"This is my friend" - MC's take

MC's take...get it? Pun totally intended, so don't freak out.

Let's address some of the concerns in your comments. First, the no identification concern. He did have his school ID and it matched his picture. The last name on the registration matched the last name on the school ID. I was comfortable that he was who he said he was. I do, however, have a couple of options for this scenario. The easiest is to run his driver's license using his name and date of birth. I then ask dispatch for the physical descriptors listed on the license. In this case, they matched nicely to the individual driving the car.

The other option is to get a thumb print and add it to the rear of the citation. I typically only do that when a driver has never had a license or is not legally in the country (don't get me started...it's an issue I sure as hell ain't gonna solve at my level).

Sufficed to say, I had every confidence the kid wasn't Jimmy Hoffa.

Second, there's the issue of his Dad's wallet. I'm operating under the assumption that Dad had a spare and gave it Junior as a loner. Accurate? Maybe. Do I care? Nope.

Lastly, I'd like to take the opportunity to say you all make me look like a pussycat. "Bust his taillight"?!? "Arrest him for bribery and theft"?!? I may like where your heads are at, but there's a little thing called due process and something I once read about civil rights and some silly amendments some old guys wrote out that most folks get their panties in a wad over.

Here's how it played out:

MC (sternly but not loudly): Get out of the car.

SLP (smirking a little less): Huh?

MC: Get. Out. Of. The. Car. Now.

SLP (thinking perhaps his attempt at humor was ill-conceived): Uh, okay.

MC (noticing the belt-less state of his jeans): Pull up your pants and get over here.

SLP hitches up his britches.

MC: What is wrong with you? I know you're trying to be a fuc...

*Now I know I'm getting pissed off because I almost let fly the mother of all bad words knowing I'm recording myself, so I rein it back real quick like only to be met with...

SLP: I'm not trying to be a fucking smartass. (Little bastard stole my misguided thunder)

MC: I get it. You're trying to be the tough guy in front of your little girlfriend and your buddy. I've got friends. I know what it's like.

SLP: I just don't think I was doing 48. (Said with the subtext of "This is a chickenshit ticket")

MC: I don't care what you think about it. Our business is done insofar as that goes. You want to talk about the other thing?

SLP (blank stare).

MC: You want to push me on it? Because I will take your happy little ass to jail. Do you get me?

SLP: You're an officer, sir. I don't want to push you. (Said practically dripping entitlement)

MC: Oh man, you have no idea how close you are to getting arrested. If I ever see you pulling this kind of crap again, you're done. Do you understand me?

SLP: Well sir, I hope we don't...

MC: Get out of here now.

SLP (doesn't move).

MC: NOW. I swear if you don't move and drive away right now, I'll change my mind and you're going to jail.

SLP slunk off to his car. I'm sure he tried to save face with his friends, but it doesn't much matter to me. I know what he drives. I know what he looks like. I contacted the school resource officer at his school to get the skinny on the kid. I wasn't shocked to find the attitude was not unusual.

Mom sure wasn't happy when I called her and gave her a heads up on his antics. Kind of a risky play, that. SLP learned his attitude from somewhere. She seemed receptive, though. Now I just have to hope Dad isn't SLP Sr.

I believe Kardiac Kid mentioned PC 67 in his comment (Well done, sir/madam...not exactly a gender specific name). That particular section covers bribing an executive officer. As police officers, we are often encouraged to handle things at the lowest level possible. What that means is this: Could I have arrested the kid for a felony? Sure. Is that necessarily the best solution to this problem? I don't think so. Would the D.A. file it? Sure...right into the round, metal cylinder next to the desk.

The best solution in my mind was just what I did. I gave him a dressing down on the side of the road. Maybe I embarrassed him a little in front of his friends. I called his Mom. I guarantee you if Mom and Dad are of the same mind, there retribution will far exceed anything I or the justice system could unload on him. Back me up here, parents!

This is the kind of discretion that drives poor Happy crazy. Sorry, brother, I gotta rub it in when I can. And let's not forget that I know where SLP lives, goes to school, and the car he drives. If you don't think I'll be keeping an eye out for any of his shenanigans, you either don't know me at all or haven't been reading this blog for very long.

Laziness will get you arrested

It's true. I don't make up the rules, people. Case in point...

