A-hole Cops: Kill'em w Kindness

[Bible_Belt]

My old truck overheated and died on me at a busy city intersection. I pushed it out of the turn lane so both lanes of traffic could get by, and popped the hood to work on it. There were holiday fireworks at the nearby city park and zoo, so state troopers were all over to direct traffic. One of them rolled up to me and got out. First he looked at me like I might be drunk, drugged, or some sort of dangerous character. I waved a big friendly wave like Gomer Pyle, and thanked him for stopping.

Then he just started screaming."I'm in charge of this intersection and you have to move this vehicle!"

"Yes, sir. Can you help me jump start it?"
"I don't have cables!"
"I do. Just pull up and I'll jump it."

After he popped his hood, he wouldn't let me touch his battery. "Give me those! I'll handle this."

Then he kept yelling at me about when to try to start the truck and when to wait. It still wouldn't start, so he yelled some more about how it had to be moved.

I said, "ok, I'll push it."
"I'm not helping you push this thing!"
"I can do it by myself."
"No you can't!"
"I just don't want to get hit by a car."
"No problem, I'll block traffic for you."

Then I pushed the truck about fifty yards across seven lanes of traffic while he did his cop car maneuvering to block traffic. I could tell he'd been trained about how to do that and seemed to enjoy it.

Then as soon as my truck was parked on a side street, he came over and talked to me for half an hour, finally acting like a human being for the first time. We joked around about all sorts of sh!t; he's actually a nice guy.

Sosuave talks about setting the frame with women. There are also frames to every other human interaction. Often they compete with each other.

Cop's Frame: You are a dastardly villain, and I am society's white knight, here to protect her from your evil ways!

My Frame: I'm a naive, innocent, non-threatening good ole boy goofball. Being mean to me is like kicking a puppy. You're just going to feel bad later.

Those are two very opposite frames, aren't they? That's not the type of conflict that gets solved instantly; it takes a few minutes. It would have been very easy for me to get mad and lose the frame contest. It wasn't my fault the truck broke down. I didn't deserve to get screamed at. But if I had gotten mad, then I'd have lost. And probably gone to jail; I'm as big of an assh0le as any cop when I get mad.

When you stick to the kill'em with kindness frame, another person's negativity slides right off of you. 'Water off a duck's back' is one analogy. To me it also seems like The Matrix where Neo finally learns to fight; he's invincible to attack with minimal effort on his own part. The other person will inevitably get tired of attacking when nothing lands.

A battle of frames is a contest in psychology; whoever has the stronger mind wins. That goes for cops, women, and anyone else who ever opposes you.

 

[logicallefty]

F this cop. Get his badge number and report him to the highest authority possible. Skip the ones in between. He could have used his squad car to help control traffic, or called for backup, then helped you push.. NO EXCUSE. This is the SERVE part of his job.

When I was a cop I helped folks push cars in the rain, shoveled sidewalks so old ladies could get out of their houses after a blizard, shoveled horse **** off the road, gave drunks rides home from the bar so they didn't have to drive and have me stop them DUI, bought people gas with my own money when they ran out, worked overtime with no pay so I could hunt down dog owners and keep dogs from going to the pound, all kinds of stuff like this.. This is what ALL cops should be doing to some extent. But they don't. It's called "Community Oriented Policing". Ask most cops, expecially in big cities, they dont have clue what that is.. Look it up. It exists and all cops should know it and practice it every possible time they can.

Im really disapointed in cops these days. They make false arrests, they shoot dogs, they go off on people like maniacs.... They have really gone down hill over the last few years, IMO.

 

[logicallefty]

You know what the senior cops would have done? Probably given the jerk cop a commendation for "doing his job" and "ensuring the public safety."

I don't think some people realize just how much the police are really like a gang. The traffic cop could have shot bible belt and he probably would have gotten off/received a commendation.

Yeah they are. My old department was not. We really wern't, I swear on my daugher's life on that. But many departments are just like gangs. Worse because of the legal powers they have.

