In regards to how far, I think you have to apply the ‘reasonable man’ standard. And what some of us are saying is that the reasonable standard is probably changing due to events and public advice. And a cop’s idea may or may not be in sync.
Fwiw, the officer is the one who is deciding in real time, but perhaps some thought should be given to alternate theories of why someone might not be pulling over immediately.
You are still required to yield to an emergency vehicle on a freeway. I should not have to change lanes because you refuse to move over a lane.
Getting back to the OP, in my state both statute and the judiciary are prejudicial against unmarked squads. It’s difficult to get a conviction for fleeing IF a driver doesn’t speed, take evasive turns, etc. but simply doesn’t pull over right away.
If the driver does speed, takes evasive turns, etc most agencies around here have non-pursuit policies for unmarked cars. So convicting a person not pulling over for an unmarked is a job and a half.
The example I gave previously involved a fully marked squad.
Not much I disagree with there. It SHOULD be difficult to get a conviction if the cop is in an unmarked car. And, yes, a fully marked vehicle does make a difference, as it should.
Safe for whom? You want to be safe in your job and you hope that people pull over where your cruiser can be seen from a distance and where cars can easily avoid striking you. I hope she pulls over somewhere safe for you and I hope you get home safe after every shift. Safe for her meant a place where she could readily observed by others who were not driving by at 65 miles per hour. Again, guidance I’ve read and linked to above suggests that police departments sometimes recommend driving to a safe place where the proceedings can be observed. Did she pass any places like that in 8.2 miles? You said it was a rural highway. It can be more than 8.2 miles between exits in that case. I’m not sure that she went too far because I don’t know the facts. You don’t even think they are important enough to share.
What does it tell you exactly? I don’t know why there should be some magic number. I agree with Orwell when he said:
I can turn your question around, pkbites, and ask why you could never believe there are circumstances when it’s reasonable to wait 8.2 miles for a car to pull over. You seem to think that’s some magic number that tells me all I need to know. Let me assure you, it doesn’t.
Is changing lanes too much work for you? If so, you might be in the wrong job. 
It was an interstate highway. I’m assuming that means there were at least two lanes of traffic in each direction. You started in the median. Was she in the passing lane when you turn on the lights and sirens, or in one of the right lanes? If she was in the passing lane, did she move over to allow you to pass, or did she wave to you and stay in the passing lane? If she started in the right lane, you had to change into her lane to get behind her. She didn’t make you change lanes to get around, you chose to do so. If she started in the left lane and moved to the right lane, you had to follow her into the right lane. Again, she didn’t make you change lanes to get by her. The only way she made you change lanes to get by her is if she started in the passing lane and stayed there. You didn’t say whether that’s the case. Maybe she did. I wasn’t there.
For what it’s worth, you didn’t charge her with failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. Is that because you know her offense wasn’t failing to yield? You weren’t trying to proceed past her. You and she both knew that. You were trying to stop her and she waved to you and acknowledged that. Then, she stopped. Seems like she did what was expected of her. Your gripe is she didn’t do it fast enough for you. They pay you by the hour and you got home safe. Why do you care that much to make a referral to the DA in such a marginal case? If you were so concerned that she was trying to flee or evade, why didn’t you call for backup? A second officer on the scene may have made her more likely to pull over and it would have allayed your concerns that she might easily escape.
I agree too. People should be expected to recognize marked cruisers more quickly than unmarked ones. Pkbites, this (and “daylight”) are the only parts of your story that makes her conduct less defensible. Part of the problem for a woman travelling alone is that even marked cruisers carrying real police officers are no guarantee of safety. A small set of examples in the news this year alone.
I can find more but you get the idea. I assume you aren’t a cop like that. Unfortunately, it’s quite possible the woman you pulled over did not make the same assumption, even if she blamed her fear on “fake cops” instead. I think you would not have been more sympathetic to her if she had said to you, “How do I know you aren’t a rapist”?
I can understand why a woman might want to proceed from a rural interstate to a safe, high visibility location before stopping. How can you have so little empathy? How does this not even occur to you that this could be a concern?
I hesitate to stick my head up here, but I think it might be worth articulating some of the reasoning behind the strong responses to pkbites’ comments:
Some of us citizens have had encounters with cops on power trips. Pkbites, I’m not saying you’re a cop on a power trip, but some of your comments echo those I’ve heard from police who wanted their power acknowledged:
The woman in your story complied, but not quickly enough for you. You seem to take this as a personal affront. Maybe she was being overcautious, but do you really believe she hoped to evade you and thereby escape being ticketed?
In the case of an officer en route to an emergency: “I should not have to change lanes because you refuse to [pull over].” Yes, ideally, all cars would pull over and provide you with a clear path in this situation. In fact, it is our obligation. But you sound a little shrill when you complain about having to change lanes. If en route to an emergency, why not pass the (admittedly clueless) driver on the left? That it sticks in your craw makes it sound like your real complaint is that a driver in that situation isn’t being deferential enough. And yeah, that sounds like an officer on a power trip.