The other day, I was happily riding in 63 degree weather wearing my summer gloves and a lightweight long sleeve uniform shirt (sorry 40+ other states...it's freaking beautiful in CA!) when I see a hapless driver without her seat belt on. On go the lights, over pulls the car.

MC: Afternoon. Do you know why I stopped you?

LL (Lazy Lady...should be become clear soon): Um...is it because I wasn't wearing my seat belt when I pulled out of the shopping center?

MC: It is indeed. Do you have your driver's license?

LL (doing the 14-six pat...LEOs should know what that is...at least in CA): Well, officer, my license is suspended. I just want to be honest with you.

MC: I appreciate that. Why is it suspended?

LL: Well, I had a DUI a while back and I have a court date in a couple weeks to get it changed to restricted so I can drive to work.

MC: Okay. Where were you coming from?

LL: The doctor. I just work across the street.

MC: Uh-huh. Okay...hang tight. I'll be right back.

*The eventual DMV check through dispatch revealed a total of nine suspensions. Six of them were still active. Two of those were for two separate DUIs. Oh...and she's on probation for the DUI.*

MC: LL? Here's the thing, you're suspended for a whole mess of stuff. I'm gonna place you under arrest for driving on a suspended license and I'm going to tow your car and place a 30 day hold on it.

LL (tears a-brimmin'): Do you think you could tow it tomorrow so I can use it just to get back home tonight?

Seriously?

MC: No, LL. I don't think that'll happen today. Let me ask you a question. Did you know your license was suspended?

LL: Yes.

MC: Right. And you work across the street, right?

LL: Yes.

MC: And your doctor is about 200 yards from where you work, right?

LL: Yes.

MC: LL. Why didn't you just walk?

Deer in headlights time. At the end of the day, she didn't really have a cogent answer for me. Not that her reasoning would have mattered a whole lot. I'll give a break every now and again if your reasons make some kind of sense to me. But six active suspensions? Um...no.

If you are too damn lazy to walk your suspended behind across the bloody street, you don't deserve the "oh-poor-you" treatment. You deserve the "I'm-taking-your-car-to-car-jail" treatment.

Oh...and I still cited for the seat belt. That ought to nut up at least a few of you. On the other hand, there are those of you who know I got a mover and an arrest stat. Win/win in my book.

"This is my friend"

I recently had a completely new experience. I was offered a bribe. I'd like to think it was meant to be a joke given the circumstances, but in retrospect, I'm not so sure. I'll tell you what happened...you tell me what you would have done. And when you comment, let me know if you're an LEO or not. I'm curious about the differences, if any.

I stopped a car full of teenagers. The driver was speeding. Not terribly or anything, but still...above my threshold of tolerance. The driver had a definite, shall we say, "entitlement" attitude and acted like you'd expect of someone of that caliber.

MC: Do you have your driver's license?

SLP (Smug Little Punk): You know...my wallet got stolen just last week.

MC: That right? How about a school ID?

*SLP digs around in the center console and extracts...gasp...a wallet.

MC: Didn't you say your wallet was stolen?

SLP: This is my Dad's.

MC: Fair enough.

SLP: Officer, can I ask why I was stopped?

MC: Do you know what the speed limit is back there?

SLP: 35.

MC: It is indeed. Do you know how fast you were going?

SLP: 39, 40.

MC: 48.

SLP: C'mon, officer. The car in front of me wasn't going that fast...

*There was no car in front of him...at least not after he made a lane change and accelerated. I should also add that there is a lot of subtext going on that is difficult to paint in a post.

MC: I got you on lidar. You were doing 48.

SLP: Don't you mean radar?

MC: No, I'm pretty sure since I said lidar, I meant lidar.

SLP: Oh...I thought you were, you know, making a play on words. Like "liedar"...like I was lying.

I cited the kid for speed. He made some crack about knowing the judge and his son, but I chalked it up to him trying to be funny in front of his friends. I can dig it. I'm not a complete square. I try to ham it up in front of the guys, too.

Then, he thought it'd be a good idea to up the ante.

After he flipped a U-turn, he stopped across the street from me and made some comment. I don't recall exactly what it was, but it sounded like a joke of some kind. There happened to be another car behind him, so I jokingly said, "If you don't move your car, I'm gonna have to cite you for impeding traffic."

SLP looked back and said, "Oh, that's my friend." Then he said, "Actually, this is my friend." In his hand he held a $100 bill. "Whadda ya say? Think my friend can take care of this ticket?" All with a shit-eating grin on his face. Mr. Cool to his buddies and the girl in the front seat.