In my ordeal with my ex in 2012 I reported a County Deputy to the Chairman of the County Board. I went straight to Go and bypassed everything in between. While I didn't get the exact result I wanted, I got all of the county deputies afraid of me now and they should never bother me again. I also got the State's Attorney telling me that when I petition to get my criminal record expunged, his office is not going to object to it (because he knows all of the facts that really happened and knows that legally I was falsely arrested by his deputies).

 

[Married Buried]

Cops aren't kind. I was pulled over the other day for driving erratically, and he wanted me to do the sobriety test outside the car. I said NO just give me the breathalyzer. I blew a 0. When the guy went to get the breathalyzer, I looked over my shoulder and his partner was spying on me through the back window. They let me go.

 

[Robert28]

Last year I had to run 3 cops and a drug dealer off of my farm for trespassing. I happened to be riding my 4 wheeler and noticed 3 trucks go back on one of my roads that went towards a field. I decided to go see who they were. Turned out to be 3 undercover cops and some redneck looking meth head informant and they were supposedly setting up a meeting to catch some drug dealer. On MY land. Without MY permission. Needless to say that weren't gonna fly so well with me. I told them all to leave because this was private property and I even pointed out a no trespassing sign that was 20 feet from them. It should have ended easily but it didn't, I had to start dialing the number of my attorney before they agreed to leave.

 

[logicallefty]

Last year I had to run 3 cops and a drug dealer off of my farm for trespassing. I happened to be riding my 4 wheeler and noticed 3 trucks go back on one of my roads that went towards a field. I decided to go see who they were. Turned out to be 3 undercover cops and some redneck looking meth head informant and they were supposedly setting up a meeting to catch some drug dealer. On MY land. Without MY permission. Needless to say that weren't gonna fly so well with me. I told them all to leave because this was private property and I even pointed out a no trespassing sign that was 20 feet from them. It should have ended easily but it didn't, I had to start dialing the number of my attorney before they agreed to leave.

If your attorney was not available you also could have called the cops on the cops. Many don't know you can do this, but you most certainly can. But you have to call another agency directly. So call county on city cops, call State on county, call county or State on Feds, etc.

No cop want the cops called on them, especially while on duty. Watch the tune change really fast.

I was a city cop and I pulled a county deputy over one time in his squad car for doing 85 in a 30mph past a school when he didnt have lights on and there was nothing going on... other than him being a disrespectful jerk. I told him if he wants to drive like a maniac then get the F out of my town... He did.

 

[dasein]

I hate cops, based on my friends', family's, clients' and my own experiences over the years. Disagree with OP that the cop was a "good guy" in the end. He just didn't get any play out of you, and so decided to act nice hoping some other opportunity would come up giving him the chance to mess with you on a different pretext.

Logicallefty, I truly wish we had more like you down South where I am but we don't. Good on OP for not getting towed, that's probably what would have happened to me.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Hating cops for being assh0les is like hating the sky for being blue. You might be right, but it's not going to get you anywhere. It's emotional baggage that only holds you back and drags you down. It's just like hating women - there are a multitude of reasons to justify it, but it's not productive.

And I did get towed, for free, because a complete stranger let me use his AAA card. Then two nice older ladies let me park at their duplex, invited me inside, and I ate their food and drank their beer for three hours while I waited on my ride. I think the lady would have let me live on her couch. She was trying to give me money, but I refused.

There's good and bad in everybody. When you carry negative emotional baggage, you tend to see more of the bad. And what you see in someone is what you're going to bring out of them. It works on a jedi mind trick kind of level to make people do what you want. I was stuck in a rough neighborhood getting screamed at by a cop, and then within a few minutes, the cop was my buddy and strangers were helping me. That wouldn't have happened without a positive mind.

And once again, it's like women. The cop was both an assh0le and a nice guy. No one's 100% one-dimensional. So take any given woman, is she a b!tch? Sure. Is she a nice girl? Probably sometimes. But if you go into the interaction assuming she's a b!tch, that's what you'll find. Even when I see a woman being a b!tch, I assume it's just an act. That was my first thought with the cop - he's not really an assh0le; it's just an act. And I made that idea come true.

I love that about any human interaction. It has a kind of fairy-tale thing to it, where if you believe something strongly enough then it will happen. What's really happening is just that the stronger mind is setting the frame.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

A battle of frames is a contest in psychology; whoever has the stronger mind wins. That goes for cops, women, and anyone else who ever opposes you.

