Encounters with police

[KeithKSR]

I keep hearing about how black men have all these encounters with police because of profiling. Numerous people go on about getting pulled over because they are black. I think they are overlooking an even bigger reason to get pulled over.

I've been pulled over many times for made up reasons by police. I've never been cited for anything as I always have had my license and insurance info with me and hadn't done anything to be pulled over for anyway. It is my opinion that there are many traffic stops conducted in this manner, but people who are doing things they shouldn't be doing, don't have a license, insurance, etc. end being cited.

Thoughts? How many of you all have been pulled over for made up reasons, but because you didn't really do anything wrong went on your way?

[badrose]

I can't recall any times I've been pulled over for no reason. I've gone through check points for tag/registration and sobriety and once for a slightly expired tag for which they let me off with a warning. Speeding, however, is another story. (actually several, but probably less than 10 tickets)

[UKHistory]

I was actually thinking about this today. When I was 17 or 18 I was pulled over not stopping at a stop sign.

I stopped at that stop sign. Not a doubt in my mind. I respectfully spoke up and said I was sure I did. The officer told me "not to lie to him" and that he had it on tape. It was clear in his choice of words and tone he was exerting dominance.

I use this term as the gentleman clearly was behaving like an ape.

Interestingly enough I did not get a ticket. I learned from that encounter and was taken aback that he treated me not like a citizen but as a criminal.

That was my first experience alone dealing with a police officer.

What really strikes me in this conversation is that Keith very nonchalantly states that he was pulled over by the police for no valid reason.

Based on Keith's comments here it is fair to say that along with being a staunch UK fan is a conservative white man.

Keith has just described in what my view is a violation of the law the and an abuse of police power. Keith says he was stopped for no reason at all.

I wasn't given a ticket and neither it appears was Keith. A big difference Keith seems to shrug that this way of policing is acceptable.

I am not an imposing figure. And because I don't feel threatened or discriminated I did not try and react in defense of my actions. Had I stood up and said I stopped at the stop sign, I would have been given a ticket at the very least.

I complied and went on my way. I would have to say a lot of African American teenagers have not responded in that way. Perhaps many adult African American males would not have responded in that way either.

This particular young officer with his quick to talk to me in a disrespectful manner clearly is in the Barney and not Andy category of law enforcement.

I recognized this officer was quite prepared and perhaps wanting to show how tough he was.

I did not like that experience. But it showed me how to speak to officers and react humbly in their presence on the side of the road with no legal defense at my disposal.

I learned to fear police that day. I learned to be very weary of the Barney mentality that exists in every police department to one extent or another.

You just hope Barney is not stopping you or running the show at the police station.

But it says a lot that a conservative, pro-police individual would state very honestly he believes police routinely make what amounts to illegal stops and searches letting "the good people go".

[badrose]

Is it illegal to stop someone for no reason? IDK What about checkpoints where cars are lined up for a mile and a half? Just asking.

[UKHistory]

Is it illegal to stop someone for no reason? IDK What about checkpoints where cars are lined up for a mile and a half? Just asking.

Random checkpoints stop everyone. I am not a fan but at least everyone at a checkpoint is being treated the same.

Selecting a car that is not speeding, is not a danger to others driving, does not match the description of a vehicle involved with a crime and has done nothing to create in the mind of the police officer "probably cause" I believe is illegal.

Stopping people for no reason is the very definition of tyranny. And it is a waste of time and resources for the police to stop someone who doesn't appear to have done anything wrong when they could be watching for someone to be doing wrong.

[KeithKSR]

I was pulled over once in 2006 for running a stop sign, not only had I stopped, but had stopped, saw a car's headlights half a mile away and asked my wife if she thought we had time to pull out and then we chuckled about it; all before I pulled out. I pulled out and drove nearly a mile and saw blue lights behind me. Pulled over, was surprised to see the officer pull in behind me. This was late at night, about midnight, we had made a Walmart run to get some overlooked items for my daughter's wedding reception the next day. The officer's first question was had I been drinking. He immediately saw when I started speaking that I was not only stone cold sober, but offended by the question. The car we were driving had been purchased the previous week and had a temp tag.

Another time I was pulled over, leaving the same town and same stretch of road. This was in 2009. At that time we had a 2007 Dodge Charger. I was pulled over for driving too close to the white line. Not crossing the white line, not weaving, but driving too close to the white line. I live on a narrow road and am accustomed to driving on the far right as in most places cars have to keep to the edge of the road, or off the road, to pass. Again the first question asked was if I had been drinking, I told him sarcastically, "Yeah, diet Mountain Dew and held up my fountain drink."

Both of those incidences occurred in Morehead, a small college town, by the city police there. The town of Morehead is wet, most adjoining areas outside the town itself are dry.