Six months ago, I was driving late at night from Milwaukee to Madison on 94. It was maybe 2:00 AM. I saw an oncoming car with its brights pointed at me…the glare made it hard to see. So I flashed my brights, intending to convey, “Hey, please dim your brights.” It was a big mistake.
The driver with the brights on was in fact a Wisconsin state police officer. (He had been stopped in the median, but I had just crested a rise and was hit by his brights…I thought he was just another oncoming car).
The cop whipped around and turned on his lights. I pulled over immediately. The cop was PISSED. It took me a minute to figure out why. Then I volunteered, “Officer, I really thought you were an oncoming driver who had forgotten to dim his brights. If I had realized you were a police officer, I certainly wouldn’t have flashed my lights at you. I’m so sorry.”
He calmed down considerably after that. I was speeding, but not much. I believe I was doing 76 in a 70 mph zone. Normally, I would not expect to get pulled over for that; I drive this route a lot and I generally don’t see people getting pulled over who were doing less than 80. He let me off with a warning.
I guess I appreciated that he didn’t write me a ticket, but fundamentally, he pulled me over because I had the temerity to flash my brights at a cop–one who I couldn’t possibly know was a cop, and one who was pointing his brights directly at oncoming traffic.
He clearly felt that I had shown disrespect, and if I hadn’t given him my toadying apology, I’m certain I’d have received a ticket.
There’s a general sense that cops shouldn’t get to punish citizens who are acting in good faith. It’s a corollary to the idea that officers are obliged to act professionally even when the populace they’re policing does not. This has no legal basis, but I think that’s a factor in the strong reaction to pkbites’ posts.
And again, I’m not suggesting that pkbites did anything wrong. I’m just pointing out what gets some people riled up about situations like this.
If you have a problem with the law that says you are required to yield for an emergency vehicle I suggest you contact your state legislators and try to get it changed.
Keep in mind that freeway lanes meet at interchanges, interchanges the emergency vehicle may need to take. An example in my locale is I-94 westbound. At the zoo interchange (sans construction that’s currently going on :rolleyes: ) The left lane connects to U.S. 45/I895 south, the right to U.S. 45/I41 north, and the center lanes straight continuing I94 west. If I have to dart in and out of traffic more so than I already have to just because some jackass simply refuses to slide over a lane when I’m behind him with lights and siren on I may miss my connection and it could take me longer to get to my call. your assertion that this is my problem or that I’m somehow incompetent is purely asinine. You are simply WRONG in the assertion that it is the emergency vehicle that should be deviating lanes and not motorists yielding the right away. And “he’s in the wrong line of work if he can’t drive around me” would not work on a judge if you were cited for it
I hope you never have any need for an ambulance, fire truck, or police, but if you do and it seems to be taking them longer than you think it should to arrive, consider that perhaps some prick is in front of that emergency vehicle refusing to yield.
We’re talking about people not yielding/pulling over for emergency vehicles and some of you are defending it. Very telling.
That was a joke. I even used a smiley. And who says cops don’t have a sense of humor?
Actually, we weren’t talking about people not yielding. That was a red herring you brought into the discussion later. You didn’t cite the woman at issue for not yielding, or at least, you didn’t bother to tell us that you did. Since you didn’t exactly go easy on her with your charging decisions, I won’t give you credit now for giving her a break by not citing her for failure to yield. I don’t think you believe she failed to yield. Why are you even mentioning it? All your other failure to yield scenarios involving interchanges and exits are irrelevant on the facts you presented.
You did seem to say that she was evading police because she looked for a place where she felt safe before she pulled over. I think that’s reasonable and you seem to think she should be criminally prosecuted for it. Here is where we disagree. in my view, criminal referral was not warranted on the facts you presented and I assume you brought this example up because you think it’s a slam dunk case. Other people here seem to disagree. I even gave you a chance to bolster your facts but rather than respond to any of my substantive questions, you claim offense based on a joke. Way to deflect attention from the real issue.
You keep saying that things are “telling” without identifying what you are being told. A big part of this disagreement stems from you drawing an inference based on an 8.2 mile low-speed pursuit that she was fleeing. I’m saying that’s not a reasonable inference under your facts as presented. I’m wondering if your are drawing other unreasonable inference about me based on something I said. I’m also open to learning more about the pursuit if you want to clarify what really bothered you about this woman.
No we’re not talking about that. That’s an entirely different conversation.
Frankly, you bringing it up is a red herring. Why are you bringing up drivers who won’t move over when you are trying to pass in an emergency? I’m sure it happens, and I’m sure it’s frustrating. I’m sure it happens even on multi-lane highways where a left lane camper stays beside a car in the right lane. But what does that have to do with drivers looking for a safe spot to pull over during a traffic stop?
