# Houston cops are jackbooted thugs **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 20, 2002, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676 "2002-08-20T01:00:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/41 "2002-08-22T11:11:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Import tuners feel there is nothing we can do to defend ourselves. That explains the wings, body kits, lights, and decals. They’re like body armor for dimbulbs. One word: sleeper. Know it, learn it, live it. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/42 "2002-08-22T11:28:45Z")
[Sleeper](http://www.cdnrods.com/Articles/Glossary.asp) Scroll down. Oh, and the Houston cops were way out of line. They will get sued, and in the process learn a valuable lesson about arresting innocent people. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/43 "2002-08-22T11:39:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beagle \* > \*\* That explains the wings, body kits, lights, and decals. They’re like body armor for dimbulbs. > > One word: sleeper. Know it, learn it, live it. \*\* Thank you beagle, it’s always nice to expose a vehicular snob when one sees one. Import tuning has the same roots as the guy who runs a 12 second chevelle on street gas, or the Ford Fairlane that looks cleaner than out of the lot. But it’s also new, and because of that, we get harassed by the cops. I’ve been in the car when the cop was ticketing my friend for his “ilegal exhaust” when a Camaro with flowmasters roared past. When we asked the cop why he wasn’t giving him a ticket, since he was about 3 times louder than we were, the cop replied “Because son, that sounds GOOD!” I’m aware of what a sleeper is. We use most of the same terminology as the guys who work on gas guzzling obsolete machines 🙂 Tristan- who rides in a Civic Si that has smacked down many many v-8’s. And no, it’s not bottle fed. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/44 "2002-08-22T11:39:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Anyway, I admit I overacted about the father, but I was kinda cheesed off by the hysterical thread title, as well as by some of the people quoted in the article. > > What did they expect? To be arrested for shopping at a store, I’m sure. > [@](#): > > What possible legitimate reason does anyone have to be in the KMart parking lot at 12:35 AM? Unless you’re an employee, or a customer going into the store, or coming out of the store, or loading packages into the car, or returning the shopping cart, why are you there? Uh… to buy stuff? Oh, wait, I forgot that everyone who is out of their house after 11 PM is automatically engaged in some kind of criminal behaviour, such as buying a Scrunchi. ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/45 "2002-08-22T17:05:44Z")
I live right down the street from this KMart, and I do think the racers deserved to be arrested. I’ve seen them, and they are not just loitering – they are dangerous and have no regard for other people. I say this as someone who has been nearly killed by them more than once. But pulling people out of a restaurant to arrest them? Arresting everyone in the parking lot regardless? Can’t they just arrest the ones who are racing along in the street and causing near-accidents, or those who are actually guilty of some crime? > [@](#): > > What possible legitimate reason does anyone have to be in the KMart parking lot at 12:35 AM? Unless you’re an employee, or a customer going into the store, or coming out of the store, or loading packages into the car, or returning the shopping cart, why are you there? You seem to have missed the part where they arrested customers going into the store, coming out of the store, loading packages into the car and returning shopping carts. And the people eating at Sonic (which, yes, is the only fast food place open that late in that area.) These were people who had every legal right to be where they were, and were arrested for it. That is insane. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/46 "2002-08-22T18:17:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Thank you beagle, it’s always nice to expose a vehicular snob when one sees one. HEY!? I resemble that remark. Seriously, put yourself in cop shoes for a second. Vehicle #1: Civic w/ 20" rims, neon lights, 3 foot wing, coffee can exhaust featuring genuine blender sound, 50 give or take racing decals, etc. You know, your basic Fast and the Furious poser. Vehicle #2: Same exact car with performance mods. throughout the engine compartment, exhaust, and the suspension, but nothing visible to the naked eye. Hmmmm… Who do you harass? Sleeper, young man, sleeper. Guys who show off usually do so by the side of the road under the gentle glow of red and blue lights. Oh, and race at the track. I don’t have time to race every wannabe who throws revs. on me in school zones and residential neighborhoods. Import ricers, this means you. I’ve been ‘smacked down’ dozens of times. Problem is, I wasn’t racing. I have a clean driving record to maintain. I can’t waste time with reckless psychos who think they are Vin Diesel. A fly- by at 60 in a 30 is not a race, by the way, nor is it smack up or down. ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/47 "2002-08-23T00:34:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tristan \* > \*\*For the record, according to people who were there, or who had friends that were caught up in the sweep, several cars were damaged by the police when they were towed as well. > > I am so tired of the police “cracking down” on people who are into Import Tuning. I really really hope that this one ends up costing someone his job. Maybe then the police will actually think about what they’re doing instead of just jumping on someone with both feet because their car is “too low” or somesuch. \*\* “Import Tuning?” WTF? Is that a euphemism for illegal drag racing these days? Just curious here, but how many people have driven by that parking lot at that time of night on a weekend? I, for one, have. There were about 50 cars in the Kmart parking lot at midnight, they were blaring loud music, and generally making massive noise. But that wasn’t the problem. The dozen or so cars going down Westheimer at 90 MPH was the fucking problem. They cut my mother off, no less than twice. Leaving the movies after a pleasant evening with mom only to find yourself surrounded by drag racing thugs isn’t pleasant. It should also be noted that the number of arrested was revised to less than 300 (cite: today’s Chronicle). Furthermore, police have connected _mutliple auto fatalities_ to the drag racing that starts in that very lot. I don’t agree with the cops arresting everyone, but holy fuck, it was about time they cracked down on those fuckers before they caused a really bad accident. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/48 "2002-08-23T00:35:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Can’t they just arrest the ones who are racing along in the street and causing near-accidents, or those who are actually guilty of some crime? It seems that there weren’t any people there actually racing at the time, so naturally, they just arrested everyone there. ---
**Author:** ![milroyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/49 "2002-08-23T01:11:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\* > > To be arrested for shopping at a store, I’m sure. > > Uh… to buy stuff? > > Oh, wait, I forgot that everyone who is out of their house after 11 PM is automatically engaged in some kind of criminal behaviour, such as buying a Scrunchi. \*\* The idea that 278 people were in the Kmart parking lot at 12:35 am TO BUY STUFF (well drugs maybe 🙂 ) strains credulity. Let’s say that a (doubtful) 100 people there were actually shopping, insomniacs, shift-workers, students, etc. What then, were the other 178 people doing then? Loitering perhaps? Criminally trespassing? From the Houston Chronicle article linked by Zaphrod: > [@](#): > > Hundreds of young people gather in the parking lots of the Kmart and adjacent Sonic on weekend nights. > > Those businesses and others in the area, as well as nearby residents, have in the past complained about the noise and litter, police said. IANAL, so I don’t know what qualifies for “criminal trespass” vs. “loitering” but it seems this is an ongoing problem. And this: > [@](#): > > Also taken into custody were 42 juveniles who were cited for violation of the city’s midnight curfew. Thirty of the juveniles also were charged with criminal trespass. I hereby publically retract any negative comment I made about the 10 yr old’s father, at least he was with his daughter! Where were the parents of the 42 juveniles, who according to the link in the OP, “appeared to be 13 or 14”? Shouldn’t young adults take responsibility for their own actions? Yes. Shouldn’t parents take responsibility for their minor children? Yes. Did the HPD handle this whole mess poorly? Yeah, definitely. Are they “jackbooted thugs”, No. ---
**Author:** ![Kalashnikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kalashnikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalashnikov)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/50 "2002-08-23T01:27:03Z")
Get used to it, folks, this kind of thing is gonna happen more and more often as time goes by (IMHO, of course). ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/51 "2002-08-23T01:44:16Z")
I heard about this on NPR and they didn’t say people were actually arrested while eating inside the restaurant. That is FUCKED UP. My predictions: The legal issues of this arrest will not go away. For this arrest, the captain will lose his job in 1-2 years, but with a golden parachute and a huge official good-bye blast at the station. The police chief will lose his job in 3-4 years, ostensibly for completely different reasons. He will get a job as chief at a smaller city. He will hate it. Some of the people arrested will win modest settlements. Will justice have been served? ---
**Author:** ![Daoloth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/82dd89/32.png) [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/52 "2002-08-23T01:47:13Z")
Just a nitpick: nobody could be arrested while eating inside that restaurant. Excluding a part for employees, the restaurant is entirely a drive through. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/53 "2002-08-23T05:07:16Z")
Oh. See what happens when you get your news from the internet? ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/54 "2002-08-23T05:13:43Z")
Daoloth, there is outside seating, and many people eat in their cars at Sonic. These people, while not technically inside the building, were eating “in the restaurant” as much as one can at a Sonic. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/55 "2002-08-23T22:04:51Z")