Am I fine with it? No!

[badrose]

When I was a young adult, about 21 I think, me and a buddy decided to drive to Huntington, WV (about a 20/25 min. drive) and maybe meet some girls there. Along the way on US 52 we saw a C&W bar and decided to check it out. Ordered a beer a piece and nursed them for a while, nothing going on, so we left, headed to Huntington. Soon after, we decided to turn around because we were no longer in the mood. No place to turn around for another 10 minutes except at any number of NO U-Turn signs. It was dark and absolutely no traffic, none, zilch. So I decided to save time and gas and use one of them. Hadn't got 100 yds before I saw the blue lights. Pulled over, there was no talking about it. A $50 ticket which was conveniently payable at a satellite office a couple of miles on up. I went in and payed. On my may back to the car my buddy asked me where the cop was. "He's back inside", I said. He said, Let's go. I asked why. Let's go. (more firmly) I get in the car. "What'd you do?" "I let the air out of his right rear tire." Nothing came of it. Good friend. Some time later it was discovered that several patrolmen had been running a racket with that MO.

[KeithKSR]

We got pulled over on 52 between Ashland and South Point back around '99. We had a car with a temp tag taped to the back window and a Lawrence County sheriffs deputy pulled us over. My wife was driving. We've been pulled over three different times with temp tags.

[StuBleedsBlue2]

I always like to hear the question asked to black people.

Personally, I've been a victim of police brutality and over-zealous cops and had a past co-worker win a $2.5MM lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, so his story was way worse than any of mine, all for being in the right place at the wrong time.

I am definitely not one that thinks that 99.9% of cops are good. That number to me is closer to 75-80%, and that's not just a guess from my personal experiences, my father-in-law is a retired Chicago Police officer, and I'm not so sure he'd put that number that high.

[badrose]

^^^Not sure Chicago is the best reference for an overall estimate.^^^ Somewhere between Chicago and Mayberry should ballpark it pretty good.

[KeithKSR]

I always like to hear the question asked to black people.

Personally, I've been a victim of police brutality and over-zealous cops and had a past co-worker win a $2.5MM lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, so his story was way worse than any of mine, all for being in the right place at the wrong time.

I am definitely not one that thinks that 99.9% of cops are good. That number to me is closer to 75-80%, and that's not just a guess from my personal experiences, my father-in-law is a retired Chicago Police officer, and I'm not so sure he'd put that number that high.

It all depends on where you are at. Bad apples hide easier in a larger basket than in a small basket. I don't think the number is 99.9% nationwide, but would put in over 90%. Not every town is Chicago.

[CitizenBBN]

Chicago is one of the top 5 most corrupt cities in America, arguably top 2. I'm sure their police force reflects that general level of mismanagement.

I doubt it's as high as 99% are great, that would be by far the best profession anywhere on Earth, but I"m betting overall it's still very high.

I've had some bad encounters with police, and like some others recounted on here almost all of them if not all of them center on cops hunting for drunk drivers. One put a friend of mine through all kinds of nonsense b/c he was sure he'd caught one, b/c she left the Outback late having hung out with us. But she only nursed one beer the whole time and was stone sober. She blew 0.0 and he still wanted to take her in, and still made her leave her car with no grounds to do so.

He also waited and followed her a couple of miles from the restaurant hoping she'd screw up. Same kind of thing Keith had happen, he pulled her over for nothing figuring she'd be drunk enough to bust.

I had the same thing happen leaving my office downtown very late, they figured I must have been at a bar and maybe I slept a while and was driving home (it was like 3-4am).

Sometimes they let you off on those, sometimes they give you a ticket for nonsense just to do it.

But I don't really blame those guys 100% either, the feds give out funding to do exactly what they are doing, and will pay cop salaries if they are out there specifically to catch drunks.

I just got pulled over a couple of weeks ago for not wearing a seatbelt. That was it, no other violations. I know he was out in a certain area doing it b/c it was a "click it or ticket" drive and that is all done b/c the feds and the state will give the departments money to do those things.

That's a policy problem, not a bad cop problem.

I got profiled when I was young, and there's no doubt some cops will pull over kids driving fast more than adults, etc. So there are a lot of little biases, and it's good to address such things, but it's not worthy of riots in the streets.

It's true there are cops who aren't shining credits to their job, and there are some who are flat corrupt and bad, but it's not nearly the epidemic BLM and Obama would have us believe, and pretty much all the credible data says so.

[CitizenBBN]

BTW, another thing that again is an influence on this that dosn't get addressed, and this one does go to something conservatives generally support and drive, which is the war on drugs.

