GOOD Cop / BAD Cop Personal Stories - SOUND OFF

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Bad cop story (well, not so much "bad" as he was "stupid") from a couple of years ago:

I was in the midst of housecleaning (I lead a boring life, what can I say) when I heard the doorbell. I opened the door to find a sheriff's deputy from a neighboring parish scowling at me, hat in hand (FYI...Louisiana has "parishes" instead of "counties").

For the sake of spicing up the story, let's call the neighboring parish "DUMBASSE" and let's call my parish "SMARTASSE", okay? Okay.

"Are you Ms. XXXXX?" asked Deputy Doofus; I told him I was...of course, my first thought was that something terrible had happened to my husband (who works in the neighboring parish) or someone else in my family, so I immediately asked if that was the reason for his visit.

He said, "No ma'm, I got a bench warrant fer yer arrest right cheayah...you gonna have to come with me, lady."

Me: "Bench warrant?!!?! For what???"

DD: "Well, you dint show up fer jury duty last week, that's why, so come on now, let's go."

Me (panicked beyond belief and beginning to cry): "Jury duty? What jury duty? I didn't get any notice about reporting for jury duty!!"

DD: "Yes'm, one got mailed out to ya address about two months ago...you sher nuff did get one, so come on now....let's go, lady. You aint' gonna gimme no trouble now, are ya? Looks like a nice neighborhood here...don't do nuthin that you gonna be embarrassed about later, people gonna talk about cha...let's go!"

Me: (hysterical, shaking, near-fainting) "Well, can I see the warrant??!"

DD (sighing heavily and rolling his eyes, to convey just how put-upon he felt, and that he just could not believe that his morning was starting out this way): "Here ya go...I ain't lyin, am I?"

Me: (ignoring DD while I read the warrant....sure enough, it has my name on it, but it shows my OLD address...we moved away from there 5 years ago.)

DD produces handcuffs and places one big, oafish foot over my threshold...

DD (smug as all get-out): "Lady, let's go, now...! (he has cuffs in one hand, pepper spray in the other)

Me: "Officer, according to this warrant, I was to report for jury-duty in the town of Dumbasse...I have not resided in Dumbasse for at least 5 years, and I have not been registered to vote in Dumbasse for at least 5 years. Are you aware that that the address on the warrant is not the same as the address your body is standing on?"

DD: "Huh?"

Me: "Officer, THIS (me, pointing at the ground) is "1000 Einstein Avenue, Happyville,...WHICH IS LOCATED IN SMARTASSE parish...SMARTASSE parish is not the same parish as DUMBASSE parish, is it? How'd you get my new address, anyway?!!??"

DD: "Well, I went to the registrar's office in Dumbasse parish and they had yer new address on their computer system over there (light bulb over his head appears, but lights up veeerrrryyy sloooowwwlllyy...then, mumbling, moving quickly toward his patrol car: "youhaveanicedaymamsorrytodisturbyathankyaferyatime."

Idiot..........




[edit on 11-5-2008 by ezziboo]

Can of worms Dave

Can of worms....



But I will watch with rapt attention...

Starred and Flagged..

Semper

GOOD COP

when i was about 19 my friends and i would drink alot and find random spots around the area to hang out and drink and smoke an illegal herb. haha

anyway the cops rolled up on us and of course were scared and hate cops cuz they are usually jerks. anyway they were pretty darn cool. they were polite and stuff. we had to dump out all our alcohol. anyway so they talked to us one of them was like "sorry to bust the party but you can't drink here i know whats it like to be young i used to do the same but unfortunately you can't do that here is a park and your underage " stuff like that but he was nice about it.anyway to the cop asked me if i had anything on me that i shouldnt have and i happend to have a pipe.

im like well yeah i have a pipe. and hes all can i see it haha and i showed him hes all ooh nice piece haha and he said i can keep it since nothing was in it anyway!

and they looked in my friends truck a little bit and one cop came and whispered to my friend "hey umight want to dispose of that marijuana in the divider " he didnt even take it nor did he ticket us or anything we just had to pour the booze out in front of them and also my friend who was driving didnt even drink yet so no dui issue either. thank god. they said not to come there for that purpose and sent us on our way. we werelike oh my god
they were soo nice haha one was cute!