b]milroyj\*\* - dunno where **you** live, but in my medium sized town (no where near as big as Huston), at any of the several all night groceries etc, there’s easily 200 + cars in the parking lot at that time. Figure 1.5 people per car (minimally) I’ve got no problem understanding how there’d be that many in the parking lot. Plus, as I pointed out already, you don’t know what span of time this used - was it 10 minutes duration? 2 hours? Plus again, there’s the restaurant, which has now been identified as a ‘sit outside’ restaurant, so you get your burger, fries, coke, park a ways away to eat it. Were there **some** people tresspassing? very likely. But it’s a gigantic leap to assume \*\*all \*\* of the people in the parking lot were there illegally. Which is what the HPD did. they arrested all of them. **even the ones who could prove at the time that they were there legally** (as in the father/daughter, the people eating at the restaurant, the people walking out of the K-mart w/their purchases). that’s what takes it out of the rhelm of ‘doing their job’ (arresting people w/ a reasonable suspicion of having violated the law) and into the rhelm of “jack booted thugs” acting on idiotic instructions. ---
**Author:** ![LIONsob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/76d3ee/32.png) [@LIONsob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LIONsob)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/56 "2002-08-25T20:43:56Z")
Just a little follow-up, according to today’s Houston Chronicle the police Capt. in charge of the Kmart and James Coney Island raids has been relieved of duty with pay pending the outcome of the investigation . You can read the article by clicking on the link. [http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1547850](http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1547850) They say that money is the root of all evil, and in this case it’s money or the lack thereof that is the reasons for the raids in question and other police state tactics that the Houston Police Department has been using lately, for example zero tolerance traffic law-enforcement operations in fringe areas of the City that normally would only see one quick drive-by patrol per week and setting up speed traps of such dubious legality that they appeared to be conducted by Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrain (SP?) of the old Dukes of Hazard TV show. Approximately one month ago a headline story in the Houston Chronicle was how the City of Houston is having a major budget shortfall to the tune of 25 to $30 million this year, and being unable to raise property taxes or issue bonds one of the ways they are trying to make up for the shortage is by conducting a form of legalized mugging on the citizens of the City. Peace LIONsob ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/57 "2002-08-25T20:53:39Z")
**LIONsob** , that’s disgusting. I once heard the police chief of a certain small city (which I worked for) refer to a certain stretch of road as “Our biggest cash cow.” Gee, here I had thought speeding tickets were all about public safety. ---
**Author:** ![LIONsob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/76d3ee/32.png) [@LIONsob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LIONsob)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/58 "2002-08-25T21:51:50Z")
Masonite I agree that is disgusting, and being a victim of one of the bogus speed traps I am not only disgusted but outraged at this behavior. I have lost almost all my respect for the police and law-enforcement in general. You can bet that the next time I see a police officer standing out in a driving rain storm, freezing weather or blistering summer heat that the sympathy that I use to feel for their predicament and my willingness to buy the officer of hot cup of Coffee or cold drink will be replaced by a good belly laugh at their discomfort and that the next time that I pull up to a stoplight and a police cars is sitting next to me that instead of waiting for the officer to look in my direction to give him a wave with an open hand and five figures extended to say thanks I will wait to till he is not looking in my direction to give him a wave that involves a closed fist and one finger extended. Peace LIONsob ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2002, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676/59 "2002-08-25T22:57:51Z")
Well, you have to remember that at least sometimes, some of them are preventing us from being killed, raped, robbed, or blown up. Not to hijack this thread further, but I think the beginning of the end of my innocence came when, as a kid, I realized that the purpose of parking meters was NOT to collect fees for parking. It’s to generate revenue through tickets for expired/unpaid meters. The ticket is not punishment for failing to have fed the parking meter, it’s the whole reason for the parking meter’s existence. The law is designed to be broken, for the purpose of generating money for law enforcement. This still makes my head spin around. Same thing with speed traps, of course. The speed limit is set artificially low in order that lots of people might exceed it, and be ticketed. This is bass-ackwards and promotes perfectly justified distrust of law enforcement. (I realize some “speed traps” have speed limits which the residents of the road lobbyed/voted for. The main drag in my town, while a very wide street and an obvious traffic artery, has a speed limit of 25. I have no doubt the residents of the street, with their cats and dogs and babies, want it that way.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/houston-cops-are-jackbooted-thugs/124676.md?page=2)