If you've ever encountered law enforcement, for whatever reason, have they ever helped you? I've only ever had a negative experience with US cops, but would be interested to get the pulse of Wordforge on this topic.
About 30 years ago, my car stalled out on a busy road, U.S. 19 in Clearwater FL, in the summer. He pulled up behind me, came up to the car and asked if I was having any problems. Let him know the car stalled and could not get it to start. He then had me sit in the back of his cruiser with the AC on, it was in the nineties and hot as hell on the road. He also gave me a cold water to drink, used his radio to get a tow truck out and then drove me home as well. Since then, I've had a mixed bag of interactions. Some were positive, some more less okay, and several where it was basically then trying to get me to say something they could use against me or treating me like the car I was driving was stolen. Sorry officer, can't help it that I own a better/nicer car than you.
About 30 years ago, in Calgary. went to the bank to pay our rent at the teller. finished doing that and there were half a dozen cops surrounding my two friends for whatever reason. I walked up and asked what was going on because hey, we had legit reason to be there. They told us "someone" overheard us talkign about getting ready to rob the place (three 20 year old punkers in the main branch... sure) ran my name, found an unpaid transit ticket from two years earlier. they hauled me in for that, and put me in front of a JP or something within a few hours who asked if I was gonna pay the fine of about 25$ I had $20... it was Friday afternoon. JP told me that I needed that last $5 or i was spending the weekend in the holding cells. The cop that'd brought me in lent me the five bucks.
My dad was a cross country trucker, so i grew up being spoon fed a distrust of cops. Every interaction I’ve had with them since has either been bad or if i could help it, as brief as possible. A friend once brought his friend, a cop, to my house once. I asked them both to leave. Ive never even tried to have a friendly conversation with a cop, let alone hang around asking for help.
I did have a good interaction with a judge once.. I'd taken my motorcycle out for a quick rip around the block after a fall oil change. Insurance had lapsed though. Got pulled and cited for that, went to court a couple weeks later. A bunch of guys ahead of me, all up for the same thing. Everyone has an excuse. Everyone is getting year long license suspensions and $3K fines My turn comes, I tell the magistrate I'm guilty and accept responsibility for the indiscretion and offer the context that I was operating the vehicle in the course of maintaining it. She sentenced me to a $300 fine and 90 day suspension-for a motorcycle, in November
Not necessarily a “good” thing, but it is funny. One of the routes going onto Ft Benning, was a 5 lane highway - 2 lanes in each direction and a middle lane for turning. That road was 35 miles an hour. At the point in which the road crosses onto Ft. Benning, it becomes a 2 lane highway and the speed increases to 45. I’m very impatient and I used to speed more than I do now. So, if someone is toddling around 35 miles and hour in both lanes and I can’t get around, I usually did something stupid. Which, this one particular incident, I ended up getting up to about 60 to get around those drivers and was stopped JUST before getting onto the base. Well, I was a single parent at the time and might have been a grade 4, so I didn’t necessarily have the funds in the bank and the ticket needed to be paid before my next paycheck. So, I opted for the court appearance thinking it would give me the opportunity to get the cash together to pay for the ticket. I was wrong. I knew I was speeding. Wasn’t trying to get out of the ticket. I just needed a bit more time. So, both the cop and I show up in court. I plead guilty. I pay. I go home. Probably not a week later, same place, same cop, same speed. It’s Georgia, so my driver’s side window is already down. The cop isn’t even at my rear bumper before he starts speaking “Miss Jenee, the speed limit is STILL 35 miles per hour….” Even more funny, I go to pay that ticket on the next payday - military pay is the 1st and 15th of the month. The next payday happened to be on my birthday. I go in to pay and the receptionist taking the payment is asking the usual question s - name, date of birth. I start to give her my birth date - 2, 1 … and she interrupts and says “no, your birthdate.” And I begin again “2, 1 ..” and I’m interrupted again “no, your BIRTHday.” And I’m like “TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!
