Your Experiences with the Police.

[Darren]

[SIZE=1]So this happened a few weeks ago, and while it may be funny, (and at my expense) I had to tell it, get your opinion, and ask you to reveal your run-ins with the law.

Yes, that's right, this is a thread about the police: If you've ever been charged with anything (anything that you feel comfortable sharing, that is) and can get a good story out of telling it, feel free to do so here. But this isn't just about humor. I've also found that police can abuse their power, (as do most people/organizations in power) so first off:

[B]HUMOR:[/B] As I said, this happened a couple of weeks ago. I got permission to go spend a couple of days at my friends house. We were best friends since 2nd grade until he moved my freshman year and we stayed in contact. It was surprising that she let me go since I'm a new driver and it's about an hour and 45 minutes long to get there (not speeding) and he lives in a rather large city, so I was even scared to be driving the five lane highway during rush-hour no less. I actually almost hit a truck as I was changing lanes. (Stupid blind spots) and I got lost... Twice. On with the story...
So I spent the entire two days with him, without getting a ticket or getting in a wreck or pulled over and I had quite a lot of fun... But driving around that much was killer on my gas. I wasn't sure if I could make it back home or not, but I still didn't want to spend my money so I tried. I got maybe 40 minutes away from home (probably less) and I realized I wouldn't make it, but I remember a gas station on one of the exits so I took it. Apparently, there are two exits to this town that I was in. One for the turnpike and one for the actual highway. (I was still on the turnpike and I thought it had ended :animeswea)
Obviously I didn't recognize my surroundings so I fumble around in my car for my cell to call my dad. (He travels a lot so I knew he would know how to get me to the gas station) Unfortunately, as I turn the corner, my car is swerving and I wasn't paying attention to the speed and with my luck there's a cop car. Obviously I get pulled over. (I was going 72 in a 55) He suspects that I'm drunk so I go through the entire process of testing for that. (And the entire time, I'm trying to explain the situation: I'm lost, I'm not from around here, Almost out of gas, fumbling for my phone, etc.)
When he dicided I'm sober he gives me a 150$ ticket... :animeknow And you don't even know. (I'm a good kid; I never get in trouble... I don't know why I was hoping for a warning)
Anyway, the cop points me in the direction of the gas station. When I get there, I get out, pre-pay, and come back to my car to find the same cop parked next to my car. He says that he's messed up on some info on my ticket and asks to see it again. Guess what? He changed it to 200! and then he folded it all discreetly hoping I wouldn't see it before he had a chance to make his get-away... Which he succeeded, I never found out what that extra 50 bucks was for.
Worst part. I had to be at work that day, and I would have made it with plenty of time if I hadn't been pulled over. As it were, I was an hour and a half late.

next...

[B]DRAMA:[/B]our local police stations constantly abuses their rights. the neighboring station was actually banned from writing tickets on the highway after they got sued for harrassment, discrimination, and was accused of only pulling over black people. (Which I'm pretty sure is true)
As far as the station in town: Well, about a year or two back, they shot a man to death, in a residential area, 16 times when an officer asked to see his ID and he reached into his pocket. They said they thought he had a gun. Funny thing is, he was pulled over for speeding, but the officer felt the need to call back-up before even speaking to the man.
Then just last year, our station was investigated by the FBI... It was very private what exactly they were being investigated for, but the rumors were money laundering by selling confiscated drugs...
Just shortly after that, there were several officers who quit or were layed off, including the chief-of-police. It was probably a related incident but I can't be sure since there were no arrests made.
And just this week, I heard they're being investigated (thankfully, not by the FBI) for sexual misconduct to one of the prisoners. They're keeping that secret as well; I haven't had a chance to hear the gossip.
And keep in mind, all this is taking place in an extremely small town...

So, care to share?[/SIZE]

[Sandy]

First of all, you have some appalling driving habits! XP I think you made every mistake that a beginning driver can make during that trip (unintentional speeding, losing control of the vehicle, not paying attention to the road or the signs, carelessly shifting lanes, trying to use a cell phone while driving (where's your hands-free, man?!).

Of course I'm being a hypocrite here, since I don't even have a driver's license (nor have I ever actually driven a car).

