TTAG reader Coyyote writes:
One evening driving off our ranch I encountered a car stopped by the side of the road a distraught lady pointed out a doe someone had hit and broke both front lower legs. The deer was in the barrow ditch frantically thrashing around so I suggested I use the 1911 on my hip to euthanize her. The lady replied she had called 911, and at that instant a highway patrol officer arrived, parked and turned on his flashers. He got out and we talked the situation over. I told him my wife worked as a wildlife rehabilitator for the Department of Wildlife and both of us had euthanized dozens of animals hit by cars. Thus I would be happy to do it . . .
Oh no, he was the duly sworn officer and could handle it. No problem was my reply. There upon he pulled out his S&W 40 auto service pistol and attempted to jack a round into the chamber. Yep, he was carrying in condition 3. Somehow he jammed the round during the chambering process and proceeded to struggle with the gun, sweeping my torso twice with the muzzle. After several seconds of this and stepping to another side I suggested he drop the mag and clear the weapon. His response was to tell me he knew what he was doing and AGAIN swept me with the muzzle.
My response was to say “looks like you got it covered” and got the hell out of there. Somehow he must have dispatched the deer as returning to the ranch a Division of Wildlife truck was picking up the carcass. Absolutely the worst case of firearms handling I have ever witnessed in anyone!
What’s your worst experience with an armed officer?
I have never had a negative experience with Law Enforcement.
Same here, just lucky I guess.
Never? “Then may your chains rest lightly upon you” is what the agitators on this site will say. You must not love freedom or Liberty. You are a FUDD!
The irony is that the guys that use the chains phrase and bootlickers nonsense are statist of the first order. Voice an opinion that isn’t lockstep with theirs and watch them hyperventilate.
Nice use of the anti’s own tool kit there.
Not only not a negative but several very positive encounters. Busted once for carrying a pistol concealed without a permit. Allowed to keep my pistol and go after a talking to. Had a WV state trooper assist me in a tire change once. My jack was a dud and he got his out.
My retirement job is as a driver. I’m allowed 1 ticket per year, any more and I lose my job. Cop pulls me over for a legitimate ticket and gives me a warning instead.
As members of a society we have a contract with that society. Part of that contract is living within certain boundaries. We hire and authorise cops to handle the situations when people step out of those boundaries. This system works.
The “social contract” theory. Where’s this contract? I don’t remember signing one… I’d like to read it, so I at least know when I’m in violation.
Unless you’ve spent your entire life in a bomb shelter with no outside contact then you know the contract.
I know you didn’t ask to be born. None of us did. But here we are. We make the best of it and the society we were born into.
If you really don’t know what it is, Google is your friend. If you don’t like living in society, then your choices are basically leaving the area where society happens to be (everywhere but the woods at this point in history), or fighting. You’re probably going to be outnumbered, though, so don’t expect to win.
How dare you request to see acontract you are supposedly bound by but never having signed!
What are you some sort of person with a brain?
You actively choose to live within and interact with the society, thus you explicitly consent to the contract by doing so.
If you don’t like the terms, then go live in the woods and eat berries.
If you prefer indoor plumbing and toilet paper, then stop being an obstinate douchecanoe.
I’ll be damned. I have never heard of social contract theory (I slept through civics), so I looked it up. Of course I know what it is! I live it every day, I just didn’t know what it was called. I learned something today.
Don’t drink the kool aid, it is poisonous in the extreme.
The only contract is to not violate the rights of others, not to act in ways to make them happy. I should be able to strut down the road wearing just my .357, singing rap at the top of my voice, carrying a sign saying “Republicans Suck, Democrats Swallow”, and it should be the duty of the police to tell people who complain that it’s a free country.
There is no such thing as a “social contract”, the very idea is a communist construct. Better bone up on what a contract is and is not.
It’s… Communist? Is any recognition of any level of collectivism communism? Is everyone who isn’t a strict objectivist a communist?
Early Christians have often been called communists.
Social contract thinking came along two millennia before Marx.
Do you really expect us to think that Locke and Rousseau were Marxists?
Well , I’m 6’4″ and 245 with ball gloves for hands , so I expect an officer to have his hand on his service when he approaches me , I would .
I’ve been rather large and lanky since I was a teenager so this happened to me a few times whilst in the throngs of mental advancement .
Me either. Being a middle-aged FWG in a Mercedes pays off, I s’pose. ^.^
YOU HEAR THAT, BLACK PEOPLE? All you have to do is become white, fat, middle-aged and drive a Beamer, and your self-inflicted problems will vanish like the morning dew!!!
You people are so effed-up and whacked out I actually threw up a little in my mouth…
Sarcasm is lost on you, I take it…
Whacked? lol
NATA and Charlie,
You must be new here. So I’ll give you a little ‘local knowledge’ about TTAG.
William Burke is the neighborhood Troll. ALL of his comments are deliberately offensive, a little crazy, and intended to distract us from the subject of discussion. We put up with him, because … comic relief.
Pay him no mind, and he’ll go away after one or two stupid comments.
MMM speaks the truth from my experience. For 8 years I regularly drove across the Mexican border when I was a mafwg. I always got waved through the inspection stations in my proper businessman’s Buick. Never a K9 inspection, never asked if I was a US citizen.
I have had an officer draw on me. (I was in high school acting like a criminal.) I still wouldn’t say I have had a bad experience. One of several things I remember from that night was how frightened he looked. I rememeber thinking, “wow, I really scared this guy. I need to be extra friendly, compliant, and cautious.”
It may not be that you, all by yourself, was what he was afraid of. It may have been the first time he actually pointed a live weapon at another human being. It’s a threshold moment.
It definitely is!
A college friend who drew when as a pizza delivery driver three guys came at him, one with a knife, got the rest of the night off and came over; he sat staring at the wall for the better part of an hour before he told me about it (he knew I’d been about one second from pulling the trigger on a bad guy once, is why he came to me).
Aside from a DUI arrest I deserved 25 years ago, never a negative experience. In the DUI case, officer was very polite and professional as well.
I don’t act like a jerk and do treat officers as people I’d meet in any other setting.
Works for me.
From having watched numerous live actions of LEO’s in the US and having read detailed reports of South African LEO’s one cannot help but gain the impression that these guys are handed a side arm and given no training at all. Their performance is dismal; to say the least. Last year in SA, the police “lost” close to 40k handguns. To date there has been no investigation or punishment visited on the perps. However, should you as a private citizen lose your side arm, they throw the book at you. Makes you think.
I lost some very valuable guns in a tragic boating incident. Are you saying I’m in trouble?
(This “SLOW DOWN! YOU ARE POSTING TOO QUICKLY” sh*t is out of control today. I had it happen when I was using my thumb only – on an iPhone!) Believe me, that’s anything but “quick”.
If that was your worst experience ever with a cop, count yourself extremely lucky.
Long line at 7-11 in college, and my buddies and I wanted taquitos. My friend said we could give him cash and he would wait in line and talk to his girlfriend on his phone so we all wouldn’t have to wait in the crowded store. As I was giving him a couple dollars the campus police stormed up and demanded ID because, in his opinion, my buddy was going to buy is alcohol. When we responded we were all underage and just wanted taquitos he got pissed off. Guy was a douche the entire time, yelling at us about how we were trying to bs him. I’ve made it a point in my police career to be pretty much the opposite of him.
My worst experience was also my best. I took a course from Jim Cirillo – who had been a NYPD cop. Excellent teacher and was so good at gun handling, he was safe without even having to think about it.
The worst experience was being on the range with some LAPD cops who were also taking the course.
Holy. Crap.
Jim Cirillo himself stated that he had 3 negligent/accidental discharges in his life. You can never attain the point of not thinking about safe gun handling.
