copswritingcops.com ...This could only end badly.

[Askia]

This kind of thing tends to reinforce my largely negative and prejudiced inclinations towards cops.

[Cardinal]

@Snooooopy

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.

I’ve read SO many things about baseball, including “Three Nights in August” and “Ball Four”. BF especially rips off the lid of MLB, telling stories of players drilling holes in walls to peep women, taking amphetamines, getting all sorts of special treatment from cops and such, playing hung over, sneaking out on their wives, doctoring the ball, feuding with management, etc. I’ve never heard of anything approaching the idea of tipping off the other team.

In fact, somewhere in there is a story of Mickey Mantle getting picked off second because the shortstop got him distracted with a conversation so as to get between him and second base.

[mhendo]

@Kentammy

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.

But that’s not the main issue here.

I think everyone agrees that police officers use a certain amount of discretion in writing tickets for traffic violations, and that some people get let off with a warning. If the officers use the same discretion with other cops that they use with the general public, that’s not a big problem.

But that website has numerous cases where the traffic violations were so serious that it’s very unlikey that a civilian would be let off with a warning. And if the offense is that serious, then cops shouldn’t get a pass either. And cops’ families and friends definitely should get no special consideration whatsoever.

Also, as law enforcement officers the police should be held to at least as high a standard as the general public in observing the law. As Excalibre says, the sense of entitlement on that website is staggering. Their FAQ (scroll down) also makes for interesting reading:

Should we be given breaks on tickets that normal people would be given a break?
Yes. Best Buy employees get an employee price (which is awesome), Subway employees get free subs, military people get free hops on planes, airline employees get the jet around the world for free ($50 is free). Every profession gets some kind of ‘perk’.

First of all, as i’ve already said, many of the infractions discussed on that website are serious enough (e.g., 20+, even 30+ mph over the speed limit) that no civilian would be likely to get a break.

Second, employee “perks” like Best Buy discounts for employees or free travel of airline employees are offically endorsed and approved by private corporations who choose to make such benefits available to their employees. It is merely an issue of whether those companies want to pay for the employee perks.

This is quite a different situation from public servants expecting to be allowed to break the law just because of the job they do. There is no equivalence at all between these situations, and the fact that these cops are trying to justify their position using such a poor analogy is a testament to how fucking deluded they are.

[dbuzman]

Everybody email the sites address to some news outlets and lets see if anybody does a story on it.

[Revtim]

@mhendo

Second, employee “perks” like Best Buy discounts for employees or free travel of airline employees are offically endorsed and approved by private corporations who choose to make such benefits available to their employees. It is merely an issue of whether those companies want to pay for the employee perks.

This is quite a different situation from public servants expecting to be allowed to break the law just because of the job they do. There is no equivalence at all between these situations, and the fact that these cops are trying to justify their position using such a poor analogy is a testament to how fucking deluded they are.

Plus, the person getting a few bucks off a TV at Best Buy has quite a bit less of a chance of causing a fatality than giving a group of people carte blanche to speed.