Here's a quick overview of some of my interactions with cops (skipping over interactions in a professional capacity and relatively minor things like "here's a traffic ticket" or seeing them in line to buy a meal.) Growing up, I went to grade and high school in a well-to-do part of the city, and there was a old cop who had a foot post nearby. Tony the cop would just hang out on the corner and smile at passersby and hand out bulletins of people the cops were looking out for. He seemed to young me to be nice and friendly, and I hoped to help him catch these bad guys. Of course, I never did, and I was too young (and now it's too long ago) to know if there was any pattern to the bad guys being sought, or to think about why this nice neighborhood had the luxury of having Tony posted there but other neighborhoods didn't. When I was a teen, I got mugged. I remember the cop who took the report as sympathetic, but can't think of anything particular that he did that was above and beyond. About 15 years ago, I was driving home from a late night gaming session with a white friend as a passenger. We had stopped at a Wendy's and he was eating a burger on the way. I admittedly was speeding. A short black cop pulled me over. He totally had attitude, and started to ask me if we had any drugs on us. My friend and I look like the huge nerds we were and couldn't possibly give off any druggie vibes. I'm pretty sure that he thought "Black guy and white guy heading fast to the South Side=drugs." My friend happened to drop the wrapper from his sandwich to the floor, which the cop apparently thought was him trying to hide drugs. The cop got me out the car, and had be put my hands on his squad to search me personally. "Do you want to get arrested?" he asked. So despite common sense and what my parents taught me, I let things slip and was sarcastic back, and was like, "Yeah, sure." He cuffed me and put me in the back seat of his car and proceeded to search my car and called for backup. Eventually I got uncuffed and given a speeding ticket which fortunately I beat. A year or two after that, I was coming home from another gaming event, this time with a Latino friend. It turned out that his van had gotten a flat while we were playing. So we called Triple-A and were waiting for help. While we were waiting, the cops rolled up. They wanted to know what we were doing there. I tried to explain that we had a flat and were waiting for roadside assistance. My friend, though, was (although I did not know it at the time) on a path to being a sovereign citizen. So he was giving these cops attitude for no good reason. And that led to them patting us down. They also went into our pockets (which is illegal, as they had no reasonable articulable suspicion that we might have contraband or weapons on us after they patted us down). I think eventually I calmed them down/Triple-A showed up while they were there/I pointed out the factual flat tire, and they mellowed out. But there was definitely a point where I thought my friend was going to jail for nothing more than being a bit of a douche. About 10 years ago, my car was stolen from outside a garage where it was supposed to be getting repairs. Eventually, the cops managed to pull over someone who had stolen it and returned it to me. I was very grateful that the cops had recovered it and thanked them profusely. So I have had a mix of experiences with cops, some bad, some good..I like to think that even if that weren't the case, I would still realize that like pretty much people in any other profession, there are going to be some who are going to be good at their jobs and some who are not, some who are going to be pleasant people and some who are not, etc.
About 21 years ago, I had to call the police when somewhere around 10 PM, a stalker called, and over the answering machine threatened to come into the house and assault me. The cops showed up and told me that they didn't see anything, but that if he came back to call them. Then they left.
My car was hit twice by young women and they gave me a very rough time about reporting it. One time the sergent came and made sure I got an accident form to give to my insurance. If I ever saw one in trouble I would go quickly the other way, i dont want to get involved with those jerks.
Oh.. then there was a morning about five years back. Meeting my ride to a construction site at a west end subway station. probably one of the only ones without a coffee shop beside it. I've got 30 minutes to kill, so i start walking towards the next station, past a residential strip. Find a little place that's open at 7:30am, get myself a coffee, start walking back to the meet point. Get about 50 feet and a bike cop skids around and in front of me. In seconds there are about eight of'em asking me what I said to some lady on my way there (i'd said hi to her dog as it sniffed at me) and then informed my I'd fit the description of someone creeping around a public school that I'd been nowhere near and possibly something to do with the Lindbergh baby. They let me go after about 10 minutes of this, but seriously, what was the point other than to harass?
