It drives me absolutely nuts when people try to tell me, or even better the court, their interpretation of what a given law means. For example...
A guy told me recently that he felt even though he failed to stop for a stop sign, he made it through the intersection safely and had therefore broken no law. I had to explain to him that the law doesn't require you to stop only when it is not safe to continue. It requires you to stop, period.
Or the idiot who tried to get out of a red light ticket by first admitting in court that he ran the light, then explaining that had he stabbed at his brakes hard enough to stop he would likely have been rear ended by the nonexistent vehicle behind him, so he felt the safer choice was to step on the gas and accelerate through the light. I'm going to find you, uhhh, guilty.
Then there was the guy who told me he was only doing 45 in a 25 because he was going with the flow of traffic, so he wasn't speeding. He said I couldn't cite him for staying with the flow of traffic. I assured him that even if he had, in fact, been keeping with the flow, which he wasn't by a long shot, I still could have cited him for speeding.
Or the nimrod I arrested for robbery who informed me he hadn't robbed anyone because he didn't use a gun. Sorry movie boy, you're done.
Yes, there is the letter of the law and there is the spirit of the law, but even the spirit has its limits.
Internet lawyers beware. I don't pretend to know the laws. I get paid to know the laws. I will win.
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The robber actually had the guts to say that?!? *shaking head in disbelief* What a dooshbag!!
I love it when people try to "defend" themselves in court. Ha!
Get this. Just a month ago, a US Marshal was busted by a bike cop at a red light for NOT wearing his seatbelt. The US Marshal tried to pull that whole "do you know who I am?" line with the cop and he just handed the man his ticket. Off to court and the judge pretty much railed into the US Marshal for being such a bad example as our state has a seatbelt safety no tolerance law. Oh yeah...now whenever we see that US Marshal around town, we give him a hard time! hehe!! We even mailed him these "seatbelt safety" bookmarkers and stickers. LOL!! Okay...so we had to pick on him a little bit. He is an arrogant man anyway to begin with and thinks he is better than us because he is an US Marshal. oooooo...big freakin' deal! The Law is The Law. Obey it!!
What really spins me out is when I get a California Department of Corrections (CDC) prison guard stopped.
Nearly every CDC person I have ever stopped has immediately whipped out their badge and said "I'm Corrections, what the hell did you stop me for?"
This does not go over well with any officer I know who has ever heard it.
It's like they think they are privileged or something. The fact that you're CDC doesn't mean shit. Most of our Corrections guys in this state do it because they can't get a real cop job.
I'm not by any means suggesting that all CDC are losers. I have met a very select few who actually chose corrections as their career. My cousin is one of those. I applaud those folks, for we need their services.
It's the ones who are bitter because they were turned away from twenty different police departments and had to settle for CDC. Those are the problem children.
One of my favorites was the guy I stopped for speeding who immediately began to dog me in front of his passengers because they were on their way to a business meeting and late, and that I was only harassing motorists because I couldn't find and real criminals to arrest.
So what would have been a warning turned into a ticket, and when I ran him, he came back with a valid child support warrant. So I had the pleasure of walking back up to him and telling him that I had in fact decided to arrest a real criminal and then asking him to step out of the car. He didn't make it to his meeting. And he wouldn't even let his co-workers drive his car away after I gave him that courtesy, so I had to impound it and make them all get out and start walking.
As for the "do you know who I am" stuff, I was blessed to work for a municipality that had many uniformed armed security guards as contract employees. They all used to pull that "Well how about some professional courtesy..." crap, usually when caught driving on a suspended license or carrying a gun even though they were off-duty and not otherwise authorized to have one. They liked to pretend that they were police too, and I enjoyed setting them straight.
Q: How can you tell a CDC guy?
A: When stopped he'll say "I'm a Peace Officer"!
I never had a CDC guy pull the "Why'd you stop me?" routine, but everyone I stopped said that he was a Peace Officer.
What's up w/ CDC people driving around in their uniforms all of the time?
I do not know about the CDC guys.But most of us in the D.O.C. in Indiana want out of our uniforms quickly.
If someone at my agency jammed a Marshal up over a seatbelt violation, the Marshal isn't the one we would make fun of.
There is one IA DOC officer here that I know that is an ambulance chaser. He shows up at scenes all the time claiming to be a firefighter/paramedic. CRPD finally checked him one night and called that city he claimed he worked for. They said he was not and told CRPD to arrest this officer the next time he showed up at a scene pretending to be someone he was not. *shaking my head* It is the rotten apples like this individual that give a bad rap to the rest of the hard working correctional officers of the state of IA. Here in IA, CO's are LE officers but when you are on duty as a CO your privileges are way different than if you were on the street in a squad car. I think some CO's forget that and try to "uphold the law" when wearing the wrong uniform. However, most of the CO's in this state are great officers and work very hard to keep the criminals behind bars where they belong.
I love that "going with the flow of traffic" excuse. They use that a lot on Speeders. Kind of like using the "friends jumping off a cliff" 'logic'.
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