I don’t…
But if it’s good enough for Bill Gates 
I was arrested once, almost 20 years ago, for driving on a suspended license. I didn’t know they did that if you put off paying a speeding ticket for too long. Freaked my flabby white suburban ass out. Haven’t thought of that in years. But yeah, they did the whole fingerprint and mug shot deal.
That was you? I didn’t know you needed a license for one of those things.
I was in a drug raid once. Massive operation – made the papers and everything. About five undercover cops kicked in the door followed by ten to fifteen uniformed and a bunch of dogs. Shitty little Connecticut town. It was all based on a lie someone else told when they were arrested. I had stopped by to hang out for a few minutes and got swept up in the whole thing.
They found about two ounces of pot on the table (but it was in the open so therefore everyone in the apartment at the time was charged with possession) and a huge “arsenal” of weapons. Arsenal in scare quotes because despite the scary pic that made it to the paper it wasn’t anything more than most hunters have: Couple shotguns, couple .22s, few boxes of rounds, and a few knives. Keep in mind there were three roomates. But when you take everything out of the box and spread it around on the a table it does begin to look impressive. Fuckers. Papers mentioned a “quantity of drugs” several times. Accurate, yes, but misleading as all hell.
One person went Alfred to possession of pot and paraphernalia (2 charges) and everything else was dropped.
But I’m in the system.
You got (un)lucky. A person made a bomb threat at my place of employment, and was briefly detained by police. They found he was driving with an expired/suspended license (don’t remember which), but they let him walk away with a ticket. The police decided the guy was just making a bad joke (which he was) and the suspended license wasn’t enough to arrest him for.
About 15 minutes after those cops left, Homeland Security showed up, and were righteously pissed when we told them their buddies already let the guy go.
Yes, I do. Back in Dallas I was carrying a gun in my glove box to the country to target shoot. I got pulled over for speeding, opened the glove box to get my insurance papers - el busto.
My question is can I get a copy of my mug shot? That would be a hoot!
Nope.
It would depend if the jurisdiction that took the shot considers it to be a public record. In Cook County Illinois and Chicago, IL you certainly can see mugshots. I worked for a temp agency and they sent me to a bail bond agency and once in awhile I’d go downtown to the courthouse to see the criminal record. And the criminal files had a mugshot in there. You could pay a fee to copy the file, so I am assuming you could get a copy of the mugshot, though it might just be a “xerox” type of copy.
The best way to find out is go to the jurisdiction of where you were arrested and look up the clerk of the city or county and see if they have copies for public records.
A lot of smaller places don’t put their records online so you have to go in person to find out. Police blotters are public record so that should not be an issue, but getting a copy other than a photocopy might be an issue.
And you may have to jump through tons of hoops to get them. Like in Cook County you have to have the case number, docket number, and a whole bunch of other numbers to get the correct files. If you don’t have them prepare to do a LOT of searching, and you get no help from the clerks at the county.
Then again, with privacy laws coming into effect now, who knows what changes they made in the last few years.
No mugshot here, other than on my driver’s licence. I have a long tradition of giving a prison-yard stare when having my DL pic taken.
Thanks Markxxx.
Yep. August, 1994, Waco, TX. Drunk driving. Never did it again. Jail sucked!
The underwear they gave me was several sizes too big.
Do You Have A Mug Shot?
Well, I don’t, but someone close to our family does…
A few years back, minutes after scurrying my two young daughters out the door to catch their school bus (the tardy little ragamuffins nearly miss the bus every day), I was jolted, mid coffee sip, by a loud and persistent knock at the front door. I opened the door and was confronted by three burly men and a burly woman, each with guns drawn and each wearing flak jackets emblazoned with “Homeland Security” (gotta say, that type of blatant show of power, at that early morning hour, worked better than the caffeine in wiping away my mental cobwebs).
“Do you know this woman”, demanded the burliest of the lot as he starts to unroll an unnecessarily large photo-copied head shot of…someone…looks like a woman….
*
Okey doakie, what’d that kooky wife of mine do this time, refuse to take off her shoes at the airport again?* , I’m thinking. But, no, when my eyes finally focus on the photo, it clearly isn’t my wife…it’s, our nanny—our live-in Eastern European nanny who I’ve longed suspected of pilfering vodka from our liquor cabinet and spending far too much time on her cell phone instead of caring for my tardy-prone ragamuffins. *Can’t imagine Homeland Security would be involved in charges of such a domestic nature, though. “Yes, that’s our nanny…is there a problem, officer? *(Do you call Homeland Security people, “officer”? It felt dorky as I said it).
“Where is she?”
*“I think she went to the Jiffy Store to buy some Crispy Cream donuts.” Or, maybe taking a few swings of our vodka in the parking lot.
*
“When do you expect her back?”
“In a few minutes, I believe.”
“Please, go back in the house, and do not try to contact her.”
“You have my word, sir.” (Again, with the dorky replies, c’mon Tibbytoes, show a little bad-ass rebel attitude, they’d appreciate that!?!)