There are these "36 Stratagems" from old school Chinese philosophy (circa Sun Tsu's "The Art of War," and one of them is kind of like that.

It's called "Become a Pig to Eat a Tiger" or something like that, which basically is what you did. (no pun).

When battling frames, many people simply try and assume the "dominant" frame, at the cost of obtaining their outcome.

What you did was emulate whatever frame was required in order to get your outcome, allowing the cop to keep his frame as well.

Everybody wins!

Well played, sir.

 

[dasein]

When you carry negative emotional baggage, you tend to see more of the bad.

On that we can agree. There is nothing to be gained by getting into a dominance contest with cops. The balance with cops, though, IME is to maintain an attitude of nonconfrontational wariness and terminate the encounter quickly as possible.

 

[logicallefty]

I hate cops, based on my friends', family's, clients' and my own experiences over the years. Disagree with OP that the cop was a "good guy" in the end. He just didn't get any play out of you, and so decided to act nice hoping some other opportunity would come up giving him the chance to mess with you on a different pretext.

Logicallefty, I truly wish we had more like you down South where I am but we don't. Good on OP for not getting towed, that's probably what would have happened to me.

Thank you Sir. Unfortunately we are starting to run low on good cops around here too. That's why I am holding out for a job at once specific department before I go back into it, because I know for 110% sure they are ethical and honest. Many of the others around here are not, and I won't work for them no matter how much I get paid.

For most of the bad situations between citizens and cops that go down lately, NOT ALL, but I say MOST.. I put the majority of the blame on the cop. It is they who are trained to be better humans, and it is they who are supposed to hold the higher standard and prevent as many altercations as possible. People are legally in their right to vent back to a cop, they are only breaking the law when they specifically don't comply with a specific order the cop gives them. It is the cop who needs to keep their cool, know the law, and know when the person has broken it and when they haven't.

I think things are starting to get interesting though now that people are busting out their phones and recording bad cops doing bad things. I hope more of that continues.

 

[FBJ]

what's the purpose of getting a cop's badge number? It's not like they will be disciplined

They will be placed on desk duty or suspended without pay. They will never be FIRED

 

[logicallefty]

what's the purpose of getting a cop's badge number? It's not like they will be disciplined

They will be placed on desk duty or suspended without pay. They will never be FIRED

True, in most cases no immediate action will be taken. But here is what you do: You report him to the highest person you can. Nobody wants the top person down looking at your name in bad light, and all of the people between you and that top person don't want it either..

You can threaten a lawsuit followed up with a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") Request for the purpose of "discovery" for your possible future lawsuit. In the request you ask for his past disciplinary record . You can take it further yat and do FOIA requests on his Emails (sent, recieved, deleted, etc) and ask for stuff. For example, ask for any Email with your name in it, or any Email with the word "fvcking idiot" in it if he called you a "fvcking idiot". How many other people did he ***** to his coworker about being a "fvcking idiot" besides you? FOIA is a corrupt public employee's worst nightmare..

The end result may be nothing.. But you will do what I call "shake the tree". Get him scared of you and 'maybe' make him think twice before calling the next person a "fvcking idiot".

Oh yeah, adding this too.. FOIA requests can be done on squad car audio/video he recorded... Watch him and his IT guy squirm as they decide to either produce the video of him calling you a "fvcking idiot", or decide to delete it and say the system was broken at the time.. HAHA now we are sweating.... Does that IT guy want to risk his job for this crooked officer? See where I am going?

 

[dasein]

what's the purpose of getting a cop's badge number?

In many cases you will encounter more than one cop at a time. You need to know all their names because you never know how that might help you in your case.

 

[ArcBound]

1,000,000% agree with this.

I said in another post, if you act with such positivity and the fact that you are only looking for a good time, then even the negative people out to bring you down can't help but smile and eventually become happy.

 

[Married Buried]

There's good and bad in everybody. When you carry negative emotional baggage, you tend to see more of the bad. And what you see in someone is what you're going to bring out of them. It works on a jedi mind trick kind of level to make people do what you want. I was stuck in a rough neighborhood getting screamed at by a cop, and then within a few minutes, the cop was my buddy and strangers were helping me. That wouldn't have happened without a positive mind.

