks that cops use.

Yes, quite a difference. Personally, when I’m working I carry a sidearm, a back-up gun, and a rifle in my car. I always carry a handgun when I’m off duty, too. And my small department issues at least a hundred concealed weapon permits a year.

304

Hi Badge!

Nice to see this post revived again.

I’m actually in the Sacramento PD Academy right now. I’m in week 19 of 24 (graduate Dec 11). Geez, the things I’ve learned since starting the academy… I’m a totally different person now, both in dealing w/ people and in my perception of people.

We just got through our ‘ride-a-long’ week where we rode-a-long w/ an in-service officer for a full shift. I went through four different shifts w/ four officers with TOTALLY different attitudes. It was great to see how the same things could be accomplished using VERY different methods.

Anyway, just thought I’d pop in here and say “hello”!

Thanks for keeping up this great thread!

Deo

305

Our 19 year old next door neighbor was nailed in a police sting for selling cocaine (and maybe other drugs, for all I know) from his car in a neighboring town.

As described in the newspaper, the police “seized several bags of cocaine packaged for sale.” He has been charged with three counts: possession of narcotics, sale of narcotics, and possession of narcotics with intent to sell near a school.

He and his mother recently moved into the neighborhood and already are a major pain. He keeps 2 Pit Bulls on his fenced-in property. They bark savagely whenever we go outside, when people on a stroll pass the house on the street, etc. Yes, I have complained to local authorities but the laws in this state are very weak.

How can I find out when this kid’s case comes up? Even if I ask nicely at the Police Station, I might get a “That’s none of your business.”

Assuming it’s his first offense, what kind of time might he be looking at if he were so charged in your state?

306

Probably your best bet is to contact the court clerk’s office. As far as I know, the court calendar should be public information in every state.

**

Well, if he were convicted of all three charges, he would probably be looking at six months in the county jail at most.
Of course, it is most likely that they will cut some type of plea bargain (he pleads guilty to one or two charges and the others are dismissed), so the sentence could be even less.
Some states are far tougher than Washington, though. I’ve read a lot about the drug laws in New York State. There, he could be looking at 10-15 years!

307

Congratulations, and welcome to the Brotherhood! Academy was one of the best experiences of my life. Of course, when I went through it was only 12 weeks (Washinton has since doubled it to 24 weeks).

**

That’s a great way to learn things. I started as a Reserve officer, so I got to ride with all of the officers and learn the different ways that they did things. Then you just pick the ones that work for you.
I remember one officer who was always telling me, “Don’t you ever do what I just did!” Not that I would have ever tried some of the stunts that he pulled!
P.S. He’s now my Lieutenant! :)**
[/QUOTE]

308

As a police officer, what have been your experiences/observations concerning homophobia? Do you find that cops are more or less homophobic than the general public? Have you ever been through “sensitivity training” (for any minority for those matter not just gays)? Do you think it does any good? Also, do you think that gay or lesbian police officers experience harassment from their brothers in arms? Also, women in the military are often assumed (by the ignorant) to be lesbians. Do you find this to be true of police officers as well?

Thanks for a great thread! SORRY for all the gay questions, since I assume this is not an area of you expertise, but then Exprit is not a cop :slight_smile:

309

Excellent questions, Beltane!

Let me preface my answers by reminding everyone that I work for a small agency in Washington State. Washington is a pretty liberal state, so the cops tend to be the same. My limited interaction with east coast and midwest cops lead me to think that they tend to be more conservative, so the attitudes are probably quite different in those areas. Of course, I could be wrong.

We do get some sensitivity training, addresssing our interactions with all minorities. I don’t know if such training could ever change someone’s personal beliefs, but at least it trains officers to treat people correctly despite any prejudices. I would never tolerate an officer in my department treating any person differently because they belong to any minority.

My personal experience in this area is that some prejudice against gays is no more or less prevalent among cops than among the general populace. We’re just people after all. True deep-seated homophobia is probably far less likely in law enforcement, because someone with that strong an attitude probably wouldn’t pass the psychological exam to be hired (of course, not all agencies use psychological testing in the hiring process, which just amazes me).

My department did have an openly gay reserve officer for some years, and he was completely accepted. I never saw or heard anyone showing any animosity towards him at all.