I hesitated, too, to get into the power trip aspect of far too many cops, but:
Exactly.
Empathy involves putting oneself in another’s shoes. I hesitate to paint with a broad brush, and it may not pertain to pkbites, but it is obvious that far too many police have far too little empathy for other non-LEO citizens. Perhaps it’s the nature of who cops interact with. Perhaps it’s the training. Perhaps it’s who is attracted to police work.
Unfortunately, I think the latter is at least partly true. I have some friends who are cops. Even though we are friends, I am appalled at their lack of empathy for people. One guy’s wife “jokes” that she remembers when her husband took a psychological test for some job interview, and it showed him in the bottom tenth for empathy for others. Another makes horrible jokes about “dumb asses” and “morons” he pulls over. Another brags about busting people for the most minor infractions, saying “it’s against the law”, with no sympathy for the costs involved for the offenders.
And, yeah, I hear the “write your legislators and get the law changed”, which is a cop-out. It takes decades to change some laws, and some never get changed. Hell, hemp (for making fabric and paper, not marijuana) is still illegal 80 years after the fact. So is the 21 year drinking age. So are many other stupid laws.
Turn flashers on, call 911 and tell them where you are, what car you’re in and if he’s legit, you’ll pull over at the next public place. The officer will at some point radio in to say you’re not pulling over and surely dispatch will get the message and pass it on.
If nothing else, at least there is a 911 record of the call but also everyone should probably have a dash cam and with audio preferred, it’s kind of stupid not to have camera’s for your car and house these days.
I attached it to the speeding cite and allowed the D.A. to decide whether or not he was going to call her in on it. This is how things like this are sometimes done. For someone who babbles like he knows everything I’m surprised you didn’t know this.
That woman was going to the lake front. She finally stopped after driving 7.5 miles on the freeway (I94 in Milwaukee is NOT a rural area :rolleyes: ) and a mile on Lake drive which is swarming with people on a nice day like that. She stopped in the parking lot of Bradford Beach which was her destination. She was hoping we’d just give up if she kept going (per her allocution when she plead guilty to obstruction). And yes, there were 2 squad cars eventually.
If I’m such a dick why did the D.A. decide that it was a chargeable offense? And why did she willing plead it down to obstruction and admit she had no justified reason not to pull over? She ended up paying something like $600 for both fines and avoided time in the HOC.
pkbites, the public doesn’t get a lot of chances to engage with an honest, open discussion with the police about how they do their jobs. I appreciate your engaging here. I’m really not trying to attack you but it seems like you’re trying to attack me.
I have to admit that I love your use of rolleyes here. I remember the first time you used rolleyes in this thread.
I won’t even quibble about whether she drove 8.2 miles, 7.5 miles, or 6 miles. You’ve said all three in the course of this thread. I ask for more facts. In some cases you give them (the second cruiser-is that when she pulled over?) and in other cases, you just change them.
I don’t know everything. When I don’t know things, I ask questions, do research, or investigate. I’ve asked a lot of questions in this thread. I appreciate you answering a few of them. I’m sorry if you think I’m babbling.
I asked why you chose to refer it to the DA for prosecution. I’m asking you about your decision. Don’t try to deflect your decisions on the prosecutor. If the prosecutor in this case joins the discussion, perhaps I will ask him or her about that decision.
I didn’t call you a dick. Please don’t put words in my mouth. This “dick” label is you projecting your feelings on me. I’ve asked you to think about how she might have felt when you pulled her over. Perhaps your reexamining your conduct has made you feel worse about your decision and about your yourself. If so, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.
Why did she plead guilty? I can’t say because I’m not her. She was faced with a choice of either: (1) paying $600 and having a 0% chance of going to jail or (2) going to trial, paying the cost of a defense (more than $600?), and still facing some positive percent chance of going to jail. I can understand why she would take the first choice regardless of whether she was really guilty. If you don’t think people plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit, even very serious crimes, I can find 50 citations to confirm that they sometimes do.
The allocution was merely the document she signed to effect her decision to eliminate her chance of going to jail for just $600. I have little reason to believe it was fully accurate. Did she even draft the allocution herself, did her counsel draft it, or did the prosecutor do so? There are probably a lot of people on this board who don’t understand how allocutions are typically drafted in your jurisdiction.
Still not quite right. An officer in an unmarked or not-clearly-enough-marked police car can testify if his/her current assignment was something other than traffic duty. See the Ohio attorney general:
[QUOTE=Mike DeWine]
Keep in Mind: You know your car has to be marked to catch traffic violators when your assigned duty is to enforce traffic laws. But what happens if you are in an unmarked car on another assignment and witness a traffic violation? The outcome in that case may be different because your main purpose for patrolling is not to enforce traffic laws.