But enough about that. You're right that with great power comes great responsibility - and a great temptation to abuse that power. Corruption of officials is a sad, sad thing, since it brews uncertainty and mistrust among the citizens towards the government. It's also quite a vicious cycle, there's not an easy way out for the officials themselves (with the pressure from the peers etc.).

I'm just glad I'm living in one of the world's least corrupted countries (a researched fact), but I'm not stupid enough to believe there wouldn't be any of it here. In fact, the higher up the stairs of power you go, the higher the chance of encountering corruption gets, at least to my experience.

[The Spectacular Professor]

[quote name='Darren'][SIZE=1]Yes, that's right, this is a thread about the police[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

Wow, you really threw me off there. In MY town, red and blue are gang colors..

Anyway, I just started driving today. a block from the Police Station. Really good incentive to remember traffic safety.

Also, my mother and I once reported a conman who was pretending to be deaf. We knew he was full of crap when mom refused to buy one of his "I'm deaf" cards and he quite distinctly dropped the F-bomb. We waited for him to get back to his car, then we got his license plate number and took it to the station.

[Darren]

[quote name='Aceburner']Wow, you really threw me off there. In MY town, red and blue are gang colors...[/QUOTE]
Well, I admit, coming from a very small town, I'm not really familiar with gang colors. but I was going with Red and Blue of obvious colors represented by the police... Maybe a different thread title would have been appropriate, but I suppose it's too late now.

[Gavin]

[quote name='Darren']Well, I admit, coming from a very small town, I'm not really familiar with gang colors. but I was going with Red and Blue of obvious colors represented by the police... Maybe a different thread title would have been appropriate, but I suppose it's too late now.[/QUOTE]

[SIZE="1"]I thought you were referring to the mechanima series [B][COLOR="Red"]Red[/COLOR] vs [COLOR="Blue"]Blue[/COLOR][/B] for some reason when I read the thread. Maybe one of the mods should change the title to "Your Experiences with the Police".

By the way Darren, you have one seriously ****** up local police force. What you need is The Rock to come in and do a Walking Tall on them.[/SIZE]

[Vicky]

[SIZE=1]As far as the police here are concerned, I'm 18 and I live in an abandoned house in Stalybridge. Hehehe.

Here's a recent one.

Celebrating something or other, we were drinking alcohol quietly (no seriously) in a place that is not public, therefore legal to drink in. One of the ****ing minors with us goes down the road and sees a police car, and runs back to us, with two police men running after her.

So I'm sat next to my 19 year old friend, who's the only legal one there, with a bottle of wine in my hand and my eyes wide open as this police man jumps the rails. He has a go at us for a moment, asking why she was running, and confiscates our alcohol - on no grounds whatsoever.

We convinced him I was 18, which I'm not, and he believed it. There was only the one bottle of wine, which was in the hands of both those over age. He said he could charge us for drinking in front of minors, providing alcohol for minors .ect. All this ******** really.

Took our details and they wanted to search us and arrest us.

I got into an argument with them, asking for a form we were entitled to fill out. When they didn't have the said forms, they pondered for a moment. All of a sudden they decided to drop the charges and went on their way =/.

It was really quite odd. They made a HUGE deal out of it and walked off...




Even better one.

The place we hang out is littered with police nowadays and I was passing through with a big bottle of Apple Tango in my hand. This BEAST of a police over runs up to me and jumps in front, shouting somthing odd... 'stop' I guess. I'm a bit startled by him, he was about 7 foot, no joke, absolutely beastly...

He says "What's in that?"

And I'm looking all confuzzled. I tell him it's apple tango, which it is. He says "well I don't believe you!" and I ask him if he wants to try some and see. He says, nastily, "I don't want to touch that after your filthy mouth's been on it!" and at this point I'm just really confused. He says something about underage drinking, and at this time, I wasn't drinking. I was just looking around and I had no way to prove if wasn't apple tango if he didn't want to taste it =/. He made me [i]pour it away[/i] again.

Police officers just like telling me to pour my drinks away I guess. They're twats.[/SIZE]

[Darren]

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE="1"]I thought you were referring to the mechanima series [B][COLOR="Red"]Red[/COLOR] vs [COLOR="Blue"]Blue[/COLOR][/B] for some reason when I read the thread. Maybe one of the mods should change the title to "Your Experiences with the Police".

