Bad cop experiences?

First, let me preface this by saying that I truly believe that the vast majority of police officers are good and honest people.

I was watching some videos on youtube last night and somehow found a video on what to do if you’re pulled over during a traffic stop. Obviously, this video was produced by an attorney, looking to drum up business. In the video, they said if you’re pulled over, you should only crack the window enough to pass the officer your license and registration/insurance. And it went on to say that you should refuse any seaches simply by saying, “I don’t consent to any searches”. And, If the cop asks you to step out of the vehicle, you should removed your keys from the ignition and once you’re outside of the vehicle, you should lock the vehicle. To me, this is just asking for trouble. The cop in the video (an actor) went on a tirade and threatened to bring in a k-9 unit, which the narrarator said doesn’t change that fact that you don’t consent to a search. Eventually, the teenagers in the car are let go with a stern warning that they should always obey a cops demands.

It got me to thinking about a time when I was pulled over. I was at a busy downtown intersection, getting ready to make a legal right turn on red. I noticed a police car with it’s lights flashing about half a block (or less) up the street and a man, wearing jeans and a t-shirt in the middle of the intersection directing traffic. He pointed at me and motioned for me to stop, which I did, but after about 30 seconds, I decided to go ahead and make the right turn. Well, the guy directing traffic yelled something at me, but I kept going. Out of my rear view mirror, I saw him running toward an unmarked police car and immediately coming after me, with sirens blaring. I pulled over and he got out of the car and approached me and said, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” (exact words). I replied that I was driving to work. He went on a tirade about how I disobeyed him and that I was “going down”. He took my information and went back to the car and found that I had no warrants or anything. Then he went on another tirade about how I could’ve caused an accident (there were no cars coming and it was a legal turn). He then said, “I hope you have a good job, cuz you’re insurance rates are going to go thru the roof”. Then he told me to get out of the car and said he was gonna search my car. That’s when I said, “are you a cop?”…I was trying to be an asshole. This threw him and I think he suddenly realized that there was no way I could have possibly known that he was a cop. I assumed he was just a good citizen, directing traffic because of an accident up the street. He said he was a cop and then went back to the unmarked car and was gone for about 5 min. He eventually came back and said (still implying that I should have known he was a cop since he was directing traffic) that in the future, I should refrain from disobeying authority figures and told me to go. No ticket or anything, which I’d have fought.

I’ve always had a strong dislike for this type of cop. And I’m pretty sure that if he had given me a ticket, I’d have lost the fight in court. I’m a firm believer that the “good ol boy” system is alive and well in Virginia.

Anyone got any bad cop stories? (or asshole cop stories). Or stories about how you were wronged by a police officer? I’m sure most people think they were wronged, lol.

How do you know he really was a cop though? Did he show you a badge?

Where in VA are you from? I grew up in Fairfax County and always found the police to be very nice. I know this sounds awful to admit, but I never paid much attention to speed limits…my rule was “under 50 on a neighborhood road, over 50 elsewhere.” I never obeyed any of the laws pertaining to those under 18 driving (limiting number of passengers, curfew, etc.) either.

Only once did an officer pull me over, I told him I knew I was speeding, and he said “Really? I was just worried because the ink on your temporary plate (it was a new car) was fading” then proceeded to write the warning out to my mother, because it was her car.

I also drove without having a physical license for about two years (in VA you have to go to court to get it if you’re a minor, and my parents didn’t want to take me- I did pass the tests though), and didn’t have it with me when this guy pulled me over…I just shuffled through my bag, and looked on the floor and told him I must have dropped it and he said it was fine.

Sorry to go on a tangent there…I am a young female though who drove in VA from ages 16-18, so there could have been bias on behalf of police officers in that respect. I suppose whether or not officers show gender bias is a different discussion though.

I can’t remember the exact details, as this didn’t happen to me, but when a friend was around 14 and her sister was 17, they got pulled over late one night. The officer told them to get out of the car but they refused. He insisted and threatened them with all kinds of stuff, but they didn’t comply. Somehow they were able to leave.

They learned the next day that a cop in that area had pulled some teenaged girls over and raped them. I think it may have happened a few times.

Since these girls’ grandfather was high up in the police force at the time, and they were able to identify the him, Officer Rapey fell down some stairs a few times.

I never saw his badge, but shortly after he pulled me over, there were two marked police cars that pulled up…for backup, I guess. So, I’m convinced he was indeed a cop.

Richmond area.

I’ve had very few problems with cops, other that Minneapolis cops.

When I was a teen, Apple Valley (MN) cops were known as Asshole Valley Cops, although I was fortunate enough to never have a run-in with them.

