Real-life medical and legal questions belong in IMHO rather than General Questions. Moved.
samclem, Moderator
A police friend I know mentioned a few years ago that running plates for people was a good way to get yourself in serious trouble. Like has been mentioned, the system logs this stuff, and in his department anyone outside of a certain number of officers who had duties that involved running plates on a regular basis would get looked at pretty closely for just running a random plate.
Apparently the reason they were so strict is officers at one point were taking payment (nothing huge, $25-50) to run plates for private individuals (maybe private investigators or something.) I don’t remember all the details, but it became a big thing so they got very serious about trying to control and monitor it.
As for the OP’s friend saying something in anger–yeah, I say stuff I don’t mean in anger all the time. However, it’s at the very least directed at someone or something that has actually angered me. Even at my angriest I wouldn’t want to key or fuck up the car of someone who happened to park near my car the same moment I noticed damage to my vehicle. That’s an illogical leap that shows a deep stupidity on top of her deeply idiotic judgment.
Why wouldn’t she just report this and submit the evidence to her insurance company? They’ll find out the other car’s insurance company (LEGALLY!), and make them pay for the damages.
No they won’t. There’s no evidence that car caused the damage.
Bumpers are meant to be, you know… bumped.
There is the possibility they could find said evidence, such as matching scrapes on the other car’s bumper. If there isn’t sufficient evidence for them to make the case, then of course that brings us back to not knowing that the other car was responsible. It’s certainly a more reasonable approach than assigning blame to the other car as an unsupported assumption and retaliating directly.
Well yes. But she might have trouble also with with her insurance company if she didn’t file a police report. Also, no idea what the extent of damage was. Minor things usually aren’t worth making the claim. It has to exceed the deductible by a reasonable amount or you could see payment increases that exceed the value of the payout.
Certainly it could be criminal, state specific. Although police can run plates for no reason, as it is not a search, such must be for official purposes, not outside conduct.
While such here does not rise to the level of attaching a “badge of infamy” to the owner, IMO, it could still be tortious, Invasion of privacy and related torts.
If it is criminal, even if a specific Cause of Action for a violation is not in the statute, once can be legally implied.
So, I do have a quick question involving this. This is from a Wisconsin law standpoint. An individual, an adolescent, had given an officer officer my name and a location of residence/my workplace as I am a mental health professional. as to the town I live. They wrote the town I live in incorrectly in a transcript but the body cam, transcript, and report was released to an individual who now knows what town I live in and the officer has been feeding this individual with personal informatiom about me as well. Now this other individual knows mmy town of residence. Is there much I can do in this situation as I dont feel my privacy was kept safe.
Actually, the officers knew where I lived, the adolescent did not. Rephrase that but the officer put my place of residence in the transcript.
Why are you asking a random message board rather than discussing this with the police or city/town officials?
Or a lawyer?
If you’re registered to vote, your home address is already public record.
I worked around cops as a journalist for years. There’s a distinct subset of them who act like this. Better cops find them embarrassing, and it’s recognized that someone who shows such poor judgement in public is a PR liability in waiting. In good departments, guys like that don’t last real long.