I closed the door and went immediately to the front window, to peek, very secretively (yeah, they’re not the only ones who can do the cloak & dagger routine), at the soon-to-be unfolding drama. I was stunned and flabbergasted at the thought of nanny being caught up in something involving this level of law enforcement, but if there was going to be a show, I wanted a front row seat. But, the Homeland Security officers have vanished. Gonna nab her at the Jiffy Store, I supposed. Ah, well, back to the telly for a little Spongebob action. But, I waited a couple more minutes, then, lo and behold, up drives our mini-van and parks right in front of the house.
As soon as nanny gets out of the van, she is surrounded by the almost magically re-appeared Homeland Security officers, again with guns drawn. As soon as she dropped the bag of donuts, I felt profound sympathy for this usually defiant, strong-willed, but now obviously frightened and distraught, young lady. Vodka pilferer or not, she was part of our family for a while and no matter what she is charged with, or whether or not she is guilty—her life was about to come to an abrupt and no doubt unpleasant change. No matter how you cut it, that’s just plain sad. I felt a twinge of guilt, too, but calling her cell phone, advising her to flee the Jiffy Store and hightail it to Mexico in our Honda Odyssey probably wouldn’t have been in either of our best interest.
All five of them approach the front door—what, why!?!, shouldn’t they be going off in a paddy-wagon? Again, I open the door and this time the burly lady officer speaks. “Do you mind if we process her in your house, no need for your neighbors to see all this?” Oh, so now you decide to show a little prudence…the blazing guns and show of overwhelming force a few minutes ago, was business-as-usual, though?
- “Uh, sure, that’s alright with me, officer.”*
As the quintet pass me on course to the kitchen (why the kitchen of all places?—lot’s of potential make-shift weapons in there for a wily nanny to consider, I would think). And, damn, I hope they don’t notice the dust bunnies on the wood floors, how embarrassing. I make eye contact with nan and give her an empathetic WTF-shrug. She said, “I’m so sorry”, and then began to cry, silently, but profusely. The poor girl, hell, if you ever get out of this mess, you can have all the vodka you want.
One of the officers put the retrieved bag of donuts on the kitchen counter (that was a pretty nice gesture, I must say), then joined the others in reading rights, spreading legs, padding down and cuffing the nanny’s hands behind her back. The silent tears continued. Just as the cuffs clunk (clinked?) shut—adding further to the shear and utter surrealism of the situation—in walks my happy-go-lucky brother-in-law (he and my sister, visiting from Bryn Mahr,Pa., were staying next door, at my parent’s house) through the back door into the kitchen holding a bag of just-bought bagels. He looks wide-eyed at the dramatic scene before him; the Homeland Security officers look at him, menacingly, hands touching their holsters.
“I guess this isn’t a good time for bagels and cream cheese”, says brother-in-law, then retreats back through the door he just entered from. All six of us watch through the back window as he scurries back to mom and dad’s house.
“He’s really not much of a threat; he just likes my coffee with breakfast.” That seemed to diffuse the tension a little bit.
Long story short: *The U.S. attorney’s office, Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agents and several other federal agencies carried out 33 arrest warrants, on 10 active duty Sailors, seven former Sailors and 16 foreign nationals on charges of defrauding the United States Navy out of more than $500,000. *
Charges against our nanny were later dropped.
I was also arrested for Driving While Prohibited (suspended license), but mine wasn’t suspended for not paying my tickets - I simply had too many of them. I pled guilty and was sentenced to 7 days, $300, and an additional 1-year suspension. Because of my living arrangements at the time, I opted out of the “in-home monitoring” and had to serve my sentence at the nearest Provincial Maximum Security prison (not a Federal penitentiary, and not nearly as ominous as the name sounds - highest offenders were armed robbery and aggravated assault types). Thankfully, I was quickly transferred to a low-security “work camp” and only had to serve 5 days.
Strangely, I had a really good time in prison. I had access to books, a pool table, a ping-pong table, board games, television (and a universal gym at the work camp). Three meals, my own room, and I never had to do any of my own laundry or dishes. At the work camp we had an 8-hour workday picking up garbage on the side of the road - but the first and last hour and another two at lunch were anything but work - for which I got paid $1/hour (yes, when I was discharged they included a paycheque with my personal belongings).
This was in the late 90s (in western Canada, btw), and at the time I calculated that in order to maintain the same level of living I would need to make about $60k/year before taxes (remember, Canada…). I later heard that it costs taxpayers approximately $70k/year per inmate in that province (but never bothered to confirm if this were true/accurate).
For the next ten years, I proceeded checking the “yes” box on any applications/forms that asked if I’d been convicted of a crime (who knows how many jobs I didn’t get because of it). I never applied for a pardon or took any related action beyond serving my time and paying my fine. In 2009 when we decided to move to the U.S. I had to obtain an official police clearance certificate via fingerprint - I was very shocked to find that it contained no record of my arrest and incarceration. A little research (who the consular officer also confirmed during my immigration interview - yes, I still told them about it) shows that in that particular province, infractions of the MVA that do not involve alcohol and/or death are not considered “criminal” - I’m still trying to wrap my head around how I could go to prison for a non-criminal offense, but at least I can stop saying “yes” when anyone other than the government asks.
Nope.
Caused a bunch of people to have one though. Even took a couple of them.
Once,
For being drunk in public a long time ago when I was a young dumb kid, they asked me in order for me to get out I’d have to call someone to come get me. My mother was the only one I could think of but chose to spend the night in the klink instead of having pissed off mom come pick me up. Steel beds suck.