However, as I say, for Minneapolis cops;
1> When I first moved to Uptown, I was rather shocked (having been used to decent human being suburban cops) to regularly see them pulling over black people for no apparent reason other than maybe “driving while black”.
2> Pulled out of heavy traffic for speeding by a very belligerent cop who refused to say why he singled ME out of everyone else around me driving the same damned speed.
3> Cut off and nearly hit by one in an unmarked car. I flipped him off as I drove past him, still not knowing he was a cop. He got next to me at the next light, rolled down his window and threatened me with all manner of ill treatment for being disrespectful toward him.
4> My dishonest, corrupt and incompetent Security Director at a small University who was a former Minneapolis cop, who had been fired from the department for “Lying and withholding evidence in the course of an investigation”. She sued, was reinstated, then retired less than a year after reinstatement. Pulled the same shit on me, lying and withholding evidence of her and her managerial staff’s violation of University Policy in firing me.
5> Her assistant Director, who had the people skills of a paperclip and was a lying bastard.
6> The special response unit of the city, who refused to check out the people across the street who were openly dealing drugs right out of their front door.
7> When the guy tried to break into my house while I was there and wasn’t even slightly phased by me calling 911 while holding a butcher knife. The damned Minneapolis cops drove down my alley 45 minutes later and kept right on going. They never stopped. Fortunate for me that the drugged out would-be home invader ran when I hung up on 911 (against their explicit orders) and came back with my .357 magnum in my hand.
8> I can’t tell you how many lawsuits some very notorious officers have had against them for brutality, but the union defends them and the department refuses to fire them.
9> And the topper, this.

Bastards. All of them.

By contrast, my current local suburban officers are nothing but first rate.

Once, years ago, some friends and I went for a late-night walk on Duke’s East campus. When we got there, one of us opened the car door, and the driver’s dog jumped out of the car and went running. The driver got out with leash in hand, going after the dog and calling for it, and got it back in control and leashed within thirty seconds.

That wasn’t fast enough for the bicycle cop, however, who wrote her a $75 ticket for having an unleashed dog on campus.

Super-suck.

About four years ago I got a flat on a Chicago-area expressway, so I exited and turned onto a quiet residential street in Elmhurst, and pulled up under a streetlight. Problems with the lug nuts meant that I had to call AAA. A few minutes later, an unmarked cop car shows up and asks me what I’m doing there. The front left tire makes it fairly obvious, but I explain that I’ve had a flat, and called AAA. He inspects my license and then leaves.

A few minutes later he returns with several other cop cars, and they say “they’ve checked with AAA and they have no record of a call.” I have an office chair and two two-drawer file cabinets in the car, and he’s intensely curious about them, saying they’ve had several home burglaries in the area. He wants permission to search the car. I politely but clearly say “I do not consent to a search of my automobile.” I’m ordered out of the car and told I have to stand on the curb. One cop then returns and reports that “we checked and your license plate has been reported in several burglaries.” Using this pretext of probable cause, the cops search the passenger compartment and trunk, despite my repeated statements that I do not consent to the search. In the middle of all this, the AAA truck shows up.

So that was the night I learned how laughable “probable cause” is in the real world.

At which point the cop will say, “Your refusal to search gives me probable cause to search your car without a warrant.” :rolleyes:

That said, it’s a good idea to always be nice to cops, but sometimes you do get a bad apple who uses his badge as an opportunity to harass random strangers. Even then, it’s generally best to cooperate as much as possible (unless you do have something to hide) in the hope that he’ll give up and go bother someone else.

Being a white kid from a middle-class neighborhood, I don’t really have any good “bad cop” stories. The worst I can think of was a punk in a badge who shook me & my brother down in Westwood, just for hanging out in an empty parking lot. (The cop didn’t look older than 20 – he must’ve been fresh out of the academy.) He patted us down, made us empty our pockets on the hood, and searched my car for a solid ten minutes before giving up. Then, he said: “When you see two guys in a car, they’re either doing drugs, or they’re faggots. You guys aren’t faggots, are you?” (Keep in mind, by then, he knew the two of us were brothers…)

Made me laugh, though. Not just the inanity of his accusation, but also the fact that he’d completely missed the 1/2 ounce of mary jane I’d hastily stashed under the seat. :smiley:

I was going about 40 in a 35, and was pulled over. I had no problem taking a ticket, 'cause I was all legal otherwise and have received very few infractions, far fewer than I’ve earned :wink:
But the cop was looking for something bigger, apparantly, cause he went from me to my passenger and tried to find a reason to hassle him instead. Sure, I have a junky car, and neither one of us was wearing a suit or anything, but we were far from kids, it was the middle of the afternoon, and really, the cop’s actions and suspicious attitude were just weird. So weird that I was practically laughing.

