Copswritingcops.com is a website whose purpose is to talk about police officers writing other officers tickets as bad thing.
I respect our police officers and never understood some of the public’s mentality about “bad cops”. I grew up next to the Chief of Police in my hometown and met a lot of the force just from being out in the yard. In high school, I worked at a movie theater in a neighboring town which employed cops on the weekends and got to be buddies with some of 'em.
I believe that they have a tough job and should be granted respect while working. Off the clock is a different matter. There should be no special leniency granted to an off-duty officer who is breaking the law. The website has a “dick of the month” part where officers and their families complain about getting tickets. Look at a couple of these stories:
It’s great that he’s an officer and served in the Army. That doesn’t give them license to break the law as they see fit.
I can see giving folks a pass on speeding if they’re just a couple miles over the limit. Leniency, imo, should be given across the board and not just because of one’s position or their kith 'n kin’s job, no matter how noble.
My mom used to be a cop. According to her, this is a big problem everywhere, and worse, it’s not even a consistent problem. Her favorite example:
She pulls over a teenager doing 30mph over the limit. No intoxicants, but kid was rude and abrasive and very insistent that his dad would “have her job for this”, etc. Turns out he was the son of her boss’s boss (I forget ranks or I’d specify, sorry - any flatfoot wanna help me out?).
So her boss praises her in front of the department, thanked her for being honest and upright, yadda yadda, the whole nine yards. The kid is dragged in and made to apologize for his insults and such (according to Mom, he wasn’t literally dragged, but he didn’t make any attempt to appear like he wanted to be there).
A week later, mom’s been transferred to the night shift at the community college (which contracted with the dept. for security). Foot patrol. Her boss? “Sorry, my hands are tied.”
Connection? Naaaah… couldn’t be.
For a son of a cop, I’ve got quite a few horror stories to tell. sigh
–sofaspud
–remind me sometime to relate the tale of my mom gaining an immunity to Mace
Interesting site, my wag is it will be counterproductive to their cause. The public knows that cops get a break, but when you start reading about cops complaining about a minor ticket when they could have gotten much worse if they were not a cop, I think it’s going to backfire.
Sarcasm, maybe? I hope? I’ve been a fan as far back as I remember (not obsessive about it, a game’s usually my first choice if it’s on, and I go to at least one a year or so), and I’ve certainly never heard anything about that. Baseball’s got all sorts of traditions and unspoken ‘rules’ and whatnot though, so who knows.
[sub]*(Says one who has access to their incident entries, and has been asked many times to proofread a report before it gets submitted to the P.A.)[/sub]
Wow, evidentlly I need to get a distant cousin that is a cop. Evidently, that is enough to protect you. 30mph over the speed limit? That is dangerous. What I thought was sad was that so many of the posts contained “I was pretty tired” “I was on my cell phone” these folks need to understand that driving that fast under those conditions are dangerous. Didn’t they change DWI to DUI to cover a multitude of sins such as the examples above?
Being too tired, in a hurry, distracted never saved MY fanny from a ticket. If it is dangerous for me to do it, why isn’t it for them?
FWIW, it is a professional courtesy to NOT make the persons job harder by breaking the rules. I’m a poker dealer and nothing tweaks my fanny more than a dealer from another venue coming in and making my life a living heck.
These jerks are being pulled over in personal cars. Which means they aren’t being targeted, and yet they are doing enough to draw attention.
I wrote them and one of their sponsors and told them what I think of the site. I wonder, is this big enough that some press might be interested? I can’t imagine a department would want to be listed on this site if it was in the news. Maybe some local press would question one of the “friendly” police departments and thus encourage them to disavow it and seek to be taken off the site.
I am surprised to hear the attitude from cops concerning friends or distant family members… but not so surprised at the idea that law enforcement officers themselves would expect a little “PC”.
A good friend of the family was a retired trooper. He used to say that while he’d give a break to someone who had a badge, as long as the offense wasn’t egregious – in much the same way that he’d give a break to ANYONE, if they were polite and the offense wasn’t egregious – he was irritated at the demands for courtesy from “friends” of cops.
In his experience, many of those claims were bogus, anyway. He used to say that he had a tried-and-true technique… if a motorist ever started with, “Well, do you know Officer So-and-so?” he’d always put on his most forbidding frown and say (regardless of whether he knew the officer or not): “Yeah, I know him. I know him REAL well. He cost me a promotion.”
He says that not once did a brother officer ever get back to him asking what he was talking about.
I do find the page annoying. Some of the complaints were just plain wrong. For instance, when the guy complains because a cop stopped his wife for driving an unregistered vehicle. How should the cop know this is the wife of a cop? If she says it (and even if her husband is on the phone, as indicated), there’s no way to verify. Should a cop take the word of anyone who claims to be a cop’s relative? I don’t think so.
Cops have a hard job, and often get unfair criticism. But the problem is that there are bad and incompetent cops. Not a lot, but they exist, like there are bad workers in every profession. But the police always defend their own, even when they do things that are an embarrassment to the profession. That only makes things worse for them.
When I was around 20, three friends and I were on a short, inter-state roadtrip. Late at night, and the guy behind the wheel is speeding like crazy (at one point he had wanted to go to some Nascar driving school somewhere). I don’t recall what the speed limit was, or how fast he was going, but he was going way over the limit. At this point we’re in another state, which is notorious for targetting out-of-staters for speeding. A local columnist once got a ticket there and raised hell about the way she was treated.
So, eventually there’s a siren and some flashing lights behind us. We pull over and a state trooper comes to the driver’s side window. He’s maybe mid fifties. The guy driving says, with a degree of smugness I’ve not seen since, “May I help you, officer?”
The trooper asks for his license and registration. The guy driving, who had just started a clerical job with the FBI, flashes his ID card. The trooper apologizes, “I’m sorry, sir,” and heads back to his car. We peel out before he can even get back inside.
So yeah. Get a job pushing files around in an FBI office and you’ll be able to break traffic laws with impunity. :rolleyes:
I had suspected he was a tool at the time and subsequent events confirmed it. Haven’t talked to him in years.
No one deserves to get out of a ticket, simply because they’re an officer, relative of an officer, 9/11 victim, a vet, or a fireman. If you break the law, you broke the law. Pay up.
Frank I can understand not wanting a poster to say to the site ‘hey you are on the SDMB’ but I don’t see a problem with saying ’ Hey I saw your site and it sucks’. I am not understanding the issue you have with riker1384’s statement?
In my time as a licensed driver (some 23 years now), I’ve been pulled over about 16 times. Out of those 16 stops, I was issued tickets only six times. The other 10 stops were for legitimate reasons (speeding mostly), but the officers (both male and female) let me off with a “slow it down buddy” type warning.
Cops know what a speeding ticket will do to your record, and your insurance premiums. They have, at least in my experience, been more than understanding. If you are honest, polite, and respectful, it will help.
To get a ticket from one of your own, when you yourself are excusing many “civilians”, must be a real kick in the pants for these guys.
I read it in a magazine years ago, pre-Internet. I haven’t run across any cites.
I can see why such an unspoken rule might crop up. First basemen aren’t generally the fastest guys on the team. Perhaps they decided they didn’t want to show up their equally slow counterparts.