There is so much money involved it has led to corruption of law enforcement at every level, and once you let in that kind of behavior it no doubt bleeds over to the treatment of suspects and overall lack of professionalism. Just like in Prohibition when cops looked the other way for a payoff.

Eliminating that market would eliminate a lot of the temptation and corruption, and that would translate into more professionalism in general.

That IMO may very well be an epidemic, far moreso than racial bias in shootings. Not every cop looks the other way on drugs or is shaving the law here and there on it, but it's far more rampant than it needs to be, as a reflection of how rampant drug use is generally of course.

[kingcat]

Louisville, Shively, and the JCPD could easily compete with Chicago. The strip clubs once were run by police, and their gf,s and wives were the dancers.

Back in the eighties a friend driving six of us around stopped to take an emergency leak in some bushes behind a club. We were blocked in by a Shively patrol car and called every name in the book..begging us to run and saying we smelled like farm animals being country hicks from Hardin county. As they decided to allow us back in the car , me being last, the guy held a pistol to the back of my head. Told me he could shoot me in the back of the head and no one would say a thing. Then they told the driver to leave the city of they would kill us.

We left. And one of the guys pulled an ounce of pot from under his seat. Great police work huh?

We thought so. City hicks are pretty darn funny

[Darrell KSR]

I was stopped twice for "rolling" a stop sign, and when they didn't discover anything untoward with me, allowed to depart with no ticket and no warning. I can't guarantee I didn't completely stop, but I can tell you that my kids (and others) that used to ride with me said I was the "granniest" driver they had ever seen. "Mr. Darrell, you're the only person I know who completely stops at all the stop signs," one of them told me years ago.

The other times I've been stopped, I've deserved it, whether by exceeding the posted speed limit, or by doing something stupid, like turning in on the wrong side of a divided streetway. (Knocking on wood here) I've been stopped six straight times without receiving a ticket, other than one warning ticket--3 times speeding (3 different states--Murfreesboro, TN, interstate in Louisiana, and street in Vestavia Hills, Alabama), the two stop signs, and a dumb turn where I actually went down the wrong way in a street about 10 feet before turning into a convenience store as the police turned on their lights. On that one, I rolled down my window, and he pulled up adjacent to me, and grinned and said, "Do you know what you did?" I replied, "Yes, officer--I pulled in on the wrong side of that divider," and he said, "Good enough. Have a nice evening."

Helps being a middle-aged Caucasian, not playing loud music and not driving a fast looking car, and being a non-threatening kinda guy in those instances.

[dan_bgblue]

I have never been stopped unless I deserved to be pulled over for one infraction or another. I have never had a bad experience with the LEO that stopped me. I have always been respectful and courteous during the encounter. Maybe that helps, I dunno.

[StuBleedsBlue2]

^^^Not sure Chicago is the best reference for an overall estimate.^^^ Somewhere between Chicago and Mayberry should ballpark it pretty good.

I spent the first 23 years of my life in Kentucky. It's not all Chicago. I've had 4 bad experiences with police and 3 of them were in Ky. I'll also add, that only one of those instances, walking 4 blocks home from a bar on NYE's and getting picked up for an AI, was I actually "convicted" of a crime. That $4 bail and $52 fine made me a hardened criminal. It doesn't explain why the cop couldn't just let me walk the last 2 blocks home and then sucker punching me in the stomach and taking all the cash from my wallet.

Another incident, I was a designated driver, taking home a friend and driving his car which was a piece of crap and did not want to drive it as it had a busted speedometer. It was a foggy night and I was tired, so I was being extra cautious. Much to my surprise, I was pulled over. I had no idea why. The cop told me that I was driving TOO SLOW, going 26 in a 35. If anybody has any familiarity with Frankfort, it was on Wilkinson Blvd on a steep incline. The officer told my completely wasted friend to leave, so with little ability to even walk, there he was stumbling down the middle of the road on a foggy night. He then precedes to have me walk the line on the steep incline. I had been drinking earlier in the day, but not a drop in nearly 8 hours, and was very capable of driving. Well, my overall clumsiness and walking the line on a steep incline, against my pleading to move down 200 feet and do it on an even plane, the cop decided to arrest me for a DUI. My breathalizer result turned out to be a .15, which absolutely stunned me. We immediately hired a lawyer, who turned out to discover that this cop had a practice of over-arresting people and using faulty breathalizers that could produce results 3 times a normal limit. We won the case. Later, the cop was suspended and eventually relieved of his duties, for planting evidence at a scene.

