Ask Me About Being a Police Officer

[bkholdem]

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If an officer asks you for identification, you have to show him identification.

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However, in that case, I am thinking you don't have to show ID or anything. You could just walk away and not say a word to the officer.

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Can you clarify when you have to show id?

What was your opinion on the guy outside Best Buy who got arrested after refusing to show his id?
What do you think he was actually arrested for?
What do you think you would do in this same situation?

What were you most and least hoping to be asked about?

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You have to show ID if you are being detained for anything. If on a traffic stop, you have to show ID. Any time it is reasonable that I need to know who you are, then you have to show.

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can you expand on this? When could you ask for ID other than from a car driver? Can someone say "I don't have any ID, officer" and is that any different from saying "I have ID but I'm not going to produce it"?

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I would ask for ID if I need to know who you are. For example, if I get called to a fight and I know I will arrest you for disorderly conduct, then you have to give me your ID. If you don't have an ID, then I will ask for your name and DOB. I don't mean to look like I'm dodging the question, but maybe I'm not sure how to explain it.

I know there is a section in the book that specifically states that a person has to show identification or give name and DOB. I'm not sure exactly what it states, but when I go home this weekend, I'll take a look.

Like I said, you can say "i have an ID, but I'm not going to show you," but then I'll just ask for your name and DOB.

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Unless I am mistaken, which I often am, the laws differ somewhat in this area from state to state.

[ItalianFX]

This one isn't that interesting, maybe it is, but I had to work on it so much and relive the night so many times that it lost its novelty to me.

The guy I was working with (my partner) and I were sitting in the station, when around 10pm we hear the fire whistle going off and then we get the call on the radio, "Respond to [address] for a report of a vehicle into a house with injuries."

We go flying down there, lights and sirens, and we are first onscene. We pull up and there is a white van, smashed into a green truck, and both vehicles are resting up against the front porch of a house.

We get out and go running over to the van. There is debris everywhere and we're trying to make our way through it all. We pry the driver's door open and find the driver laying with his head near the passenger side window/glovebox, and his feet are near the pedals. He was laying sideways. When I got to the driver's side, I could smell the odor of alcohol. At this time he is unconscious and an EMT who lived nearby had just shown up. After the ambulance arrived, he punched out the passenger side window to get to the guy. It was so tight up against the truck that the EMT actually got himself stuck inbetween the van and the truck. We get out of the way of the fire dept. and ambulance crew and begin looking to see what happened. The ambulance get him on a stretcher, and they ask me to shine my flashlight to the back of his head. He is bleeding from the back of his head and it's dripping all over the stretcher.

My partner and I go and look to see what happened. In all, we found that he hit the curb 2 times, ran over 3 small shrubs/trees, clipped a telephone pole on the inside of the pole near the sidewalk, went through 1 yard, went through another yard where he hit the corner of house #1, then hit a green truck, which pushed the truck up and over top of the hood of a white car and the van and truck stopped resting up against the house. All-in-all, he travelled 160 feet, which is a little more than 53 yards, if you can visualize a football field or whatever.

He ended up being life-flighted, but turned out to be fine.

It was quite the experience and I did paperwork like you wouldn't imagine.

[bkholdem]

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Tase anyone, bro?

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I don't carry a taser, but if I did, I have never been in a situation where I thought I would need it.

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If you did carry a tazer, and there was this teenager you knew that was a total assh0l-e and he told you he wanted to try to use your tazer to tazer his balls and you were 100% sure he would never tell and you would never get in any kind of trouble for it, would you let him do it to see what happens?

[ItalianFX]

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Tase anyone, bro?

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I don't carry a taser, but if I did, I have never been in a situation where I thought I would need it.

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If you did carry a tazer, and there was this teenager you knew that was a total assh0l-e and he told you he wanted to try to use your tazer to tazer his balls and you were 100% sure he would never tell and you would never get in any kind of trouble for it, would you let him do it to see what happens?

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No. I'd never let anyone take my gun either. i won't even let anyone touch it when it's loaded and in my holster. I also carry an Asp, and while I let people hold it and check it out, I never let them touch me with it.

If I had a taser, i'd never take it out unless I was in a situation that called for using it.

Also, there is a difference between the tasers that police carry and tasers that people have for self-defense. Police carry tasers that look like guns.

[bkholdem]

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Not sure if you have a partner, but if you did, and your partner did something very illegal (like say totally lied on a police report to put somebody in jail who he didn't like), would you turn him in? Are police sort of like a band of brothers where you don't rat on each other etc?

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I don't have a certain partner. I work with whoever works the next shift. However, if they lied, I would definitely say something to someone. I already have, but it wasn't anything extreme. One night I was the secondary officer and we got a guy DUI. At the court hearing, some of the things the officer was saying weren't accurate (on our side) and he incorporated me as if I agreed with him on some things. I never agreed to anything, and he made it look like I was inexperienced. It has rubbed me the wrong way since that court hearing and it has given me a different view of him. I did talk to other people about it, but it wasn't anything too extreme. In your case, I would probably stop the officer first and make him think about what he is doing.