So he asks my 6’4" mustachio’d <no idea how to spell that, hrm> buddy to step out of the car and do a sobriety test. Which he does, 'cause it was just too funny by this point

Ok now we’re both about laughing, and no, no drugs of any kind were involved, I swear.
He asks to search the car, which I had no problem with…he rummages around in the backseat and pulls out the Snapple bottle my friend had just finished drinking and goes ‘AHA!!’ He sniffs it, and abruptly tells us to carry on, that clearly the alcohol fumes he was smelling from the car was from the bottle and not from us.

And no ticket.

That was just…weird.

So many (bad) cops - so little time. Hmm, a random bad cop experience. It was the night before Halloween and my friends and I were hanging out in front of my friends parents flower shop on the main drag of our town in NJ. The cops came by and told us to disperse. We weren’t making (or intending to make) any trouble - it was about 11:30 pm and we were waiting for some friends to come back with some beer so we could go inside and hang out. Everyone was 18 or older - the drinking age at the time. So anyway the cops told us to leave and when I answered that we were adults and we weren’t breaking any laws they got out of the car and told us to leave or we would be arrested. I asked my friend (loudly) if we could stand in his driveway while we waited for our friends to come back with the beer. He said “Sure”. So we all went onto his driveway. Now we were adults on private property. The cops followed us onto the driveway and told ME to leave. I told him no. He grabbed me and tried to drag me to his car. I grabbed a fence and held on. He took out his flashlight and started beating me on the back with the butt end of it. I continued to hold on - he couldn’t pry me off. Backup arrived including a 6 foot 5 mutant cop named ********. Mutant cop effortlessly plucked me off the fence and dragged me to the car. He threw me in the car and made sure he smacked my head on the door on the way in. When we got to the station he dragged me out and now that there were no witnesses proceeded to punch the hell out of me. I forgot - I was also handcuffed at this point… So they held me for a while and then let me go with no charges. I went to the hospital to document my injuries and tried to get a lawyer to take my case with no luck. This was around 1980 or so… That was that. I know now that I had a case but at the time I was a dumb kid who mouthed off to cops… I was a wise ass but I also believed in fair play and I was outraged that they tried to boss us around when we weren’t doing anything wrong. The mutant cop got kicked off the force a few months later and then got indicted for stealing from the PBA which he was somehow involved in as a civilian. The first cop got sued and kicked off for negligence - some kid died after ingesting a bunch of pills and even though the cop was told that the kid took pills he insisted that the kid was “just drunk” and needed to sleep it off…

I have had good experiences with cops too but definitely more bad ones. I have about 20 bad cop stories and some are much more serious than the light beating I got that night. I have about 10 good cop stories too if someone wants to start a good cop thread :slight_smile:

When I was living in NJ (a state I fucking HATE), I was getting onto the NJ Turnpike to get to work. The particular on-ramp 8A, had about 5 cash toll lanes and only 2 for easy pass. I used the shoulder (admittedly illegal) only to be cut off by a dickhead who just didn’t like me going around him.

I was in the wrong on that part. Mea culpa.

But he jammed his car against the guardrail to block me, so I gave him the single finger salute. He flashed a badge. I flashed my non-LEO (but still law enforcement agency) credentials. We spent the next hour fucking with each other on the highway.

So… I ran his plate, found out where he worked, found out his address (about 1 mile from where I lived) - you can tell, at this point that I suffer road rage - and called his house and told him to watch who he was fucking with.

I’m probably the asshole fake cop in this scenario… but seriously, this guy was being an asshole (I was 23… entitled to be an asshole by virtue of youthful indiscretion, your honor).

Not me, but a news story I heard about from my folks in Columbus, Ohio several years back. Apparently there was a newly married couple, still in full wedding dress, riding around downtown in one of those horse-drawn carriages, sipping champagne. Cop pulled over the carriage and busted them for open container violations.

A couple of uniformed officers from the Atlanta PD were dispatched to my house after the first of a series of break-ins by the same individual and at least one accomplice over the course of a about a week, two of which took place while either my roommate or myself were in the house.

During the interview one of the officers incredulously asked me why I didn’t have a gun in the house. During a subsequent interview after the 3rd or 4th break-in, a plain-clothes detective who worked in the area also came by the house to look around and ask me a few questions along with some more uniformed officers. He was the only one who seemed to really be looking for possible leads in earnest, as opposed to just going through the motions. However, many weeks later, the detective showed up at my house alone with a Polaroid snapshot of a badly beaten man who I could still identify as the intruder I had spoken with on my porch weeks before the break-ins occured, and who I had physically thrown out of my house the morning of the first break-in after waking up and finding him walking through the front door and into the living room.

Apparently the guy had been caught trying to break into another house in the neighborhood at which point the owner had beaten the crap out of him, and he was now in custody. The detective had a hunch that it was the same guy who had hit our house, but he should have worked that hunch through his chain of command (he was not the officer assigned to my case) and I should have been presented with a lineup of possible suspects instead of just one image. Had I had my day in court, I would have likely been considered a tainted witness because of this and I would not have been able to provide testimony in my own case, but I never got my day in court. I took time off of work twice to go to the courthouse to get in line with the multiple other people in my neighborhood seeking to bring charges against the same guy, and they never got to my case on the docket. After receiving no word about when my case would be scheduled for court again for many weeks, I got a call the morning of the day my case would be up again, but was unable to get the time off of work on such short notice.