There are two types of shooters. Those who have had a ND, and those who will.
If you train well, then any ND will go in a harmless direction. This is why the safety rules are redundant.
A LE firearms instructor from that same city (different agency) told me one of the things that hastened his retirement was the quality of people they were accepting/forced to accept. He said he doubted many could even spell “gun”. I guess we can expect a lot more of the now standard sub-standard officer in big cities due to the unspoken quotas.
Not sure is this counts but his hand was on his gun. I was a t my sister highschool graduation and after the main ceremony, and after she walked I decided to step away for a cigarette(I have since quit). I knew I couldn’t smoke on school property so I made my way with my brother to his vehicle. I had rode with him, and we had arrived barely on time, so we parked in a park parking lot that was commonly used as overflow parking for the school, but was not school property. Even this parking lot was full.
So we smoked, joked, and listened to the radio. A sheriff’s deputy snuck up on us, and got uncomfortably close before he asked us if we would like a citation for smoking on school grounds. Scared the hell out’ve both of us. We turned and his hand was on his gun, and he was blading us. My brother informed him not so tactfully that this wasn’t school property. He threatened to ‘get’ us for underage smoking, and my brother said we were both over 18. He wanted to see IDs, and told us to reach slowly, the whole situation seemed surreal at this point. He hunched down a bit and did a weird stance change where his left arm looked like it was a fist in his chest. He slowly walked forward, checked our IDs, hand on his gun the whole time. I can’t describe how he was walking, hunched over, kind of duck walking, I guess.
I’m not sure why he thought we were such a threat, maybe it was the NRA and Browning stickers, I have no idea. The whole thing was surreal. He even walked backwards away from our truck to wherever he was parked.
Im sure he was just practicing for his next minority traffic stop. No need to worry.
(no /sarc needed I hope)
No I get it, even thinking back the situation seemed so surreal. I was like 19, and scared to death. I’m not sure what freaked this guy out so much.
One of the perks of being a cop is free drugs.
More than likely.
too many to list all…
-At 16 years old, getting out of my car in a parking lot I turned and looked toward the cop car that had followed me into the lot. I was staring straight down the barrel of an officers gun. He didn’t seem to react to me so I looked over my shoulder and saw a car full of wannabe-gangbangers. I sat back down in my car and drove to the other side of the lot. Turns out the kids had been driving around flashing a bb gun at other cars, but the officer clearly had tunnel vision. He never said a word or gestured for me to get out of the way or anything.
-At age 34 I was SWAT-ed by someone who was angry at me. After coming out of my house with 3 M-16’s (or AR’s, I didn’t think to ask) and 2 12 gauges pointed at me by fat men in full camo, I was thrown to the ground, piled on by 4 officers who proceeded to beat me with their clubs while screaming “stop resisting!” because one couldn’t get cuffs on me due to the two others kneeling on my arms. They kept the guns pointed at me as they repeatedly asked me where the guns, drugs, and hostages were. I then spent a couple hours locked in a confinement cage in the back of a squad car while they figured out that I in fact did NOT have a basement full of drugs or hostages and that all of the guns were in the safe. When they finally let me go, I got the speech about how it’s not their fault and I need to be more careful… careful about what, I have no idea.
Do you know who did the SWATting?
Come clean with us! You must be black; cops NEVER treat white people like that! If you would just stop being black….
Now you’re just phoning it in.
I had a cop lie on a police report.
One of my wife’s friends had an incident with a creepy cop. She came up on an accident and the cop who was directing traffic gave some confusing signals and got visibly angry when she tried to go through. When she lifted her hands up in confusion he got the idea that she had flipped him off (a perfectly legal hand gesture under the 1st Amendment). So he got her license plate number and showed up at her house a couple hours later, alone, in uniform and armed, beating on her door. She had enough sense not to open the door and filed a complaint. I don’t think it was the first, but he’s still on duty.
I also saw a group of cops take a 6 year old girl from her mother and place her in the custody of a 6 time felon. Four of the felonies were for ‘child endangerment’.
They were getting a kickback from CPS, who get a reward of $1000 for each “child placement”. They should be re-named “Pedophile Placement Agency”.
This is why cops should not be allowed to lie: they get into the habit of doing it all the time. Lie to get the truth from someone, lie to trick someone, lie to manipulate witnesses, lie to establish just cause, lie to win the case….
I saw the police report from an incident I witnessed last summer. The cop claimed the guy involved pushed and swung at the gal involved. That was fascinating, because I and two other witnesses clearly observed that the guy and gal were on opposite sides of a street (we put that in writing, sent it to the guy’s lawyer… and the D.A. dropped the assault charges and went with causing a public disturbance).
A neighbor of ours hated my father for unknown reasons and was a friend with a great many local cops. The perpetual harassment was unreal. As a little kid I just thought this was how the world was. Everybody is a uniform was a raving lunatic seeking only to cause harm.
Then I got a little older, learned the situation and figured it was isolated madness and the world couldnt really operate this way.
Then I got older still and returned to position one.
Though I will say that personally I’ve never had a bad experience with any individual cop I’ve encountered I have witnessed and been present for many truly insane police interactions such as sending a little old lady into a building with a burglar alarm going off before them, a guy being shouted down by a cop -hand on gun- for asking the name of the street he was on and the classic cops who dont know/care the law shouting orders based on what they think the law is (happened daily regarding bikes on the sidewalk in my old hometown.)
I firmly believe I have not personally had a bad police interaction one on one because I go out of my way to avoid them when I see them. I take the long way around check points and cross the street or change direction if I see one out and about.
I have never had a bad experience with an armed police officer.
Well, I had an interaction with a belligerent ass of a traffic cop, who made up a specious violation for which to stop me (and that I successfully fought). I’m sure he was armed, but that point was never a factor in the interaction.
The night my db step father police officer put his .38 pistol to my moms face…my brother (11 yrs old) with his sears el dorado pump .177 pellet gun and me (7 years old) daisy red ryder lever action.
We couldnt take it anymore so we ran from the basement…armed and meaning business.
I saw that pistol and my moms face and i aimed straight into that sonofa bitches eye……didnt pull but he stained his pants.
He ran out and never came back.
So stick that where it don’t shine……that’s my story about and armed cop.
Mom was 6 months pregnant at the time with my sister.
Was driving home from a late night food run with a buddy of mine. Pulled up to a red light while in the right lane, where there was a cop in the left. While we were stopped, the cop looks over suspiciously and then follows us for the next mile. He finally pulls us over and I tell my friend to keep his hands on the dashboard while I keep mine on the steering wheel (during those days, I was very much so the “always be considerate of the LEO” type).
Cop briefly asks me where I’m headed and asks for my indentification. He’s satisfied with my answer, but then directs his flashlight to my friend and suspiciously asks “who’s your friend?”
“Just an old buddy of mi–”
“DOES HE HAVE ID?!”
Aha. The true nature of the stop revealed.
2nd officer arrives and goes to the passenger side and has his hand on his gun the whole time. While my friend digs through his bag for his ID, the cops are visibly very tense.
When they’re satisfied that my friend isn’t a weapon-laden drug kingpin, the cop goes back to his vehicle and issues me a citation for having an unclear license plate (Fair game. Inspected the license plate later and found that the reflective coating was starting to peel off).
After he tells me that I’m free to go, he asks me “what’s up with that interior light bar in your car?”
“Oh, I’m an EMT with [next town over].”
“You should’ve told me. I wouldn’t have given you a ticket.”
“It’s alright, officer. I don’t believe that anyone should be exempt from the law based on their occupation. Have a nice day.”
Life is good in New Jersey. My worst experience with an armed officer was also my funniest.