I know what I did. I was there. And I'll tell you all about in an upcoming post. But for now, what do you think? We're dealing with a 17 year old kid with a car full of similarly aged kids. What are your options? What is your demeanor? How would you handle this situation?

It's About Time

Happy and I return to triumph after a much deserved and technically challenging (which button is record again?) break. In this episode we talk safety vs. security and the possible differences between agencies and disciplines after last week's tragic shooting in Tucson.

For the first time ever, we answer a listener question from our call in line! Coincidentally, we are renaming our call in line to the first ever Public Safety Drunk Dial Line. All shall be explained, friends. And it wouldn't be The Crossover without HM and I rambling on about nonsensical shenanigans.

EPISODE 8

SouthLAnd, baby!

It is well documented that I love me some cop drama shows. I'm a Third Watch, NYPD Blue, Cop Rock aficionado. Okay, not so much that last one. SouthLAnd, smartly picked up and saved by TNT, is back for another season.

I won't belabor the coolness of this show. Lots of you watch it, otherwise, TNT wouldn't have picked it up. What you may not know, however, is the training behind the show. As a cop, I nitpick every. aspect. of. these. shows. Drives the Wife crazy, but she knew what she was getting into. SouthLAnd is not a perfect cop show. There is no such thing. Cop shows take the ten minutes of excitement us real cops feel in a week's time and embellish because it's bloody good TV.

That notwithstanding, the cast has to look like they moderately know how to handle themselves. The tactics have to pass a certain muster. Check out the following behind the scenes video and watch a couple minutes of the cast training on the range with live ammo.

As I cautioned above, I nitpick. One of the things that stood out was the reload. No one leaves their weapon hanging out in open space. Too much real estate to fumble the out of battery reload or tac reload. You drop a mag, you're screwed. Get that gun up and in, dig that elbow into your belly button. Stay tight, get bullets in the gun, and get back in the fight.

See, fun right?

Check out SouthLAnd tonight (and every Tuesday) at 2200 hrs on TNT! For more cool behind the scenes and show info, check this out.

Decision Time - MC's Take

Wow. Let me start by saying you all certainly took me seriously. Decision Time was my 2nd most popular post (based on sheer comments) of all time and in over two years. I appreciate the time and thought the lot of you spent in reacting to my post.

It seems the majority are okay with how the incident turned out. There were, as there are wont to be, the extremes on either side. But by and large, most of you seemed to feel the violation was extreme enough to warrant the citation after the more pressing matter was dealt with.

Now...here's my opinion...

From a Monday morning quarterback standpoint, everybody was wrong in this matter.

Huh?!? You read that right. Everyone. It's important to remember that this is looking from the outside in. That's an important distinction here and one that, quite frankly, society and the media at large take for granted on a daily freaking basis. As a quick example, let's talk about "excessive force". If you've never wrestled with someone and felt like you were fighting for your life, your opinion lands you squarely in the Monday morning QB role. We, as officers, are required by you, society, to make split second decisions that we all have to live with for the rest of our lives. Try and keep that in mind when you're hanging out at the water cooler drinking your third cup of joe near your cube farm before you strap on the judgy pants.

I have no idea what Mom and Dad's birth plan was for junior. I think it's fair to assume it didn't involve breaking land speed records, though. The bottom line is this: Dad was putting his life, his wife's life, and his unborn son's life at risk. Period. I don't care what time of day it was. I don't care what the road conditions were. I don't care what the condition of his tires were. 102 mph (unless your a professionally trained driver) is patently unsafe.

Allow me to get my hat with the whirly-gig on top....there it is...okay. 102 MPH is 152.592 fps (feet per second). Do me a favor. Reread that sentence. It probably took you somewhere between 1 and 3 seconds to read that. In that time, Dad's car traveled between 152 and 457 feet. Human perception and reaction time (combined) is 1.5 seconds. That means that it takes Dad 1.5 seconds to see something ahead and react to it. In that 1.5 seconds, Dad will travel 229 feet. That's 229 feet before he's even done anything folks!

Now, let's add to that. The 1.5 second perception/reaction time is for someone who is paying attention to what they're doing. I think it's fairly safe to assume that when your wife's water breaks in the passenger seat of your car and she's (more than likely) freaked out a bit (what with you hauling ass and all), your attention is not going to be 100% on the roadway in front of you. And just for fun, I'll throw in that it was nighttime...that equals more limited visibility.