As for female officers, you are correct. My department has one female officer and she is single. She tells me that from the day she entered law enforcement, citizens have speculated and spread rumors that she a lesbian. She is also regularly hit on by lesbians, who apparently buy into the same assumption. Fortunately, she takes it all with good humor (most of the time).

Badge

310

I so want her to be a “Dolly Parton” look alike Badge. Is she?

311

Great thread from before my time. Glad it resurfaced.

I wish I had read this thread earlier. I was pulled over two weeks ago. Having watched a Discovery Channel show about cops, one of the points it stressed was to make sure you pull over to a place that won’t cause problems. IOW, the driver should use discretion.

The road was barren; it was 2:00am. But, being 1 mile from home, I knew the area and continued on (after putting on blinker) for about 200 yards and pulled over into an empty church parking lot, and waited patiently with my hands on the wheel where he could see them. (But my fingers were curled…good tip to keep the fingers visible.)

He politely informed me that he gets to choose where to pull me over; not me. Which of course makes sense. What TDC was thinking is beyond me.

Anyway, I did not have insurance. He ticketed me, but graciously let me drive the remaining mile home, as opposed to towing my car. (Court appearance ticket; not fine ticket.)

There’s no real point to this post, other than to give a shout out to the fine officers in my town. That guy was as polite as could be, despite being justifiably annoyed at my not pulling over immediately.

I do have one complaint about police in general. I have twice been moved to report something to police for the cause of public safety. Once, there was a tree partially blocking the road about a mile from the police station, so I stopped in to let them know. Once, there was a stranded motorist I stopped to help who was, I soon discovered, clearly mentally imbalanced.

On both occasions, I was asked for (IMO) way too much info about myself. There’s a friggin’ tree in the road – why the hell do you need my home address? wtf? For this reason I no longer will go out of my way to help out. I have no desire to get my name in circulation at the police department any more than is absolutely necessary.

Regarding police hassling teen drivers, I definitely got pulled over more as a teen, but I was very rarely ticketed. Almost without exception I got warnings until my early twenties. My suspicion is that cops like to try and instill the fear of the man into kids so they grow into responsible adults. If my theory is correct, I say kudos and keep it up.

312

No, not really. Closer to Halle Berry, really.

:slight_smile:

313

We do tend to get programed that way. For one thing, we never expect a call to be just what is reported to us. You report a tree down, we get there and find a dead body under it (OK, a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea).

Too many times in my rookie years I didn’t bother to get all the info on a reporting party/witness, only to discover later that I really needed to find that person again. So we just get all the info on everyone, just in case.

In the future, just make the call and remain anonymous. We really do need citizens to make those calls.

314

Some years back I was a witness to an accident (where a motorcyclist in California, “white lining” it between cars at a light, got hit by one of the cars, which apparently never even saw him or noticed the impact and took off, leaving him lying in the road with a crushed chest). I stopped and reported what I’d seen to the police officer who came to the scene – and he not only took down my info as well as that of another witness, but took our driver’s licenses away and ran them! I’ve always thought that crossed the line, and it sure makes me hesitant to step forward as a witness again even though I have a clean record. Is that really an acceptable (not to mention legal) practice, to check out someone who has given no indication that they’ve done anything in the world wrong except volunteer to assist?

315

Badge, can I ask your opinion on what the hell might have been going on here? When I was sixteen, about two months after I’d gotten my driver’s license, I was driving home from a late movie with my younger sister in the Bronco that I drove at the time. We lived in a really small town, and the closest movie theater was twenty five miles away, in the next town over. Between the two towns was a divided highway, with a smooth, wide open grass and dirt space between them, you know, a huge, comfortably open area. To the right was a narrow gravel strip about two feet wide which dropped sharply to a ditch. This was a very rural area and the road was like this for maybe a ten or fifteen mile stretch. Having driven this road umpteen bajillion times, I was very familiar with it, and knew there was nowhere to pull over safely on the right for at least ten or fifteen miles.

A CHP pulls up behind me, lights flashing but no siren. I was in the left lane, doing maybe five miles an hour over the speed limit, and he hadn’t been behind me at all for the whole trip, so I’m sure he flew up quickly. I freaked out, having only had my license for a short period of time, and whenever I’m in the presence of a cop I feel like I might have done something wrong that I’m not aware of, or yanno, might be thinking about doing something wrong, at some point ;). Anyway my first assumption was not that he was trying to get past me, but that he wanted to pull me over.