“found that the reflective coating was starting to peel off”
So you got a ticket because the state issued you a defective plate?
If a license plate issued to you becomes damaged or un-readable it’s *your* responsibility to replace it.
This is why most of us won’t set foot (or even drive through) New Jersey.
Geoff is correct. The ticket was fair game.
Unfortunately I didn’t notice it, because it looked completely fine in daylight.
He may be correct about your state law, but that law is bullshit. You pay for your vehicle registration every year, it should clearly be the state’s responsibility to keep your license plate satisfactory, when I was a kid the state REPLACED the plate every year, and when they stopped (to save money) the fee did not decrease (I am SHOCKED, I tell you!). So, how much do you have to pay for a new and pristine plate? Which you have already paid for?
My cousin Bo and I grew up in a tiny rural community in GA. There were only 2-3 cops in the whole county, and they whole county was run by this one Boss type guy. The Boss had a problem with my uncle Jesse, and he used his influence to coerce the cops into harassing and frequently arresting the two of us. One of the deputies was a real nice guy, but the sheriff himself was a real tool. He had a nice dog though, it was a blood hound ironically named flash.
Sounds like yall were just makin’ your way the only way you knew how.
LOL. Where’d you get that one from? IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT? TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD?
Dukes of Hazzard.
But that’s just a little bit more than the law would allow.
I’ve met your cousin Daisy at the Boar’s Nest. She’s super nice and smoking hot.
Don’t play the innocent. I heard you were a convicted felon and even after you got out of prison you hadn’t reformed your criminal ways. Lots of people said you and your cousin had a habit of tearing around the local roads at unsafe speeds and shooting things up with a bow and incendiary arrows.
Whatever happened to your cousins Coy and Vance? One minute they were here, then they vanished.
Worst was trying to teach a female cadet. She had been issued a G22 could not handle a .40. Gave her a 9mm Glock 19/after 2 N/D on the range, I was ordered to try my 5.7 recoil could not be handled. She was finally fired. Everyone always laughed at me for wearing my best at ANY range, until we had an instructor take a swept round to the chest.
I have seen gangbangers more concerned with muzzle discipline than some officers. Its usually the SWAT or tacticool guys that tend to be most dangerous on the range.
Disheartening .
It seams I had better etiquette as an eight year old than some of the stories I’ve heard .
My dad taught me to shoot at six years old, and took me out to shoot my first gopher as soon thereafter as I could handle his Remington 121 Fieldmaster. As soon as I saw that little .22 turn a gopher inside out I knew this was no toy. That’s what’s lacking today, everybody( including police) just don’t take firearms seriously. “Its not loaded” … “the safety is on” … “there’s a little lever on the trigger”, and blah, blah blah. Anything to avoid being a responsible adult.
My father is gone now, but I inherited that old .22. Serialed under 4000, too bad its kinda blue worn, and has holes in the receiver where someone tried to mount a scope long ago. Still shoots bang on the money though…
Ken , maybe it’s more of a matter of where we were raised as much as how . I was brought up in rural WV where I could go out and walk a creek all day and shoot and gig frogs or snakes with my 22 or homemade gig stick or hunt birds with my LC Smith or drop groundhogs outside their lairs . Gun culture was about marksmanship and as you stated , safety was a no-brainer when you understood consequences and were raised to think .
“wearing my best”
Well, I can hardly blame them for laughing at you in a tuxedo at the range. 😉
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Caballero_(company)
Worst experience with a cop? The cop actually wrote me a ticket for driving 10 MPH over the speed limit.
Most cops in my life would usually just give me a verbal warning about driving slower.
I try to avoid cops, just as I try to avoid plague carriers, panhandling Hare Krishnas, corner heroin dealers, crying babies on airplanes, women with mustaches, Democrats and head lice.
As a result, my interactions with police for the last 40 years or so (except in court) have been brief and uneventful. I aim to keep it that way.
Got any advice on babies on airplanes and democrats you could share?
Noise-cancelling headphones. I recently picked up a bluetooth earbud set that has a small footprint in my carry-on computer bag. They were about $150, but worth every penny.
Those foam shooter’s earplugs work great when flying.
You will be pleasantly surprised how much it lowers stress levels.
I attended a 2005 World Ag Forum in St Louis hosted by Monsanto. There were anti-Monsanto protesters there angry that the company was buying land next to Missouri family farms, farming the land with their GMO’s. Then when their GMO’s would cross pollinate with the smaller farms plants they would sneak in and steal samples to test and then sue them for patent infringement. They knew full well they’d lose the case but that in the meantime, the small farmers would go out of business trying to fund their self defense as it drug out over the next 5 years. This happened to my grandparents neighbor in Easton Missouri. We had made signs that read, “No justice, no peas!”. Clever, I know.
I was at a church with my then girlfriend and 6 other friends discussing what would be transpiring at the meeting and as we left the church and headed for our cars in the parking lot we were stormed by para military style STLPD who proceeded to hold shotguns and AR’s to our heads yelling, “are you scared mother f*******, are you scared mother*******?!!, F*** you, are you f****** scared?!! Why are you shaking?!!” while they took turns jerking us around, pushing us in the chest with their muzzles and pulling my girlfriend down to the ground by her hair and stepping on her throat while laughing and asking me what I was going to do about it. Then they just ran off in a group down the lot towards the back of the building.
The protests were beyond peaceful and we were outnumbered 15-1 by riot cops lining the streets.
I suspect most people posting here are middle class Caucasians. Try being black. And add poor onto that.
I’ve gotta wipe the tears off my screen.
If I were black, I think I’d try *not* being poor, instead. There seem to be plenty of role models, just not as popular as the bangers stereotype. You pays your money and you makes your choices.
“Armed officer?” Is there such thing as an unarmed cop in the U.S.?
Ross Mirkarimi.
Back in 2002 I did a complimentary detail strip/clean/fluff ‘n buff on an officer’s off duty gun (Glock 27). When I was done I handed him the full magazine and the single cartridge that was previously chambered. He then attempted to load the pistol by inserting the single cartridge THROUGH THE EJECTION PORT. WTF?
This is someone who worked security services in the USAF for 20+ years before retiring.
A year later he was fired for wrecking a police cruiser while off duty. His BAC was something like twice the legal limit.
On some guns you can do that, some you can’t. Not sure about Glocks.
It sounds like his only firearm experience was with bolt action long guns…
I believe Glock says not to. The Ruger Mark II manual, on the other hand, specifically suggests it as a method of loading a single round.
I’ve done exactly this many times with my G27, rather than loading a magazine and then doing an admin reload after charging the pistol…is this somehow bad? Please specify…?
Not bad per se, but the hard way and dumb. an action i’d expect from someone completely uneducated on firearms.
I’m not getting where the condescension is coming from, Amigo…It’s not bad per se, and what education on firearms informs one that despite that, it’s somehow apparently wrong and stupid? Ah well, I’ll consider the source and take it with a large grain of salt. Thanks for the input…
Some handguns specifically state not to do this in the manual because you can break/damage the extractor. I know the PX4 pistols specifically state you can combat load in the manual, while others (I believe the XD series) specifically state NOT to do it.
Glock says “don’t do it!”
Ergo: don’t do it (with a Glock).
My chosen method all my life, if you don’t like it, screw you. OTOH, I was shocked to discover that it does not work with my Kimber 1911s, although not mentioned in the manual. The extractor is so stiff that the slide will not return to battery.
I do that all the time with my Sig pistols, and it can be done with any other semi-auto pistol. I put one into the chamber, then I insert a full magazine. You CAN load a round into the chamber without stripping it off the top of the magazine, and there is no reason why you shouldn’t.
