Good Cop, Bad Cop

Same thing in my neck of the woods, there is very little real crime in the area so they pounce when they think they have even the slightest reason to do so whether justified or not. I've lived here for more than 30 years and most of the old-time cops I knew by name and they knew me but most have retired now, lots of young new guys that seem to be here and gone in few years. The old timers were on the force for their entire careers. One of the newbies stopped me and my brother on our bikes. We ran out of beer the one night so made a beer run 3 blocks down the road to the local bar and he stopped us on the way back, even mentioned that it was illegal to drive a bike under the influence and I swear he was actually thinking of giving a sobriety test. One thing to understand is this a 25 mph street that is lucky to see 1 car every two or three hours at that time of night. The stopping part I could understand but he was quite ingnorant even after we showed him our ID's and the getting arrested for "BUI" was almost laughable.

Seems like a worthy enough discussion to have its own thread.

Generally most of my experiences with the state police have been quite good, I'll give you my most humorous cop story and this one was a Statey.

We're up the river, the same spot we're going to have get together this spring/fall. It's a hot Sunday afternoon of about 90+ degrees and we're all down in the river taking a swim. I forgot to take my wallet out of my shorts so I end up losing it in the river. Only wallet I ever lost but I was pretty young at the time and the only thing in it that was imporatant was the license, otherwise just a few bucks. Anyhow it's time to pack up and I have to load a canoe on the truck, I didn't have the proper straps so I just tie it in the back so it's sticking out quite bit. Completely safe but apparently the law is it can't be more than 3 feet even if you have a flag on it. Should also add that I had big bag of empty beer cans and few empty bottles of liquor. Didn't drink a drop that day though, good thing.

So I'm on my way home and the Statey pulls up beside me, he decides to pull me over because of the canoe. Of course the first request is license, registration and insurance. The license of course I no longer have because it was sacrificed to the river gods. The registration for the truck is in my Uncles name and not mine. He seems to believe me about the license and actually seems to show some pity, to quote "You mean you lost your whole wallet?". So I go to give him the truck documents while he's reaching for the information my dog lunges from passenger seat and tries to take chunk out of his hand. He takes my name and address too.This was right around the time they started putting computers in the cop cars and I think he might have been able to verify it was me that way.

So after determining I'm who I say I am he gives the truck information back and he says I'll have to fix the canoe if want to proceed. I start unpacking the stuff in it, out comes the empty bottles, out comes the beer cans... He's sweating now and all he's doing is standing there, its really hot. Hell I'm sweating and I'm just in shorts. I'm by myself so I'm struggling with it a bit to get it on the roof and he decides to give me hand. So I get the damn thing on the roof with his help and look over and he's sweating bullets... After I get it strapped as best I can he takes a look at it and sees why I didn't strap it to roof to begin with. He looks at it... ponders, then decides I can't leave it like that.

So off it comes from the roof with the assistance of the Statey and back to its original position, at this time he's sweating profusely and probably wishes he never went to work that day. He gives me verbal warning and says its illegal and takes off... Probably made good story for him too... Almost got bit by dog, guy has no license, truck full of empty alcohol containers and to top it off has canoe sticking out the back of the truck 8 feet.

I'd imagine the supervisors frown on such tatics.