Let's talk about the cell phone bit. As one of you pointed out, there is no cell phone law in NH. Thus, not a violation. Pretend it was CA, though. There is an exemption in the law for using a cell phone in an emergency. Now before HM gets his panties in a wad about me using "emergency" in the previous sentence, I have to assume this would satisfy the spirit of the exemption in the law. (Sorry, brother).

What should Dad have done? Much like a lot of you pointed out...he should have called 911 for an ambulance. Medics are trained for things eerily similar to what Dad was experiencing. One non-emotionally invested medic drives the big red bus and the other tends to Mom-to-be. There's a reason EMS exists, people. For all the bitching (justifiable as it may be) that medics to about the abuses of their system, I'm pretty sure this one fits quite nicely.

What about the trooper?

The only thing I can do here is put myself in his shoes...just like I asked you to do. Would I stop a car traveling at almost twice the legal freeway speed limit. Try and stop me. Would I get bent when the car fails to yield? Possibly. Would I have called it a pursuit? Possibly. Once Dad yielded, would I have ripped him a new one until I figured out the situation? Maybe, maybe not. Here's something a lot of you don't think about...adrenaline. Adrenaline courses through your average cop's body like oil through a finely tuned high performance engine. We thrive on it. My point is that to expect a calm "Good evening, sir. Do you know why I stopped you?" may not be the delivery after this escapade.

For argument's sake, though, let's say I get Dad stopped and I figure out birth is imminent. What do I do? I call for code 3 fire/ambulance for a delivery in progress and I revert to my limited training in delivering said child. Believe me, it is not something I want to do. I don't want to get shot at either, but I strap on the vest every day and go to work. This is part of what we sign on for. All we can do is pray for the bus to get there with a quickness.

Why wouldn't I escort them, you say? Uh...liability?!? Once I start escorting these people, I have now "bought" Mr. and Mrs. Pregnant. They are mine. I own them. If anything happens to them en route, who's to blame? ME!

Hey...it's a sad state of affairs that guys like me have to keep that in our minds, but it's our preciously litigious society that has brought that kind of thinking on. You want to blame someone? Look in the mirror.

What was Dad legally risking? An infraction for driving in excess of 100MPH (which he was cited for), a misdemeanor for reckless driving (which any cop worth his salt could articulate at that speed), and another misdemeanor for failing to comply with a peace officer's orders (not stopping for the pretty lights and siren).

Note that I said risking. He was obviously not arrested and his son was born healthy, happy, and oblivious to all the drama (which all was essentially his fault, really...welcome to parenthood, Dad). It seems obligatory to me that Dad was risking a whole lot more...all of their lives and the lives of the officer(s) that had to deal with this.

Dad needs to suck it up, pay the fine, and be happy he didn't kill anyone.

Listen, Society. You are not highly trained medical professionals. You haven't trained for hundreds of hours in high speed driving. You haven't trained about tunnel vision (see? you don't even know what that means!) and it's tendency to harm you. You are not being a hero by getting Mommy to the hospital as quick as you can. So, knock it off!

Oh...and don't get me started about Dad's "press conference" where he says he wasn't being reckless. That just made me want to drive really fast to New Hampshire and punch him.

It's okay, though...I'm a trained professional.

Decision Time

First, watch this video. It's cool...I'll wait.

Back? Excellent. Much like The Difference post, I'm curious to know what your opinions are. Lord knows I've got mine...and you may very well guess what they are. On the other hand, I may surprise you.

Here are my questions to you:

1. What would you have done if you were the Dad? Your wife is about to give birth...like right now. What do you do?

2. What would you have done if you were the Trooper?

I've read some of the responses on lawofficer.com, policeone.com, and even mainstream media sites regarding this issue. Let me be the first to say there are some, as my partner puts it, "booger eating morons" out there. But you, my dedicated Reader, are not. If you've spent any amount of time reading my various musings, I'm putting you well above the lot I've read responding to this incident!

We already know what the Dad and the Trooper did. I want to know what you would do.

I realize I'm nicking HM's "You Make the Call" style here, but he's a big boy. He can hang. I'll have a follow up post for you in a couple of days. Think it over...I'll be waiting on the side of the road for you.