Of course, it doesn’t. So any search conducted under that rationale would be illegal.

I’ve had two minor asshole cop experiences.

The first one was when I got a flat tire at night on Hwy 101 in the bay area when I was 17. I pulled onto the shoulder and started to change the tire. I knew how to change a tire, but I had never done it at night before, and I was tired, so it was taking me a bit longer than usual. A friend of mine was in the car, and helped hold the flashlight. After a minute or two, a police car rolls up behind, and two officers get out and ask a few standard questions. They then procede to stand there and crack jokes at my expense (how crappy my car was, how I didn’t know what I was doing, how scrawny I was), clearly in the hopes of looking cool to my (attractive female) friend, who quickly got uncomfortable and went back inside the car to sit in the passenger seat.

The other one was in Santa Barbara a few years ago when there was a big fire in the hills. The area I lived in had been under a precautionary “get ready to evacuate” warning for a few days, but I was checking the fire department website and the news regularly for updates. I drove home to find that the road into my neighborhood was blocked off. I parked in a gas station and walked over to the cop manning the barricade. I was polite and respectful. I started with “Hello officer, can I ask you a question?”. I explained that I lived a few blocks in, and if we were being evacuated, I needed to go get some things and my pet. He said I couldn’t drive in. I said that it was only a few blocks, could I walk in? He said “do you want to go to jail? Because I can put you in jail.” I said no, I just want to know how I can go to my house and evacuate my pet. He said “Read between the lines.” I said I don’t understand what that means. He turned away.

W.T.F.

I drove around looking for back streets that might have been unblocked, but there weren’t any, then I saw a car stop and talk to an officer, and him wave them through the barricade. I drove up and said that I lived inside and I needed to get my things and my pet. He said, ok, but you need to evacuate as soon as possible. I thanked him and drove in. Was that so hard? It’s not like the flames were licking at my door. There was plenty of time for an ordered evacuation, and threatening to arrest nervous people who are trying to get to their homes is just being a dick.

Most city police cops are good joes-you behave curteously, they treat you OK.
The guys who are dicks are invariably MA State Cops-some of them act like they belong to the Gestapo or SS. They have an “attitude” that I don’t like-they forget who pays their salaries.
And, quite a few of them have been found to be corrupt-stealing drugs, accosting women, and sexual abuse.
Recently, there was a MA state cop caught propositioning woman at the Boston (Logan) airport-his punsihment? A reprimand.

Years ago, in Philadelphia, a family friend visiting from England was picked up by police, badly beaten, and dumped unconscious in a dangerous part of town. When he recovered he cut short his trip and returned home, never to visit the US again. It was quite a sad thing for everybody.

My ex and I had a funny thing happen to us with a wanna be college campus cop once. I asked my then husband to drive me around the college campus the week before the semester started so that he could show me where most of my classes would be. I was so worried about getting lost. Anyway, the campus was deserted. We took a wrong turn and went down a one way street for about 100 yards before turning around. Just as we got started again, from out of nowhere here comes Barney Fife with his lights flashing!

We pulled over, he pulled in behind us. Beer Gut Barney got out and waddled over to our window. Next thing we know he starts SCREAMING at us! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? DIDN’T YOU KNOW YOU WERE GOING THE WRONG WAY! (Remember I said we had turned around already and we’re going the right way by this time?) YOU COULD HAVE CAUSED AN ACCIDENT! (Remember I said the campus was deserted?) I SHOULD ARREST YOU FOR RECKLESS DRIVING? (

OOPS! Damn thing submitted my post before I was finished typing~!

Continued ----------> Anyway…

This rant continued for about 10 more minutes and we never said a word the entire time. Actually we were trying our best not to laugh out loud because this guy was just acting insane. It was sort of surreal. Finally he said we could go and we just drove away. About 3 weeks later I was at my best friends house eating lunch with her. She lived right by the college. She was babysitting the cutest little girl and her daddy was on his way to pick her up. The door bell rang, I answered it and guess who daddy was? Yep, Insane Beer Gut Barney. The split second he saw me his face turned blood red and his mouth kept opening and closing like a fish gasping for air. He finally stuttered out about how sorry he was for his treatment of us the other day and he’d had a bad day, blah, blah, blah. Then he grabbed his little girl and ran out. My friend kept saying she couldn’t believe he’d screamed at us like that. What a nutjob!

I haven’t encountered any really bad cops, but I have encountered plenty who have zero understanding of certain aspects of the law and cover that with bluster.