Another instance, it was right after I graduated from high school. I was working two jobs and playing in a band. My family went on a vacation, without me, and I was in charge of watching the house. My parents knew that we would be having band practices and that there would be people over at the house. We had a hard rule, not to play after dark, but dark in Frankfort in Summer can be around 10 pm. Me being young, 10 pm wasn't anything, but not to my neighbors. Obviously, we upset them on night 1. There weren't wild parties or anything else, but 8-10 cars in front of my house and neighbors houses too. I also had to be up at 3 am everyday to deliver newspapers. On night 2, I was working, but I let a few friends hang out at the house just to chill. A couple of unexpected guests, but friends, show up. So does the State Police. There was 1 person there that was drunk, everybody else was just watching sports, playing cards or just hanging out. He "busted" the party and proceeded to come by the house every night until my Parents got back. When they finally did, he basically made up this huge lie about busting a raging party. I prepared them for the visit. Of course, they talked to the neighbors, me, my friends before the cop stopped by. When he spoke to my parents, they basically told him to 'F himself and never come back by the house. I went on to college, but obviously he had copied all the license plate numbers of my friends that came by each night, and over the next several years, would pull them over for no reason at all. A couple of years later, I made friends with a very attractive female who told me of a story about getting pulled over for speeding and the cop offered to rip up to ticket for sex. Same cop. Never found out what happened to him.

My one negative incident in Chicago, I know was racially motivated, as I got ambushed by a couple of off-duty, completely wasted latino cops, that decided to arrest my friend and I, as I was giving him a lift home on a Friday night, about 6 hours before we were heading to South Bend for my 1st trip to a Notre Dame football game. My "lesson" there was don't be on a busy street on a weekend, with bumper to bumper traffic and not let a guy get in. He started yelling at us, flashed his gun, and we did our best to high-tail it out of there. We were arrested, detained, but made our trip. The case didn't even make it to court before it was thrown out. Just an asshole, drunk cop flexing his muscle.

Now, I'm not going to say that I'm a squeaky clean individual, because I've done things in my life where I probably should have been arrested. I'm also going to say that I have had mostly good experiences with Chicago police and they do an amazing job, for the most part with handling crowds in the city, which is what my greatest benefit. I always thank them when I see them on the streets too. Honestly, Chicago cops make all Kentucky cops that I've ever encountered look like a bunch of Barney Fife's. I know that's not the case either, but I wouldn't be so sure that Chicago cops are what's dragging down that good cop percentage. They just tend to be more visibly accountable(if you can really say that) than most small town cops, where their accountability tends to be buried, at least in my experiences.

[kingcat]

A good cop, which the majority are, are a blessing. Then there are cops who had a self serving agenda from the outset.

Those who become cold and uncaring because of the people they deal with on the job, are usually just part of the latter

[DanISSELisdaman]

I'll be 63 years old next month and have been driving legally since I was 16 and I have been pulled over only twice by the Police, both times state police. The first time was in Dayton Ohio for speeding and I was guilty as a dog. The officer couldn't have been any nicer or more professional and let me off with a warning. The other time was a KSP officer and he said he pulled me over because I was weaving and I'm sure he was right. I was coming home from work at 5:00 A.M. and was fighting to stay awake. He told me why he had pulled me over and asked if I had been drinking and I informed him that I had worked all night and was having trouble staying awake. He said he could certainly understand that and to be careful and if I started getting too sleepy, to pull over and get out and walk around. He was exactly what LEO should have been. I'm probably a little biased toward Police Officers, because my brother was one. He served in Washington D.C. back in the days of the bad riots they had there. He was also in the FBI for 6 years and nobody hated a crooked cop worse than he did. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago, after moving back to Ky and retiring.

[MickintheHam]

When I was in my 20s I drove a Datsun 240Z, Japanese Racing Yellow. I was certainly profiled. But, I probably didn't do anything to keep from being profiled. Mr. Mick do you know you failed to signal your turn. Mr. Mick you have a taillight out. Mr. Mick I clocked you going 73 in a 70 zone on the interstate. (nevermind it was Sunday morning at 8:30 am on my way back from New Orleans). Police have a right to stop you. And yes, some people draw their attention by how they behave. I'm sorry, it's part of life.

So, if you are driving 90 MPH on the interstate, if you are weaving in and out of traffic, and if you are driving a BMW with the windows heavily tinted, you should expect to be pulled over, asked to produce license and registration, and questioned as to whether you have a weapon in the car.

[MickintheHam]

..... have been driving legally since I was 16

I had to laugh at the structure of you statement. Good People Brewing Company, a microbrewery here in the Ham, has as their slogan, "Brewing legally since 2011".

[suncat05]

In order to do a legal traffic stop, the police have to have "probable cause" to stop you. The police do not have "the right" to stop anyone without probable cause. I want to be 100% right when I say or do something. Am I always? No, but being legally right in how I do my job is first and foremost on my mind.