That's what I did when I got pulled over last week for driving erratically. He said I kept speeding up and slowing down. When he pulled me even though I had something he wanted to find right in the compartment next to me I said "HOW YOU DOING SIR" and made eye contact the whole time and was confident through the whole breath test ordeal, I even said "HOW YOU DOING sir" to his partner when I caught him spying on me through the rear window. I questioned why he pulled me, I said there was construction back there. He tried to bribe me into doing to roadside test, he said "if there is something on the breathalyzer if you do the road test I can let you go"... I said "no thanks just give me the breathalyzer". He said "why are your rear windows down your AC doesn't work? I said "correct it doesn't". He said "are you on any medication?" I said "no sir".

He didn't even let me answer that question about the windows being down he just assumed, guess he was in a hurry. I laugh when I watch COPS and see people openly give damaging information to the cops thinking being honest will get them off.

You can completely legally decline to do the roadside tests, I don't know why anyone would do it unless you have been drinking and try to get out of it. If he asked to search the car I would have said "no thanks I want to get home".

Last words they said "you are free to go". Loved hearing that.

 

[TheVirtualMind]

You can completely legally decline to do the roadside tests, I don't know why anyone would do it unless you have been drinking and try to get out of it.

False. All states have an "implied consent" law when you get your license which states that, in order to get your license, you consent to getting the "roadside test" if requested by a police officer. Declining during a traffic stop WILL lead to your arrest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent

 

[Married Buried]

False. All states have an "implied consent" law when you get your license which states that, in order to get your license, you consent to getting the "roadside test" if requested by a police officer. Declining during a traffic stop WILL lead to your arrest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent

You're wrong. You can refuse the physical roadside test where you get out of your car and walk on one leg or whatever, what you you cannot refuse is the breathalyzer.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I think he means declining the roadside sobriety test - walk a line, stand on one foot, etc., in favor of blowing the portable breathalyzer instead. You can decline one test to take another.

In Illinois, you may decline all tests, but they suspend your license for 1 year instead of the six months it gets suspended for DUI. Lawyers I know usually say to decline the tests when you think you might fail; it gives them a better chance to beat the dui charge due to lack of evidence. However, beating the criminal charge is a separate issue from the license suspension, which is an administrative action and almost impossible to beat.

I've always been told to decline the portable breathalyzer, and ask to be tested with the real one at the station. It's more accurate, and they have to take you to it. Unless you just slammed a bunch of booze that hasn't hit you yet, time will make your bac reading go down. The downside is that they will likely get to impound and tow your car.

I was with my gf one night when she got a dui after blowing .07 - Illinois advertises that .08 gets you a dui. Well so does .07 if they are in the mood to write it. Writing the ticket is at the officer's discretion, regardless of what you blow on the breathalyzer.

 

[Married Buried]

I think he means declining the roadside sobriety test - walk a line, stand on one foot, etc., in favor of blowing the portable breathalyzer instead. You can decline one test to take another.

In Illinois, you may decline all tests, but they suspend your license for 1 year instead of the six months it gets suspended for DUI. Lawyers I know usually say to decline the tests when you think you might fail; it gives them a better chance to beat the dui charge due to lack of evidence. However, beating the criminal charge is a separate issue from the license suspension, which is an administrative action and almost impossible to beat.

I've always been told to decline the portable breathalyzer, and ask to be tested with the real one at the station. It's more accurate, and they have to take you to it. Unless you just slammed a bunch of booze that hasn't hit you yet, time will make your bac reading go down. The downside is that they will likely get to impound and tow your car.

I was with my gf one night when she got a dui after blowing .07 - Illinois advertises that .08 gets you a dui. Well so does .07 if they are in the mood to write it. Writing the ticket is at the officer's discretion, regardless of what you blow on the breathalyzer.

You can decline the roadside test (walking on one leg) with no suspension of license. The only thing you are required to take without punishment for declining is the breath test. That is the cops only weapon.

I know it's true because I told this to the cop and he didn't argue with me he agreed.