[/QUOTE]
So you’re not immune to traffic stops from unmarked cars in Ohio.
By rural I meant she wasn’t in a city proper but on a highway with no cross. I oft forget that not everyone will know the verbiage we use. Some automatically assume rural means desolate farmland in the middle of nowhere. She was on 2 separate roads which is the reason for separate distances. How far added up was 8.5 miles, which is quite a ways when one considers she slowed to below the speed limit and drove on a city street.
About 5 years ago a bunch of departments went to no pursuit policies. The rate of people refusing to pull over sky rocketed. Some agencies just stopped their car and pulled over hoped the violator would see that so they didn’t continue at a high rate of speed.
At the time we had a no pursuit policy of 20 mph over the limit. So we’d keep pursuing someone who wasn’nt going over that. Which is rare. Most true pursuits have the violator going at least 95 if it’s on a highway.
About 15 years ago I was involved with a cross jurisdictional investigation regarding an unmarked car in a pursuit. BIG no-no around here. Driver got killed in a wreck.
Turned out per dispatch records the officer in the unmarked wasn’nt even chasing him
but was on his way to a domestic call. Driver saw the unmarked coming up behind him and thought he was after him so he floored it. Lost control and drove into a house. Officer called dispatch and reported he just saw a wreck and to send someone else to the call. Family sued claiming officer broke policy by pursuing in an unmarked and caused subjects death. Guy probably would have took off even if officer was in a marked vehicle. Too bad he’s dead. He’d probably shit when he found out the officer wasn’t even after him.
The outcome “may be different”? Speculative. I know of no cases which have held that, and the AG’s opinion is advisory, not controlling.
Your own cite indicates that:
{¶12}
Evid.R. 601 governs the competency of witnesses to testify and provides as follows:
{¶13}
“Every person is competent to be a witness except:
{¶14}
“* * *
{¶15}
“(C) An officer, while on duty for the exclusive or main purpose of enforcing traffic laws, arresting or assisting in the arrest of a person charged with a traffic violation punishable as a misdemeanor where the officer at the time of arrest was not using a properly marked vehicle as defined by statute or was not wearing a legally distinctive uniform as defined by statute.” (Emphasis added.) See, also, R.C. 4549.14; S. Euclid v. Varasso-Burgess (Oct. 12, 1995), Cuyahoga App. No. 68409, 1995 WL 601090.
Do you have a cite to support your claim that "…the officer can’t testify if he’s in an unmarked or not-clearly-enough-marked police car and the case goes to trial. " in instances such as I brought up where the officer is not “on duty for the exclusive or main purpose of enforcing traffic laws”? Your own cite indicates that such a person would be competent to be a witness. The case you referred to mentions on the very first page that “Ptl. Kotner was engaged in traffic enforcement duties at the time…” so in that cited case (C) above actually did apply.
For the reasons explained in the decision, the officer in that case was found incompetent to testify, and the defendant found not guilty. Evid.R. 601© appears to have been correctly applied.
Thanks pkbites. I didn’t actually assume what you meant by rural highway. In fact I asked whether she passed any places in her 8.2 miles that were safe places for her to stop. You didn’t directly answer but I’ll take it that she did. This certainly makes your decision to refer her for prosecution more reasonable than it first sounded.
I can also understand how the no pursuit policies made more people try to flee. Maybe you assumed she was one of those newly emboldened evaders. It’s quite possible she knew nothing about the change in policy.
It seems that she never speeded up, broke the speed limit or used evasive maneuvers. Hard to think that she was evading, or that a reasonable person would conclude she was fleeing.
Without looking up anything, I would have to assume that pkbites charge of “not pulling over in a reasonable time” is quite a bit different than fleeing or eluding or resisting arrest, or whatever might apply. The fact that the charge was plead down suggests that there might have been some doubt about proving it.
There can be differences of opinion of what a “reasonable time” might be, depending on all sorts of factors - the sorts of factors we’ve been discussing: day or night; remote or populated location; marked or unmarked cop car; woman or man driver; driver alone or passengers; presence of shoulder or parking lots to pull over into, etc… All of these factors should be taken into consideration by police, prosecutors and judges.
As for no-pursuit policies, I think they are a good idea, on balance. A vehicle description, license number and a radio are far better than a high-speed chase which puts lots of people at risk.
I didn’t charge with anything but a speeding cite. These cases have a line I spoke of earlier.
I sent a referral sheet in to the d.a. (ada actually). He could either ignore it or order her in to interview her, which is what he did. She changed her story to him which is why he originally charged (IIRC) a state obstructing abut then accepted a plea to ordinance obstructing. I never once got called to anything as it didn’t go to trial.
Majority of stuff both big and small doesn’t go to full trial. If people fought every single thing all the way through a jury trial the system would collapse.