Bizarre story. Usually there’s professional courtesy between the police forces. I wonder what kind of turf war they got going on?
The Highway patrol officer could have been interfering in a important police call. Cops don’t use their lights unless traffic is in the way. Why didn’t the The Highway patrol officer call the other cop on the radio? Find out that way why he was speeding? This has to be a turf war/pissing match.
<shrug> it is kind of funny though. Busting a cop car for speeding
[QUOTE=aceplace57;14407876? Find out that way why he was speeding? This has to be a turf war/pissing match.[/QUOTE]
Not always. Some cops take their jobs seriously. If someone is going 120 MPH and driving dangerously they need to be chasing someone traveling even faster and even then it’s a judgement call. If I was a LEO and saw another out of their jurisdiction LEO blasting through my territory without an observable good reason I’d really want to know why.
Finding out that the reason he was going 120 MPH and driving like a manic was that he was late for an off duty job would make me put him in handcuffs too.
Or maybe there is a real-life version happening there??? 
This is awesome and the cop that made the stop deserves praise. Police aren’t, or shouldn’t be, above the law and the cops that respect that are the ones we need to keep.
The article says, “The [City of Miami Police] officer, identified as Fausto Lopez, 35, told the trooper that en route to an off-duty detail and he had to be there by 7:00 a.m.” In other words, there was no emergency that required the speed. He was just late. I think the highway patrol officer was right to pull him over.
I don’t know if it works this way there, but in a lot of places, the only way for law enforcement officers from different agencies to communicate is to play a game of telephone through the dispatchers. And even when direct radio communication is possible, the training on how the radios work has often never been done, or It’s Just Not Done That Way.
Also, he likely wouldn’t have known what channel the other officer was on (I’m sure a city like Miami has several police channels), nor would he know the unit number to call for.
This isn’t true, or where it is it shouldn’t be. The lights are a warning device. Yes, they help clear traffic, but they can also mean “watch out, a speeding emergency vehicle is coming your way.” When traveling at a high rate of speed, it is more important than ever to make sure you’re visible to other cars. If you’re going 120 MPH in the dark, you’re going to come up on other cars almost before you can see them. You want them to know you’re coming.
Finally, even when responding to an emergency, I don’t think most agencies would consider 120 MPH to be warranted or acceptable.
90mph on a freeway / turnpike is pushing it for a marked police car with no legitimate response. 120mph no lights / siren is asking for this or much worse to happen. Kudos to the FHP on this.
From my extensive training via “Adam-12,” even two radio cars from the same department don’t typically communicate car-to-car; if that’s needed, Reed and Malloy would request that the dispatcher inform the other unit to “meet them on Tac 2” and then switch frequencies.
Of course, that training was a few years ago.
No doubt this guy will be out of a job. He was driving way too fast.
I was just surprised to hear a marked patrol car got pulled over. I can’t recall a news story like that before. He was driving so ridiculously fast the FHP had to do something.
I often get passed by cop cars without lights. But they are only going a few mph fast. Maybe 75mph in a 65 zone.
This is a local news story for me. It’s amazing to me how many people in the comments on our local paper think the arresting officer is wrong for pulling the other one over.
I watched the dashboard video of part of the chase, and the arrest. The Miami officer certainly looked like he was driving dangerously - the clip I saw showed him switching between three lanes of traffic to avoid cars, while going noticeably faster than the camera, and without lights on.
When he got out of the car, he had an attitude of “I’m a cop, so it’s ok to do anything.” For instance, the arresting officer told him to get out of the car, turn around, and put his hands on the car. The Miami officer got out and stood there facing the arresting officer, and had to be told several times to turn around. I suspect he wouldn’t have taken it very nicely if he had a suspect that did that.
-D/a
My guess is that FHP called dispatch and asked if there was some reason a Miami cruiser would be flying down the highway. FHP dispatch probably checked with Miami dispatch and told FHP that there’s nothing going on that they are aware of and to proceed with caution.
As far as FHP was concerned an out of jurisdiction squad car, going down the highway at 100+ mph, weaving in and out of traffic, with no lights or sirens and no communications with any dispatch and no apparent emergency could, as far as they know, be a stolen car. For all this FHP officer knows he’s approaching an armed ‘bad guy’ impersonating an officer…and who knows where the real officer is. In the back seat? In a ditch? In the trunk? Dead?
Gotta love cop speak, man. “High rate of speed.” “Observed the driving pattern of the vehicle.” Hehe.
I say there’s no way the guy will be out of a job. Yes there may be bad feelings between the departments, he may get reprimanded, but he’ll be back on duty.
:::personalanecdotetime:::
Time and again in Florida I think I am speeding when I notice a car come from behind only to notice at the last moment that it’s a cop car. But they still pass me without a notice.
But Miami tops it all. Several times in the Miami region I was going mid-80s in a 70 mph zone and a cop whooshed past me, probably going mid-90s at least.
It is surprising how much the “cop culture” varies between localities, even within a state.
My training and first law enforcement jobs were in East-Central Florida. No one tolerated unlawful behavior amongst the co-workers. I clearly remember one co-worker loudly harrassing another because the latter had an expired inspection sticker on his personal vehicle; this persisted for a couple of days until the inspection was renewed. I have no doubt a citation would be forthcoming if it continued another few days (and this was between friends!). A similar attitude about our personal, off-duty behavior was common among departments in that county.
When I went to Northeast Florida, and both taught and worked for several agencies, I was very surprised - shocked, and angered - at the attitudes. Not “it’s OK to take bribes” level, but still very disheartening.
I think I posted about it at the time, probably in mini rants, but when we were moving in June, I got stopped for expired tags in our previous town, where everyone knew my husband, me, and the fact that he’s a deputy in the next county. Turns out that we’d been driving both vehicles with expired decals from February until June, due to an oversight on our part, and didn’t get flagged until an officer figured we might want to get that fixed before moving! If we hadn’t moved, I guess we’d have noticed only when our next tax notice came in. It seems that around here, unless someone is doing something pretty dangerous (DUI or robbery or something,) cops and their families are cut a lot of slack. (Thank goodness, because when I was pulled over, I had the contents of the gun safe in the back seat!) The cop culture here is pretty similar to that of non-urban NE Florida, and, while I’ve certainly benefited from it in the form of a couple of warnings instead of tickets, I’d just pay the fine without argument if I got that ticket. In small departments, though, the officers know that their pool of backups is limited, and most sure as hell don’t want you lollygagging during a dangerous situation because you’re ticked that your wife got a fine instead of a warning.
That said, an officer who is running that fast off duty, refuses to pull over, and is then uncooperative during the stop? I hope he is charged and loses his certification.
I don’t see how ‘professional courtesy’ is any different than ‘police are above the law’ :mad:
Professional courtesy stops at 15 over.
Cops sure as hell use their lights when they’re doing 120. Good for the FHP.
There have been rumors of this sort about JSO (Jax Sheriff’s Office) for years here-but rarely any hard news stories by what passes for the local media.
That said, as far as traffic enforcement goes they aren’t rigidly anal about traffic violations like a lot of other places are-if you drive like a jerk yeah you’re toast, but they don’t even take a 2nd look at someone going 10-15 over if they aren’t also doing something asshole-ey.