I thought this was bad for 1911s, no? Something about how the round is supposed to slip under the extractor rather than the extractor snapping over the rim.
Here in very northern somewhat west-ish New Jersey, there are more deer than people it seems. Not surprisingly, they are frequently on the losing end of automobile/cervine interactions. But when they don’t lose under the mercy rule, the local constabulary must intervene (being New Jersey, we don’t have permission to carry guns, well, anywhere). Our finest obviously don’t get much practice time with their guns (as most officers don’t), but I still remember an occasion approximately 10 years ago whereby a younger officer attempted to finish off an immobile deer with a broken back whilst operating a shotgun from about 8-10 yards. And he missed. Three times.
My worst experience was having one those scary uniformed guys with the big guns ask me for my drivers licenses , car registration and even show him proof I had liability insurance , just because I was driving faster than the speed limit . THE NERVE !
Scarred me for life .
Truth is , I did have a few altercations in my younger days , but was treated with the same amount of respect I showed , go figure .
I recon I’ve been lucky and was raised to honor people in uniform and treat them with respect and to do my best to obey laws and support those who enforce those laws .
When I was 20 some friends and I loaded our 22 rifles into my ’78 Chevy (cargo van, bass boat glitter Kelly Grass Green) and head out in the county to family land to plink. Got pulled over by a highway patrol off of a small rural road and as she walked up to the window and looked in, she pulled her firearm, orded me an my buddy out of the car, made us walk backward to her patrol car, made us lay down in the road, cuffed him, cuffed me and then pulled me up and put me in her car. She then unloaded all the .22 lr from my shirt pockets and kept radioing for back up. She was shaking furiously. After 20ish minutes she point blank asked me if my friends would shoot her If she let me go. I told her, “no, we were just heading out to shoot”. Granted there 7 of us with a pile of rifles on the floor and we were rocking longish hair and probably looked a little rough. The van didn’t help. She then told me she couldn’t get back up, she was scared for her life and escorted me to the pavement where she kept me at gun point, uncuffed my friend, then uncuffed me, told us to continue to lay face down. She then backed off to her car and pulled a u turn driving away. We decided to forgo the target shooting and went back to town.
So , she wasn’t t one who pounced on your neck and bit you thereby forever changing you to one of the creatures of darkness known as VLAD .
Nope. That was bestowed by Satan himself and it was after Lenin. I go by many names, it is the interwebs and all…
My latest was when a warrantless arrest had been issued for me as a result of an ex-acquaintance calling 911 claiming I was harassing her. She owed me $300 and refused to pay. Cops tracked me down via another local agency and came knocking at my door. I surrendered peacefully and was transported with handcuffs back to the county she lives. I spent the weekend in jail and unceremoniously released into the cold, 40 miles from home. I hired an attorney, refused a plea and fought tooth and nail. Ultimately I was acquitted by a jury of my peers. It was a horrible ordeal and ended up costing $3000 to avoid the dreaded domestic violence conviction.
It’s how the Triad makes it coin.
No lie. With a wink and a secret catchphrase.
Now go back after that beeotch through Civil Court (small claims) for the original $300 she owes you and maybe the false charges as an added bonus. Run that broad through “the system” just like she did to you, represent yourself and if she “fails to appear” it’ll be the “warrant squad” for her and a “judgement in default” for you. Best of all it will be wage garnishment if she’s working, if she’s not potential employers seeing she has judgements “outstanding”w ill screw any job prospects. Remember “civil court” standard of proof is “preponderance of evidence” a much lower bar than “criminal court” where it’s “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Stick it to her if only to make her life miserable.
Amen to that. There must be retribution for such perversion of the law.
so is the lesson don’t loan $300 to crazy bitches?
I strongly suggest not having any interactions with crazy bitches.
All of my interactions were fine. I’ve only recieved two tickets which were both dismissed prior to court.
Now, the funniest interaction with an officer involved an animal. My wife calls me freaking out that there is a Trash Panda (raccoon) in the backyard with a large plastic jar in its head. So I head home and drive up the road to see the trash panda running across the road. I jump out and grab the jar which is stuck. I see it has a body neck and is having trouble breathing. I call animal control which is actually the police who sends an officer out. A large middle aged officer (OFWG) gets out with his tactical vest and I have to contain my laughter. He goes for the trunk and pulls out the dog catcher pole and begins to attempt to put the rope around the animals neck. I play defense to keep the animal from running. He spends about 10 minutes huffing and puffing after the raccoon until his bean pole officer buddy shows up. Now I have Laurel and Hardy both attempting to get this raccoon with a large plastic jar into the rope. I watch from the side trying to contain my laughter. They eventually get the rope on the raccoon and throw the little criminal into the back seat of the police car, thnaked me and drove to the animal hospital. That was the best police interaction I’ve ever had!
Your story confirms my suspicions. I can’t talk about my worst encounter with a LEO. It did involve him lying, coming in my home in uniform on his day off, and all sorts of people apologizing for his actions later.
Cops must have the IQs of amoebas.
I imagine some are dimwits all the time , some are some of the time and all have a bad day occasionally .
Kind of like you and I .
Maybe, but when I have a bad day I don’t shoot some guy in the back eight times.
That would be the beginning of a bad day .
100 is generally the maximum IQ. Any more than than, they won’t hire you.
And a 100 IQ is a few hairs above dull/normal.
True dat. I once tested for the local telecom firm, among dozens of others. The supervisor said I had scored higher than anyone they had ever tested. I was not hired.
My worst experience with an armed officer was when our sheriff was in the dunk tank for a fund raiser, I bought 3 balls to try and dunk him for $15 and none of the balls hit and dunked him, so I bought 3 more. 5th and 6th ball he went into the tank. Other than that the few times I’ve been pulled over went just fine except for the time i was mid 20’s and thought i knew everything and talked back to the officer and he wrote me a ticket instead of a warning. I learned if you aren’t a jackass to them you don’t have anything to worry about.
My family was in the car on a leisurely drive around noon on a Sunday. We were driving close to 50 mph in a zone where the speed limit was 50 mph. As we passed a local deputy, he started his car and drove across all lanes to make a u-turn and pursue us. After nearly causing a head-on crash in his u-turn, he pulled us over. Of course he approached our car like we were suspects in an armed bank robbery … which made perfect sense since he could see that we were: two children, a man, and a woman all in their Sunday best in one of the lowest crime areas in the nation. As he walks up to the driver window, he asks, “What is the huge hurry?” We all reply, “Huh?” And he says, “Yeah, I clocked you back there at 75 mph.” He hadn’t finished saying the word “hour” before I blurted out, “What?!?!?!? There’s no way.” in a clearly exasperated tone and volume of voice.
So he asks for driver’s license, registration, insurance. After running them at his car he returns and says something to the effect of, “Well, my experience and other details of the way your car was driving have convinced me that you were not driving 75 mph so I am not going to issue a ticket to you. Be safe and have a nice day.”
After he left, both of my children were incredulous and asked, “That didn’t make any sense. What in the heck was that about?” I then took the next 10 minutes to explain the idea of a “fishing trip” and why we don’t automatically trust nor cooperate with law enforcement. Rather, a law enforcement officer has to EARN our trust and cooperation and that deputy failed miserably. That was an invaluable learning lesson for our children — especially our oldest.
My episode of similar – I flew past a NH State Trooper doing 90+ in a 55 zone. By the time he’d pulled a u-turn at speed and fish-tailed trying to catch me, I was about 3 miles down the road.
We talked a bit, I apologized for going so fast, and he sent on my way with no ticket. Usually I don’t get tickets. My charming smile I suppose.