By the way Darren, you have one seriously ****** up local police force. What you need is The Rock to come in and do a Walking Tall on them.[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

Those are both very good ideas Gavin... Moderator, where are you??? Come change this bad title for me... Please?

And now, if only I had The Rock's address... Oh man, I could just picture a large-scale, Rock-style, fight scene at the memorial park behind the station. I would pay money and take bets. (The Rock by far)

[silpheedpilot]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="SlateGray"]Well, street racing has had its fair share of polizei run ins for me but this story revolves around a fight. Between two guys. That I became a part of.

It was at school about two years back, my junior year, and I was leaving to my car to go home. I see a huge crowd gathered by the southern area of the parking lot and walked over to see what it was. I'm already gonna tell you I love drama, fights, and other things. I thrive off the knowledge of being able to skew my story at my whim to fit my needs.

Anyway.

So these two guys were going at it, and I mean they were really fighting. Punching, kicking, biting, scratching, you name it. I crept my way through the crowd and got to the front and started cheering cause fights rock. About 2 minutes into my being there I get shoved into the fight, probably by the cops rushing in, and I'm immediately punched in the jawline so it looks like I'm fighting. Ow.

A split second later I'm getting thrown to the ground by the policeman and getting a gun shoved in my face and him yelling; 'DON'T MOVE!'

The two other brawlers got the same treatment. We were all taken away by cuffs.

Eventually, yes, I got cleared after the two guys fighting said that I wasn't originally part of that fight and I just happened to stumble into it as the cops came flying in.

So, there you have it. Fights, cops, and guns. What more can you ask for?[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Endymion]

[COLOR="Navy"][SIZE="1"]Lets see, in June, I got pulled over on my way home from work. It was a county sheriff. My inspection had just expired and she asked about it. I told her that on Friday (it was Monday) I had an appointment at my dad's friend's shop to get it taken care of. We laughed about it and she said to go on my way.

That Wednesday I was some 2 minutes from home on my way from work, and a Town cop pulled me over...for the same reason. I'd told him that my appointment was 2 days away. He gave me a smug look and said I had more than enough time to do it. Took my license and registration - winds up that my licence expired on my birthday (which i wasn't aware of, because one normally gets something in the mail telling you that). So I got a ticket for expired inspection and unlicensed driver. At that point, he asked if anyone could pick me up, since I couldn't legally drive. After explaining that I was on my way from work and 2 minutes away from home, he said he could follow me there.

Got those 2 tickets in June, sent them in and my court date isn't until October 30th...gotta love how they're on the ball since the license was renewed the day after getting pulled over and my inspection was done that Friday.

Still <3 cops (aside from that jerk), and might look to be one in the future.[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Panda]

My experiences with the police have been very limited luckily. I've been pulled over twice for speeding. I've got a bit of a lead foot so I totally, 100%, deserved to get those tickets. I paid them and life went on. Other than that my run ins have been because I've been the victim of crime. My first memory of the police was when my parents' house was broken into when I was 6. It was quite traumatic since we came home and the place was trashed. They even ripped apart my stuffed animals. That to me was horrific seeing my stuffed friends torn to pieces.

There were also the animal control officers who I use to help when I worked in vet med. They would come in with dogs for rabies testing, need more sedatives to knock critters out or the random injured strays. Next to that the only other police contact I've had is from my neighbors. I have a police officer living next door and a sheriff's deputy living two houses down and another living three houses away from the back of my house. Needless to say I feel fairly safe in my neighborhood since there are cop cars parked in the neighborhood which, I hope, acts as a warning to would-be criminals.

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="goldenrod"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"]I've never been charged with anything by the police, and I've never gotten a speeding ticket either. Not that I didn't speed when I was younger, I just never got caught! And now especially since I still have my commercial driving license I am careful to not speed. Getting a ticket for that is far more expensive than for a regular license.

Anyway, the only time I did get pulled over was before I found out I'm hypoglycemic. I didn't realize that I was weaving a bit and the officer at the time thought I was drunk, which of course I was not. In the end he had someone from the fire department come and check me out. It didn't take much for them to figure out what was going on.

So it ended up being a good experience since I found out that my blood sugar can get too low at times. So now I have protein bars that I take everywhere so I never run into that problem anymore, if I feel off a bit I just have one of those and I feel fine. At the time... I just thought that I was tired.