So, I slowed down, put my flashers on, and after a minute or so pulled over to the left, since there was plenty of space there. I rolled down my window, and the guy comes running up to my car, and starts screaming in my face: “What the fk do you think you’re doing?! You don’t pull over on the left! What the hell kind of crap is this?!" Just totally yelling at me, doesn’t even tell me why he pulled me over in the first place. After a couple minutes, he yells "Get the fk out of here!” and goes back to his car, peels out, and speeds away. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to calm down.

To this day, I have no idea why he stopped me. I thought maybe he was just yelling at me because he was in a hurry on his way somewhere and wanted me to pull to the right and get out of his way, but not stop, but if that’s the case, then why did he waste time getting out and yelling at me? Scarred me for life, I tell ya. If I even see a cop car while I’m driving, I get all tense and drive veeery slowly and carefully and keep checking him with glances until (s)he’s gone–probably more dangerous than normal driving, really and I’m sure it probably calls even more attention to me.

Anyway, I’m sure you don’t really have an answer, I just wanted to tell that story to a (non scary) police officer.

Thanks :slight_smile:

~mixie

316

Yes, and it is always done. Even if he didn’t run you while you were right there, the officer would have run your information before writing his report.

There are a few reasons for this. First, the reports require all info on a person (height, weight, eye and hair color, etc) and it is easier to get it off the computer later than to copy it all off of the license while on scene. Second, we need to make sure that we got the information right. Lastly, you would not believe how many people I have arrested on warrants in similar situations. It’s our job to catch criminals if we can, so we run people every time we have the information available.

I know that sounds terrible, because you know that you are a good person and were just there to help. But we can’t know that without checking the computers.

There is a saying among cops: In God we trust. All others are checked through NCIC. (the National Crime Information Center)

317

Actually, I do have an answer. While I can’t be sure of all of the facts behind this incident, I am pretty sure of one thing: that Officer probably shouldn’t be wearing the badge.

I understand the frustration he was probably feeling. It is very aggravating when drivers don’t pull over the way they should when an emergency vehicle approaches (Cartooniverse can back me up on that one, I’m sure). But there was no excuse for this Officer’s behavior. He could have calmly explained the proper way to pull over (in most states, the law specifically requires you to pull to the right and stop, don’t just slow down). Or he could have written you a ticket if he had the time and felt so passionate about it. But there was no reason to behave like he did.

318

Well, when I said slow down, I meant to just under the actual speed limit, since I’d been going about five over at the time he pulled up behind me. I pulled over to the left because there was no safe place to pull over to the right (and be completely out of the right lane of traffic) for another ten or fifteen miles. No exit roads, either. Is it still appropriate to pull over to the right in that situation? There was a maybe two foot wide strip of gravel which dropped sharply into a ditch for a long stretch. Should I have moved over to the right, or just keep going for ten miles with my flashers on?
I wish he would have just written me a ticket, I’d have been less traumatized ;).

319

O.K, another U.K poster here with a few questions. One of my dad’s best friends was a senior police man in London for many years, and he has one or two interesting opinions that I wonder if you share.
One of the scariest things he told us, is that for police officers these days, if they are called to the scene of a crime/ accident etc, or come across one in the course of their duties, and happen to be there before the ambulance service, they are very reluctant to try and provide first aid, even to someone who could obviously be helped with a little basic first aid. That’s in case they get sued at a later date, if the basic first aid they tried to provide turned out to be the wrong thing to do in the circumstances.
Also, people often said about this guy, that despite reaching a relatively high rank in the police force at a young age, and generally being recognised as an excellent officer, he soon hit a “glass ceiling” above which he would never be promoted, because he wasn’t in the Freemasons, and every British police officer above a certain rank was. I never heard him say this directly, so it may be an urban myth, but have you ever heard about/ come across anything similar in your neck of the woods?

Thanks.

320

jesus christ are you serious that thats how things work in Washington, 6 months max for distribution of narcotics? here in bloomington Indiana just possession of coke or heroin is punishable by a 20 year maximum.