My father and grandfather were both State Highway Policemen in Arkansas and I grew up around cops (from small town police to US Marshall’s). Both Dad and “Papaw” would point out the idiots that they knew didn’t belong anywhere near the job and they despised those that were “too big for their britches”, wantonly unsafe and just plain dumb. I’ve never had an officer draw a weapon on me for any reason but I’ve taken care of several officer’s personal and duty firearms….I’ve met some that knew how to handle weapons and were professionals who knew their weapons inside and out, were safe and conscientious. Then I’ve met a few that had NO BUSINESS AT ALL carrying a firearm and/or being a peace officer.
The officer in the OP’s post sounds like the latter…one hopes his own inability and incompetence doesn’t cause him serious issues if the situation arises where he has to rely on his sidearm, etc.
2 hours on an interstate being investigated by 17 year Kern County Sheriff Chief drug interdiction officer and author Sgt. Ron Hain as a suspected mule for a Central Valley CA drug cartel. Despite multiple lines of evidence and a call to my client I was visiting, he insisted on searching my white 2015 Chevy 2500 with a camper. With nothing more than aspirin in my glove box, officer Hanie’s involved two additional juristictions, and commanded the dog handler to false alert. The illegal search produced no drugs, large amounts of cash and no illegal guns. Officer Haine’s second job is a marketing manager for Desert Snow, an organization created to train police to seize drugs and large amounts of cash. Officer Hain’s part time position is interesting because the Oklahoma ACLU subpoena Desert Snow database known as Black Asphalt. This database allows any drug interdiction officer, with the approval of his superior officer to load any information on private citizens. That private database was housed in Desert Snows corporate headquarters and moved to….wait for it…Kern County Sheriff’s office.
So a private server, run by a private company, located in a government location, housing a database on citizens, who have not been convicted of a crime, is shared nationally with state local and federal officers. And refuses to make any information gathered and uploaded into that database available any judicial inquiry.
If you are not familiar with “Desert Snow” do a search and read up on it/them. Then ask your local head cop if they are using these POS. Despicable stuff.
Better yet ask a highway patrol or a sheriff about Desert Snow or Black Asphalt. After a long pause everyone I’ve asked replied never heard of it.
Not all that many years ago, I would’ve considered your experience to be outside the norm; a couple trips between Colorado and Alabama later, and I am no longer surprised. On one occasion just over the CO state line in Nebraska, I watched the contents of my small U-Haul trailer get ransacked on the side of the road, in the rain, after the dog handler instructed his mutt to alert on some boxes of antique & rare books. Three hours later, my books, turntables & records, picture albums, and various other things that don’t handle being soaked, were completely ruined. They also didn’t cotton to me carrying a couple grand in cash, along with a couple of old military surplus rifles.
When they’re done and confirmed your a law abiding citizen, they pack up their crew and leave. Not so much as a thank you.
Best advice is just to avoid them , no good ever comes from invovling yourself.
It sounds as if you believe everyday, law-abiding citizens go out of their way to get involved with the cops, and it’s then their fault when an encounter takes place.
Sometimes it’s better to say nothing, rather than remove all doubt as to one’s stupidity.
This sounds so fake I can’t even come up with something witty to say that it is faker than.
My only negative experience with law enforcement did not involve a weapon; none of my encounters with law enforcement have, save one who politely asked to inspect my weapon – a steel crossbow – when he came by to collect the home invader I’d shot.
I’d like to hear that one.
Write it up and submit it…
2 recent experiences-
One speeding ticket, which I was. Both of us polite, no problem.
2nd, hit a deer at night just inside city limits. Called 911, then insurance. Patrolman came out, yep hit a deer, wrote a report. I asked him if he wanted help getting the black and gray plastic debris out of the road as cars were running over it. And there were sizable pieces of grill and bumper. “Nah, its alright”. He didn’t want to bother. Well, if I was coming up that road 5 min. later; at the legal limit, it would have been a bother to me, swerving to avoid it.
Weather was dry and somewhat warm. I guess he had some donuts waiting somewhere.
I have lived in small cities and Southern Appalachia. Most of the time, there isn’t a real Us vs Them- thin blue line protecting civilization attitude. Thank god there usually isn’t enough money to go out and play soldier in SWAT teams.
R
Until the Pentagon donates a war-surplus APC to them, you mean.
I asked my local small town police chief when we could expect an Armored Vehicle from Washington. He laughed and said he other concerns. this being Appalachia, there is a drug problem but there are very few personal assaults, though some property crime.
Problem for criminals is that everyone knows everyone else, or related to them, or knows their cousin. Hard to get away with anything. Plus everyone is armed to the teeth in their homes.
A MS Highway Patrolman pulled me over about 8 years ago for going 10 mph over the speed limit, allegedly. I had been out of town, proposing to my girlfriend (now wife of 7 years), and was on my way back to the University I was attending. When I informed the officer that I had weapons in the car he became agitated and asked where they were located. I told him I was carrying a .45 on my side, a .22 magnum in my pocket and a .38 in the glove box. I also produced my Concealed Carry Permit along with my Drivers License and Insurance card (it is legal in MS to carry a weapon in your vehicle in any condition or location you choose without a permit of any kind). He began to rant to me about how I must be looking for trouble carrying those weapons, and how this wasn’t the “wild wild west”. He asked me to step out of the car, then proceeded to disarm me. It was at this point that he nearly had a negligent discharge on the side of a busy highway while attempting to unload my 1911. It also took nearly 5 minutes for me to talk him through unloading the North American Arms revolver. He then proceeded to “run my numbers” for about 55 minutes. Once he was satisfied that everything was legit he handed my drivers license and permit back to me with two tickets sandwiched in-between. One for speeding and the second had the “other” box checked; he had penned in “possession of concealed weapons” in the blank. He then informed me that he would have to hold on to my weapons. I immediately called my lawyer and, thanks to his connections in law enforcement, got in touch with the patrolman’s Lieutenant. I eventually got my weapons back after waiting another 2 hours at a gas station in a rather unsavory town a few miles down the road. My experience brought to light the fact that just because the Highway Patrol issues Concealed Carry Permits doesn’t mean they know anything about gun laws in our state.
He was planning to “lose” them for profit.
I’ve also never had a bad experience with a LEO. Seems like they’ve all been pretty cool with me, but then I’ve never been a dick to them.
Yeah, I bet that must be it.
I haven’t thought much about that incident in decades……thanks ttag….i just called my older brother….havent talked to him for about14 years…told him about this site….bringing up bad memories.
We cried and laughed a bit…..all i can say is thanks……probably wouldntw had called him otherwise.
Wait… you haven’t talked to your own brother in 14 years?
Back when I was 18, a friend and I were going through the town I grew up in and ended up speeding. Cop puts on his lights from a parking lot so I pulled over in a well lit parking lot and by the time he got in behind us we had the windows rolled down the dome light on and the keys on the roof. Cop walks up to the window and proceeds to cuss the two of us out like I’ve never heard before or since.
Guy swears we were racing asks for my papers and then asks for my buddies ID in the passenger’s seat. We were both high school students at the time. Living in a town which may have had a half dozen minority families in the town of 17,000. We were and are still quiet and polite people. After he runs my license he asks me to get out of the car. Bearing in mind that I was 6 foot 150 pounds at the time and had been sitting there for nearly 30 minutes, when I opened the door and got out of the car he backed up five or six steps and pulled his gun.
Was bizarre as he had appeared to have calmed down up until that point and I have no idea how complying with his simple command to get out of the car agitated him so much. He calmed down quickly after that, never cuffed me or put me in the back or his car or anything. Just a completely perplexing deal where he drew his gun for no reason I can fathom.