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Keep in mind that this officer is not only working in a small town without much 'real' crime, but he is also educated and presumendly less likely to act like a neandertal. In the big cities it is very different.

[bkholdem]

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Ok serious question here and this one really burns me up good....Why the hell do the police spend so much time trying to give me speeding tickets on the wealthy side of town (let's face it speeding 10-15 miles over is no crime) when on the other side of town guys are slinging crack rock and killing guys?

I mean it seems the cops give tickets to make moniez....hell, aren't i the guy paying your salary after all? who cares if my license plate is a month overdue or if i do a rolling stop. Its not serious crime.

Also, why do cops give me these tickets and then have the balls to call my house asking for donations to the police dept? R they just insane? What they need donations for when they make a damn fortune giving tickets?

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I was not aware of it at all, but only a small % goes to the dept. The rest goes to the state.

I really don't know why they work on speeding as compared to the drugs, but my only guess is that drug work is time consuming working undercover or with confidential informants. For traffic, police can be out there and it doesn't take much to park and watch.

I don't know anything about calling houses looking for donations. We don't do that in my area. There is no fortune to be made in citations.

And before anyone asks, there are no such things as "quotas."

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Is there such a thing as political pressure on police departments for civil infractions in addition to criminal ones?

[ItalianFX]

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Ok serious question here and this one really burns me up good....Why the hell do the police spend so much time trying to give me speeding tickets on the wealthy side of town (let's face it speeding 10-15 miles over is no crime) when on the other side of town guys are slinging crack rock and killing guys?

I mean it seems the cops give tickets to make moniez....hell, aren't i the guy paying your salary after all? who cares if my license plate is a month overdue or if i do a rolling stop. Its not serious crime.

Also, why do cops give me these tickets and then have the balls to call my house asking for donations to the police dept? R they just insane? What they need donations for when they make a damn fortune giving tickets?

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I was not aware of it at all, but only a small % goes to the dept. The rest goes to the state.

I really don't know why they work on speeding as compared to the drugs, but my only guess is that drug work is time consuming working undercover or with confidential informants. For traffic, police can be out there and it doesn't take much to park and watch.

I don't know anything about calling houses looking for donations. We don't do that in my area. There is no fortune to be made in citations.

And before anyone asks, there are no such things as "quotas."

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Is there such a thing as political pressure on police departments for civil infractions in addition to criminal ones?

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We don't deal with civil law.

[bkholdem]

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I'm pretty sure no one has to show a cop ID unless they are being detained. The definition of "detained" is a bit broader than being under arrest but it still requires some type of articulable suspicion that the person you are stopping has or is about to commit a crime.

A cop has the right to go up to anyone and ask them who they are, why they are in the area etc., but the person does not have to answer any of those questions unless they are being detained in connection to the commission of a crime. Failing to answer those basic questions is not, in and of itself, grounds for reasonable suspicion of a crime but it could elevate an officer's level of suspicion if other factors are present.

FWIW this is all how it happens in a hypothetical perfect world, as I'm sure we're all aware this is NOT how it goes down in real life and I would NOT recommend refusing to ID yourself to an officer in the near future.

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I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that in at least a couple states one must carry an ID on them at all times. Not sure of the penalties for not doing so, or for the conditions under which they must produce one. I could have this all wrong though.

[bkholdem]

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Ok serious question here and this one really burns me up good....Why the hell do the police spend so much time trying to give me speeding tickets on the wealthy side of town (let's face it speeding 10-15 miles over is no crime) when on the other side of town guys are slinging crack rock and killing guys?

I mean it seems the cops give tickets to make moniez....hell, aren't i the guy paying your salary after all? who cares if my license plate is a month overdue or if i do a rolling stop. Its not serious crime.

Also, why do cops give me these tickets and then have the balls to call my house asking for donations to the police dept? R they just insane? What they need donations for when they make a damn fortune giving tickets?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was not aware of it at all, but only a small % goes to the dept. The rest goes to the state.

I really don't know why they work on speeding as compared to the drugs, but my only guess is that drug work is time consuming working undercover or with confidential informants. For traffic, police can be out there and it doesn't take much to park and watch.

I don't know anything about calling houses looking for donations. We don't do that in my area. There is no fortune to be made in citations.

And before anyone asks, there are no such things as "quotas."

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Is there such a thing as political pressure on police departments for civil infractions in addition to criminal ones?

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We don't deal with civil law.

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Traffic citations are considered criminal?

[bkholdem]

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blueman,

How often do you hear about corrupt police officers being sent to jail?

I think that should answer your question.

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My friends dad who was a cop did 30 days in jail. He took a person to the court and presnted him to the prosectutor telling the prosecutor that he was the victim in an assault and battery case and that he wanted to drop the charges.

It turns out that my friends dad, the cop, was actually friends with the person who committed the A&B and the guy he brought in to talk to the DA was just antoher friend and so it was a whole scam to get the charges dropped off his friend. He got busted and did 30 days in jail.

Don't feel too bad for him though, he used to be Mayor Flynn's personal driver and routinely made over 150k/yr for being a cop with his OT.