Personally the only interactions I've had with police have been traffic stops. All professional. Some more businesslike, some friendlier. The last time I got pulled over was about two years ago and I only got a warning. Professionally, my interactions have run the gamut from being cordial to being threatened with arrest for not following (illegal, IMHO) orders.
One time in PA, there was a snow storm, and I couldn't move my car up the steep hill that led to my residence. I didn't realize it, but I left the car in the road illegally, since it was a snow emergency route. Rather than having it towed, the neighborhood cop took the time to track me down, visit my home, and ask me to move it, no penalty. That was kind. That's it. Literally every other encounter I have had with the cops, even in instances where I went to the police station seeking some service, they have been impatient, impolite, and unhelpful. That's not how it is in other countries. US cops definitely have a toxic culture of unaccountability and poor service.
Pretty much my story. I only had one minor run in with a little bantam rooster type who threatened to give me a ticket for a weird parking job at a crime scene. After he'd showed his ass he was satisfied and walked off. There was a reporter for a Tampa TV station back in the 80s who wouldn't back off at a crime scene. In the process of being handcuffed his head "accidentally" bounced off the hood of a cop car. Consensus among the media types was they probably should have bounced him twice....
Oh, I do remember once when I was involved in an accident in a news vehicle that left it undriveable the state trooper gave me a ride back to my station.
Only once. I was in a fender-bender, and because I say as little as possible without a lawyer present, and the woman who hit me I'm pretty sure was actually named Karen, I got ticketed. As he handed me the ticket, the cop said "I'm only giving you this because it's department policy to always give someone a citation at accident scenes. I'd recommend disputing it, I won't show up to the hearing." He kept his word, and I got it dismissed. Of course, if a cop writes a ticket for something they didn't witness and have no evidence of, they have no case. The second time I was ticketed for the accident, the cop also didn't show, but that one didn't actively encourage me to try to get it dismissed. Also, my favorite cop interaction story: I went to a party at a rented out Elk's or Lion's Club hall or something, and as I walked in, my friend was standing near the door, talking to a guy I didn't know. I was wearing a leather trench coat, and the guy I didn't know, all smiles and good-natured, says "Hey, man, how many guns you hiding under that thing?" I responded something like "I didn't actually count them, but probably between fifty and sixty." He immediately got serious and pissed off and was all "Don't joke about things like that! I'm a cop! I could arrest you for saying that!" I thought about saying "in that case, be careful during the cavity search, that's where I keep the grenades," but instead I just said "well, it was nice meeting you" as I hung my coat on the rack, and then went and found less-douchy people to talk to.
You reminded me of a time I got stopped at a "safety checkpoint". I had my two Chihuahuas with me, for those that have been on here a while may me mentioning them, they both passed away nearly nine years ago. So I get stopped by a female officer, she comes up to me, I was driving my Explorer at the time. She sees them as they both hang half way out the window when I rolled it down. She picks one up and starts telling him he's cute and friendly. She then walks back to some of the other officers with him. She comes back after a few minutes and puts him back in. She then tells me to go on, she never checked for my license, tags, or anything else. For all she knew I could have had warrants out or didn't have a license or even insurance.
Me? No. But the people I’ve called the cops on behalf of, hopefully. The guy who was getting mugged a quarter of the way down the block when I got out of a Lyft, and the upstairs neighbor’s girlfriend after he was screaming that he’d kill her.
Yeah, my buddy is a Senior Detective and he helped me make some ribs the other night. They were delicious
Our last interaction with the police was when my wife's car broke down when I was more than an hour away. The young officer helped her get her car off to the side of the road, called an emergency tow, and then drove her to a restaurant where she could wait for me to come pick her up. She was nice to him as is her wont, and the thing that struck her was when he got a bit emotional and as he left said 'Thank you for not hating me.'