Completely opposite of the other two instances where I’ve been pulled over. One of those seemingly much more nerve wracking for the officer than the first time. Got pulled over at 1:30 in the morning in rural Virginia with out of state plates and that guy was perfectly chill after everything.
It’s unfortunate, but many TTAGers will have a very unpleasant experience if they ever get pulled over by the dreaded grammar police. They might be getting tickets for multiple violations: run-on sentences, comma splices, spelling errors, punctuation felonies, capitalization failures and homonym (there/their/they’re, etc.) abuse. We religiously check the chambers of weapons before handling them, so why not apply the same level of caution to our writing before hitting send? Whether you like it or not, you represent the shooting community at large; what you say and how well you say it is a reflection on all of us.
Actually, those are homophones, not homonyms. Ahem.
Hey William, yes 14 years. My brother fell into a bottle and hasn’t come out.Took a great effort to track him down after my first post.
TTTG made me think about him, i tried but he’s a mess.Complicated.
Wow!
That’s inspiring and uplifting.
These are the kind of folkkks i want to meet when ww3 hits.
I’ll be ready to assist you on your way. Insert smiley face here.
Regardless of the recent *ahem* negative media portrayal in and around St. Louis, the police forces in general around here are pretty solid. St. Louis metro cops will not harass you unless you are actively gunning children down in the street; within the city limits people run red lights like its some sort of secondary pass time to Baseball. Once you get out of the city you have like 90 St. Louis County jurisdictions, some of which will pound you for minor traffic offenses but the Jack-booted thuggery is kept to a minimum. The cops I know and train with personally are good guys, family men who are generally retired military or from cop families; guys on the Hill are like 7th and 8th generation law enforcement.
Been to NYC, LA, Boston, etc… F those guys.
There are generally good police officers everywhere , way out number the assholes .
This exercise just goes to hammer home the point that most people forget the good while remembering the bad .
Like how we forget all the great runs and throws and catches that produce the 56 point blowouts but vividly recall the blocked field goal down 2 at the end of regulation .
I have 3 stories to share, I’ll let y’all decide which one was the worst. All of these events happened while I was an MP in the Army at various duty stations.
1. When I was a young PFC at Fort Campbell (my first duty station after basic training) I was assigned to ride along with a Specialist for my first few months on the job. One night this Specialist decides it would be a good idea to demonstrate his “quickdraw” technique to a female MP that he apparently had a crush on. They were facing each other standing about 15 feet apart while the Specialist repeatedly demonstrated his “quickdraw” technique. About the third time he drew, his weapon discharged (he pulled the damn trigger), and the round impacted the ground directly between the female MP’s feet. Somehow I don’t think this was the discharge he was hoping for with this young woman.
2. After a long duty shift at Fort Hood one SSG Maceo Simmons decided that this would be a great time for a firearms safety demonstration at the barracks. We had just finished a 12 hour shift, when you count PT time and shift briefing before shift it’s really a 14+ hour shift, and were all ready to go to bed. Myself and 2 other soldiers present were also SRT members and had no interest in his “demonstration”, but had to stand and watch anyway because he out ranked us. SSG Simmons preceded to tell us about the importance of checking for an empty chamber and yada yada yada. He then pulls the slide back without dropping the magazine first and chambers a round, and before we can stop him, he shoots the clearing barrel not once, not twice, but three times. When we asked him why he kept shooting after the first round, he said that he thought it was empty after the first round went off, and he had to pull the trigger again to make sure it was clear. This resulted in all of us having to go back to the PMO to fill out sworn statements regarding the incident. Luckily that was the last time we had to deal with him, but unfortunately he found job with a civilian LEA. He couldn’t keep his nose clean though, and eventually he was arrested and convicted of several felonies.
3. I was stationed at Camp Shelby, MS prior to Hurricane Katrina hitting. Somewhere along the way the decision was made to move us into the PMO and base barracks during the storm, so that we could more easily deploy to Keesler AFB if needed for search and rescue. While we were getting everything settled ahead of hurricane Katrina making landfall, a SGT was going through his go bag at the PMO when his personal .25 cal pistol falls out, hits the ground, and discharges a round directly into it’s owners ankle. I don’t remember what model pistol it was, but apparently it wasn’t drop safe. So we have to get a Blackhawk up and fly this fool to the hospital. He never made it back to duty, the Army kicked him out after his wound healed. But the rest of us had to operate a man short for the duration of our search and rescue operations after Hurricane Katrina hit.
The only time I was the potential recipient of a lead donation from an LEO, it turned out fine..
My friends and I were 18ish and had taken to shooting cans with my Marlin 60 off to the side of some railroad tracks, behind my friends parents house. Our targets were set up down from the railroad tracks into some woods, with no houses in that direction.
There were a couple other houses within a mile but all were on thr other side of a huge embankment in the opposite direction of our target.
About 10 minutes into shooting we hear a woman yelling something indistinguishable, maybe 200yd away or more, in the direction of the other house. We never heard what she said, and we kept shooting.
Another 20 minutes or so go by, and we heard several male voices yelling from the distance on the tracks. Here some several sheriff deputies and a state trooper with an AR at low ready as they walk towards us.
I yelled back that we were going to put the rifle down. Once they caught up to us, the older sheriff allowed me to pick it up and unload the tube mag and clear the chamber.
Then they told us why they were there..Thr woman who was yelling had apparently called the sheriff and claimed that we had threatened to shoot her, or had already shot her house.
Believe it it not the sheriff said he could see that this was a lie, as we had no line of sight to her house, had targets posted, and showed him the trail that led off the tracks to my friends parents house, which again was nowhere near this woman’s house.
They went back and talked to her, I don’t know what came of it. Sheriff suggested that we pack it up and head in, and they turned around back down the tracks. We picked up our stuff and left.
This was around 2000 or 2001. I don’t know what kind of treatment we would get now.
Late to this shindig but I feel the need to comment: disclosure… My father has been a deputy his entire life and is 61 with a couple years left until retirement.
I have had more goods vs bad.. None of which do I include any instances in which the officer knew me or my father.
With that said since I have known many blues my whole life, I can assure you that they look out for their own and manipulate situations when desired. My dad always told me to be respectful and follow exactly what they say… Even if they are wrong and unlawful…. Until I was safe and secure. He knew the bads were mixed with the good.
35 years of being around the popo daily and I don’t trust ANY that I do not know personally and of those that I do know, they even admit to skirting and altering encounters.
I was driving a newly-purchased auto thru a small village area that lies within our city limits. This village has their own police force, and some very low speed limits, as well as numerous stop signs that are routinely monitored by their P.D. I was aware of their reputation, so i was extra cautious. As I stopped at one stop sign, I halted, advanced about 2 ft.to look both ways down the cross steet, stopped again, then proceeded on my way. As I looked to my right, I noticed a village police car hiding behind a large bush 3 houses down. I gave it no thought till I got to the next stop sign. Right behind me was that car, with the female chief of police in it. I turned on my left turn signal, made another legal stop, and proceeded, with the chief behind me with the lights on. I pulled over and waited. I was asked why I went thru the first stop sign. I told her I didn’t go thru, cause how could I have seen her hiding behind the large bush at the third house down. I was told to exit the car and hand over my license and reg. Well, as I had just bought the car, i didn’t have the 5 foot long temp reg. form with me. As she was writing me up for no registration, she told me ‘Sir, please take you hands out of your pockets, it’s safer for you and the officers’. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was safer with my pocketed hands, as i couldn’t very well draw my SoB-holstered Colt .380 that way.
Had one draw on me during a traffic stop with my hands on the steering wheel, when he came to the window after i said, ” i have a cwp and i am carrying on my 3 o’clock” drew on me and told me to slowly take my gun out and clear it lay it on the seat and get out of the car. I felt like a criminal that just got caught with a weapon.