Anyway, later on, as a truck driver, even though the accidents did not include me, I saw the police a lot. From being required to give statements due to being a witness to the harsh reality that there wasn't a day I drove that I didn't see some form of wreck. One winter day, after I saw 35 different wrecks, I quit counting. >_<

And the one time I was in a car accident when a woman ran a red light and slammed into my car, well the police then were extremely polite and made sure I was taken care of.

As for the abuse of power bit... that's really not an issue where I live. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Japan]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Most of my run ins with the police happened when I was a child. I was irresponsible a lot and often in my own little world that I go off and my parents lost track of me and panicked. They sent the cops after me. This happened about four times. ^^

All the other times were for breaking and entering construction sites. I was skinny and small enough so I went into this new housing complex they were building. I managed to get in there about five/six times to play with the various debris in there and on the seventh time, a cop saw me enter the complex and scolded me for entering a dangerous place.

I also took various odds and ends like fences, wood, metal debris, etc and made my own hideout. I set up the hideout behind this one building by someone's wooden fence. Twice cops or the people of the building tore down my hideout.

My most recent one was when I was a senior of high school and still hung out with a questionable crowd. We went 'urban exploring' as they called it. We were at a construction site and we snuck through a hole in the fence. We were walking around the area with flash lights to see if we could find anything interesting. Turns out that a cop saw as enter and came to my friend who was the look out. My friend made excuses (he is very good at lying) and managed to make the cop leave...or so we thought. After we snuck back out and got back in the car, we found the cop following us. We quickly parked near the mall and split up. We met at the mall and the cop lost us. I was freaking out that last time because I just turned 18.

Thankfully, I am no longer into trouble like that...at least for now.[/COLOR]

[OMNOMNOMALY]

[FONT="Georgia"]Minor but stupid incidences:
My first run in was in grade 10 at the beginning of the year. I went to a party (alcohol and drug free) and we all got kind of rowdy. We ended up outside on the street corner and in her yard. There was a noise complaint so a police cruiser drove by. They stopped and asked us if there was a fight because the neighbour had heard screams. I was really stupid so I told the cop that we were just "overflowing with love" and he gave me the worst look ever. Obviously because I sounded like I was on drugs. Thankfully, they drove off after we promised we'd be quiet.

At my 17th birthday party where we WERE drinking, another noise complaint was called in. I was slumped over in the basement of my friend's house trying to be less drunk, when he came down and was like "the cops are parked outside my house." So I helped to herd all the more drunk kids downstairs where we proceeded to attempt to be quiet, or atleat the drunkards perception of quiet xD Which is not very. But we were in the basement. The cops left after like half an hour.

Those are my lame run ins with the cops. I've yet to actually get in trouble.[/FONT]

[Rachmaninoff]

My dealings with the police have been little to none. I've never been pulled over or charged with anything. About my only real experience with them was last year when I was in a car accident. I was in the passenger side and someone ran a red light and slammed into the door, breaking my leg. It was not a fun experience. But the one thing I do remember is how nice those guys were as they handled the whole situation, up until they got me out of the car and on my way to the hospital.

I have seen people getting arrested though, usually once or twice a year, some of the residents at the apartment complex I live in get themselves totally drunk and then go out into the parking lot to start breaking things. Some of them have gotten evicted from the complex as well, but it seems like the place is talented at attracting someone new to live there that will do either the same thing or something very similar.

Also, it's the same here as it is for you Beth, there isn't much of an issue with the police abusing their power. I'm sure there are incidents and such, but for the most part they do a good job.

[vegeta rocker]

I once forgot my train pass on the train and was charged 75 dollars for riding without it. They said if i didnt pay it i would have to go to court and blah blah.

So the next week sent a check in the mail, the check went through and i went on with my life.

9 months later i am at work and i get a call from the Dallas Constables Office, they say they have had a warrant out for my arrest for about 6 months...

They apparently never got the check (it was cashed though) and sent me a summons to court (which i never got) and set me up a court date that i obviously missed.

Keep in mind i gave them three phone numbers and two addresses, never once got a call or letter in these 9 months.

Then when i contest the fact that its not my fault, they say i should have taken care of it since it was my civic duty.

How am i supposed to take care of something i dont know exists? Either way we faxed them evidence the check went through and they did an investigation and never found the money.

hilarious.