Hmmm…had a lot of run-ins over the years with the po-leece. In the vast majority I was able to schmooze my way out of it. Never thought I might get shot. Even with a pretty black woman by my side. AND a few times(in the 70’s especially) I could have gone to jail. Drugs in the car/girls of unknown age too. My whole life could have gone south. One thing I NEVER did was drive drunk-high maybe…
Many years ago it was annoying to have an officer point his gun at me over a case of mistaken identity. Indeed there was somebody with the same name as me (first and last name the same but not middle or SSN or vehicle license or vehicle type or general look or height or anything else the same) who had trouble with the law around this time. As excited and twitchy as this officer was, I was in some fear. After he handcuffed me, I suggested he verify that I was the right person by looking at the middle name, where I was from, general info on my license (I knew of this other person and knew he looked very different from me). He left me there leaning forward over my trunk and made a call on his radio. It wasn’t very long before he came back very apologetic and let me go on my way (without the cuffs of course). No comment here – just the facts – well, other than the “annoying” part.
Wow! Sounds like Barney was on duty that day.
November 20, 1985 I’m coming home from my grandfather’s funeral in Arkansas. I hit BC and turn onto the entrance ramp to I-220 when a Bossier cop flashes his lights. So I stop on the shoulder and trot back to his window where he says “Step away from the vehicle!”. OK. I go plop down on the trunk of my car and stick my hands in my pockets (it’s cold and I’m wearing jeans and a henley). Cop gets out with his notebook, comes to the front of his vehicle, and says “Get your hands out of your pockets!. I comply, and at this point I’m seriously worried about the guy’s mental state. I pull out a cigarette and he barks “Don’t light that cigarette!”. And I’m thinking; OK dumbass, I tried to make it easy on you, but that’s the last straw. I give him my license and put on my name, rank and serial number face.
Turns out the speed limit was changed on that highway since the last time i was through there. I got a ticket for doing 50 in a 45. As he levered his fat ass back in his jalopy I told him “Have a nice day!”.
Next day at 08:00 I was in the Bossier Piece of Chelif’s office filing a complaint on the asshole. Turned out he had a bunch of them already. As I recall he didn’t make retirement with the force.
Worst experience?
Flew through a stop sign at close to 70 on my way to Lake Amistad. DPS trooper lit me up, and caught up to me about a mile after. Gave me a warning after running my license, and CHL. I was 20 minutes late to pre tournament meeting. What a piece of shit.
/HEAVY sarc
I’ve never seen an ‘unarmed officer’. Well except for a Mall Cop.
While at an indoor shooting range, an Lt. from a neighboring LEO started shooting at a B-27 target at about 15 yards. As I watched, he shot the ceiling, including a florescent light, the target holder, and the concrete block wall. When he cut the cable on the trolly system and they had to shut all the lanes down, i packed up and left.
Boy, TTAG is really reaching now…
Reaching For liver and some fava beans?
Worst experiences have been police laziness. Back in my 20s, I broke up with live in girlfriend and asked her to move out. She just couldn’t get her act together either with college or continuous gainful employment, and I got tired of waiting for her to grow up.
The following day, while I was at work, she did indeed move out. Chick stole my CDs, DVDs, and a few other things that were kinda sorta “ours”, but which strictly speaking I had bought and which were definitely not exclusively her. So I called the cops.
The roly poly doughnut patrol eventually showed up and would nothing. Said it’s a civil matter, their hands were tired, and proceeded to share with me unsolicited similar stories from their pasts. We’ve all seen episodes of “Cops” where they’ll go retrievevthe stolen property in such cases. Guess that’s just when cameras are rolling and America is watching.
Jerks wouldn’t even write out a report that I could use if I chose to sue in small claims court. Jackasses.
In the town I used to live in the cops have always been polite and professional. I even thanked one for his politeness and professionalism when he was moving a crowd back from a crash rescue scene – he seemed surprised.
but like nearly everyone else, over the course of life i have run into a few arrogant, bossy, or dumb jackwads. I’ve been given the 5 mile-over speed-trap ticket by unscrupulous departments raising money. i was overcharged with a traffic crime by an overzealous Barney Fife campus cop – got it dropped by hiring a lawyer who essentially said to the a state’s attorney we’ll take it to jury if they don’t drop it.
A little professionalism and a lot less “gotcha!” attitude would go a long ways toward better police-community relationships.
I had a short (Why are they always more troublesome than the big guys?) State Trooper stop me once — I don’t remember the excuse for the stop. All was fine, no ticket mentioned. Officer then asked (lightheartedly) “Any drugs, bombs or handguns in your vehicle?”
I responded “No drugs or any kind of contraband, but I had to stop and think about guns.” I explained that I used to be on my military unit’s pistol team, and had orders to have my weapons with me for daily practice, but I had since retired, and my sidearms were now all at home.
His reaction, “Step out of the vehicle.” My response, “Huh! Wha!”. He repeated his demand, and I got out. He patted me down, including squeezing a butt pack with some stuff I used on my job, pencils, pens, and a mini stapler. He ordered me to the rear of my vehicle while he searched it, finding nothing.
He then warned me that if he “caught” me with a gun I would be in jail. I told him again that I once — lawfully — transported weapons under orders that originated from a LTG of the U S Army, and state law did not countermand, but endorsed that military authorization. He would not “catch” me doing anything I did not have every legal right to do.
His final word before leaving, “I’d throw you in jail”.
He did not find the magazine and 5 rounds of .380 for my AMT Backup that was in my butt pack, or he might have shot me on the spot.
Every single experience with them since getting out of the academy has been amazingly idiotic and convinced me that the once trusted profession had become distrusted for just reasons. So, I decided not to continue a career in law enforcement because of how the profession was changing to a “me first” “us and them” and “my glory and/or your death” sort of mindset. Having guns pulled on us as a matter of standard procedure instead of as a response to hostility is only a sign. Police, all of them, are corrupt. If they weren’t they’d be cleaning up the profession instead of helping it to continue to morph into an occupying army.
Are you my doppelganger? My story is damned near the same. My idealistic childhood dream of becoming a cop was tossed into a bucket, sprayed with lighter fluid and burned to a cinder because of what I was witness to.
My trust of the practitioners of the profession is minimal. My advice to any and all is to be deliberately conscious and purposefully minimize your interaction. See a cop, cross the street and go the perpendicular direction. If engaged, let them always see both your palms, comply, comply, yessir once, comply, get home safe.
How do you define worst?
I’ve been pinned against the glass at a hockey game for yelling at the opposing team’s bench and penalty box. And calling the cop who told me to stop racist.
I’ve been pulled over for doing 84 in an 80. Knowing full well that the only reason I got off with a warning is because we were in the process of moving our car to TX and it still had the old tags, but I had a TX license.
I’ve been told that if I enter a building with an invalid 30.06 sign while CC, I would be arrested anyway.
I’ve had a cop threaten me with a ticket if I didn’t stop and listen to him berate me. Why was he upset? I pointed out that while he was busy yelling at pedestrians to wait for the walk signal, cars were running red lights.
Not a cop, but I regularly get pulled aside for secondary screening.
Got pulled over at 2:30 AM (profiled for being out on city street that late, I got no problem with that). As they walked up cop talking to me was cool as hell, his partner on the other side saw my pistol laying on back seat. Immediately screamed gun in an loud pitched voice over the radio and within seconds had 5 more cars surrounding me.
Cool cop kept cool, asked me if I’d been drinking (yes, and truthfully many hours before). The scream over the radio escalated it, so for appearances they ran me through all the standard DUI checks, I passed with flying colors. But because I’d admitted to drinking earlier (which is why my pistol was not on me, it was unloaded in back seat), someone decided to give me a ticket for unlawful use of a firearm. Took gun, let me go. Took three months to get the ticket dismissed, another 5 to get them to release my pistol back. Actually took a low level clerk on my third visit to say “this is bullshit”, she marched me straight down to the evidence room and harangued them until they just gave me my pistol back.
Irritating overall, and I’m glad cool cop was the way he was. Hopefully high pitched cop has more experience and doesn’t think every gun is a crime now.
I had a cop beat me once….
He scored better on the combat course…..
We Have a Winner – unfortunately
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/08/rancher-needlessly-shot-by-police-family-says/
Interestingly both officers had body cams, and the cruiser had dash cam. All were “off”. This stinks IMO
Coyyote
I take it the idea here is encounters where an officer’s gun was an element.
I have only two: one, a sheriff’s deputy pulled me over and came up to the car window leading with his his gun. He asked to know why all the rifles in the back of the pickup. I blinked and managed not to ask, “What rifles?” A glance in the mirror reminded me I had a bunch of 1/4″ steel pipe pieces sticking up out of a barrel, all nicely polished, so I admitted they sure looked like rifles barrels but suggested a closer look.
To get him to stop apologizing, my buddy in the passenger’s seat asked if there were any police raffles going on — nice ploy, really.
After he left, my other buddy said “You should have asked when the next policeman’s ball is”.
The other, I was sitting on a lawn embankment in front of a small business with a friend, talking and watching traffic go by when a police car pulled up, an officer got out and came and asked us if we’d noticed any cars coming by driving dangerously. My friend asked if there was a specific type they were looking for. When she went back to get her clipboard to get specifics, she put a hand on the car seat, which triggered one of those automatic seatbelts. When she turned to come back to us, not knowing the seat belt had been triggered, the belt caught on her gun somehow and that restrained her from getting out.
Not wanting to say “Gun” with a frustrated police officer, and since she could see me, I raised my hands and my friend did the same. When she looked at us, puzzled, he tapped his hip and pointed to her. All she had to say was “Don’t tell anyone!”
Too late — another patrol car had just pulled in across the street and the two officers in it were already laughing.
This one time, as a VFF, I worked with Highway Patrol on a triple fatality on the interstate. They did their job, we did ours. We both treated the deceased with reverence, as if they were our own kin.
Boy that was a hard day – probably my most painful experience yet in conjunction with armed law enforcement.
Oh, wait, you meant with them being bad? None yet.
Years ago a friend of mine and I scared a couple of troublemakers off of his property one night with a cheap plastic BB gun that looked and functioned just like a pump action shotgun. When they took off running, I completely forgot about the bb gun in my hands. We chased them halfway across the small town (village, actually) on foot, with my dumb @ss still carrying the bb gun. When we felt we chased them far enough, my friend and I turned and walked back to his house. That’s when I realized what was still in my hands. I decided that carrying it by the end of the stock, with the muzzle pointing straight down at the ground, was the best way to carry it back across town in the middle of the night and not look like I was up to no good. We were half a block from his house when a village police officer spotted us. He was stopped and out of his cruiser in the blink of an eye. I’ll never forget the conversation that followed.
“DROP THAT…what? What is that, a bb gun?”
“Yeah, it’s a $20 plastic bb gun I got from Walmart”.
“Damn, man, I almost shot you. I had my gun half out the holster”.
“Shot me? My hand is nowhere near the trigger”.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to have to take that from you”.
“Why?”
“You can’t just carry guns around, real or not.”
“Whatever, it only cost twenty bucks. I’ll just go buy another one”.
Turns out I didn’t have to buy another. The village police chief called me the next day and told me to come pick it up.
A funny related story. The officer who took my bb gun was fired a few months later when he and another officer decided to take the chief’s cruiser out for a spin one night. They were stopped two counties over by the highway patrol, for driving 100mph in a 45mph zone. Oh, did I mention they were on duty? The only two officers on duty?
About a week ago, I was visited by the US Marshals Service’s “Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force”. I didn’t recognize the guy they were looking for, but apparently they got information that he sometimes visits one of my neighbors.
When I was a kid about 16 years old a friend of mine kicked a bottle that broke in the street. Some asshole came outside screaming at us and called PD. We cheesed it away but i wound up having to go back to grab a lighter and a pack of smokes my friend had dropped.
I got picked up by a female officer who proceeded to grab me by the back of the neck and slam my face into the roof of her car a few times before throwing me in the back. Were we wrong yeah. Was it a gross over reaction on part of the officer hell yeah. Other than that most of my interactions with the ol 5-0 have been neutral or positive.
Military Vet. Honorably discharged. Current college student. 3.9 GPA. Father of three.
I wish I had enough time to tell you about all the fucked up shit I’ve seen cops do to me and other people. Intentional false arrest (seven years later and I still can’t get a decent job thanks to my undeserved criminal history). Threatening to take my child to CPS for said made up crime. Attempting to arrest me for completely made up crimes (stopped only by immediate legal judo on my behalf). Making up laws and threatening to arrest me for them. Complete ignorance of the law.
Arresting the female victim of a an assault by two known gang members downtown (one on parole and the other already finished his prison sentence). Ticketing me for defending her. Squeezing her arm so hard while she was handcuffed she had bruises for a month. Strangling me while handcuffed hard enough to completely close my throat and leave finger marks on my neck for a month. Wrist locking my handcuffed friend.
Stealing money out of wallets. Stealing money out of cars. Punching handcuffed suspects in the back of squad cars. Lying for each other. Making video evidence disappear. Internal affairs and Police Chiefs clearing the officers of all wrongdoing BEFORE the mandatory citizens review board hearing (thanks, SAPD Chief McManus!) Cops flat out refusing to do their jobs because they’re afraid they’ll be in danger.
Arresting my neighbor for failure to identify because he didn’t have his ID on him while walking around in his own front yard with the gate closed and padlocked. Dragging him over the fence. Charging him with noise violations outside of city limits where there are no noise laws, at 7 PM, without a decimal reader. Threatening him because the think he’s a Bandido (the dumbasses had him confused with his next door neighbor). Threatening to arrest his wife when she asked what he was being charged with. Cops lying in court about it so much it became impossible for the jury to convict.
High cop showing up when I made a call about a man impersonating a police officer. Dude was so stoned he couldn’t take the absolute most simple of driving directions (“turn around, take your first right, look for the white truck on the right”).
That’s just off the top of my head.
Trust me when I say I could think of more. I don’t trust ANY cop I see and do everything I can to avoid them. If you think only thugs and hotheads have a bad impression of police, or that police abuse isn’t widespread, it’s because you’re still lucky. I’m at the point now where I’m convinced society would be much better off without them. I feel safer around the ever-present gang members and junkies who populate San Antonio than I do around cops. There’s only so much they can do to fuck up your life. A cop can fuck it up any way he feels, without justification, and without recourse, and you can be sure his buddies will back him up Sad but true.
This reminds me of a common saying when I was in Miami:
Q: What’s the difference between a cop and a Mafia member?
A: The Mafia guy has a code of honor.
It wasn’t too long ago I saw two cops grab a guy at a store parking lot, cuff him, drag him over to lean his nose against a tree, and THEN get out their little reference books to figure out something to arrest him for.
You had it easy. I was stopped for an expired inspection sticker, and after advising him I was licensed and armed, as required by TX law, he reached in my pocket and got MY gun, then proceeded to do the same things you described, muzzling me repeatedly while trying to clear it, answering my objections by telling me what an expert he was, even as he dropped a loose round on the ground. And of course, I was NOT free t simply leave.
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