BAD COP: K this was just a couple months ago! im 24 now. anyway so my car broke down at 1 am on the freeway and it was in a weird spot like right at the end of a loop to get onto another freeway
so anyway im alone and tired (i was studying for the sheriffs exam)
anyway
i was outside of my car waiting for the tow truck guy i had my insurance papers and stuff all over my front seat
i was standing in a safe spot and i didnt want to sit in my car because people were drivng really fast in the loop!! someone peoples breaks even screetched because no one expect a random car there u know? and the car would move when others passed by i dontknow it just seemed sketchy to sit there and get hit

i was outside actually with money counting it for the tow truck dude. and a highway patrol car pulls up
im thinkin yay im not alone yay men yay you know
but i was so wrong
the officer comes out and is a jerk right off the bat. i greet him im say hello ! in a nice tone and everything. and this guy all quic "SO WHATS GOING ON HERE HUH!?" in a rude tone!
i was soo shocked it made me nervous he was rude i told him well my car broke down im waiting for the tow truck to come take it away etc.
and he didnt freakin beleive me i have no idea why my car was like dripping liquid and it smelled liek burnt oil. he was like UH HUHYEAH YEAH
and hes all SO WHY DO U HAVE MONEY IN YOUR HAND ? i said
its for the tow truck guy i was making sure i had enough
hes all UH YEAH LIKE I HAVENT HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE and he emphasized the words THAT ONE
i was like um what? he then asked so what kind of directions did u tell the towing company

i told him waht i said and oh my god you know what he said he was like OH AND U EXPECT THEM TO FIND U WITH THOSE DIRECTIONS?
he emphasized the word those
i was soo taken aback!! here i am a female ALONE AT 1 AM! OBVSIOULY stressed out becuz the car .insurance papers and such on the seat um fumes from the car and this guy was soo rude NOT ONCE did he say MAAM ARE YOU OK DO U NEED ANYTHING?? not ONCE!!!

i said well for your information the lady on the phone said i gave great detailed directions (she really did!)
i have no idea what the heck he thought i was up to but jeez! i dont look like some type of sketchy character either .

so finally he was like beleiving me and said oh okayw ell i wanted to make sure u were being helpt (B.S!!) AND then all rudely said why dont u just sit in the car and not touching anything wtf?~ he said it as he drove off in the loudspeaker.
what a jerk huh!

[edit on 11-5-2008 by TheBadge]

In the summer of 2004, I was out jogging. ATS was still two years in my future. I was stopped by a man in a black SUV. He said, "I want to talk to you about your project."

"Are you with law enforcement?" I asked?

"Something like that." He said.

"Are you with the government?" I asked.

"Something like that." He admitted.

"Do you have a warrant?" I demanded.

"Something like that." He says.

I looked around. He was by himself, which didn't make me feel any safer.
"This conversation is over, if you have no warrant."

Within two weeks, I had an incident at my house involving an unmarked white panel van, and a guy that LOOKED like he was supposed to be from the phone company.

Television portrayals of good cop/bad cop actually kept me from going to prison. Here's how:

Since watching TV shows about how two officers will work together as a good cop and a bad cop in order to 'play' a person into trusting one of them as their friend, I learned that it is a technique which is designed like the two-party political system in the US. There is no winning move on which one to confide in, because they are both on the same team!

So knowing that, I got into some trouble a few years back and sat face to face in an interrogation room with a good cop and a bad cop. They were trying to get me to talk, but being the bright man I am I remembered that I have rights not to divulge anything or confess to anything, that anything I say can and will be used against me. Nothing you say to a cop is guaranteed to be used for your benefit.

Therefore, see through the good cop/bad cop charade. They are not out to help you when they operate in this fashion.

Needless to say, I looked across the table at the bad cops demands and told him how fuzzy my memory was, then I glanced to the cop to my left who said very little and I smiled at him.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

There was this cop that gave me a hard time for years. Kicked my ass when I was 16 and confiscated my car. There was no reasoning with him. That being said, I was quite the handful in the 70's. He didn't insist I call him "Sir" but he did want me to call him "Dad".

I have been incredibly fortunate with my interaction with police. First of all I have always been highly respectful. Yes sir, no sir. I was a wild one in my teens. I really don't want to bore you with the details, but there were five instances I could have been toast. Now I'm just old and boring. Being polite to cops pays bigtime. The latest was in december. I'd just gotten out of the dr's office and found I was a lot sicker than I thought I was. Picked up my meds at giant eagle and just wanted to get home, take my meds and go to bed. I was pissed, and having a really bad day. Unfortunately I had the bright idea of running second gear in my gs400 down a hill in parma. 51 in a 35. I explained the sit to him, he gave me a seat belt violation instead, even tho I was wearing it, I always do. I wanted to hug the guy. Cut me a tremendous break. I've watched enough 'cops' to know you get what you give.
Truth is. I really do have a high degree of respect for what they do. Thought I might have wanted to be one, but I took a left in Albaquercie sp

[edit on 5/11/2008 by jpm1602]

You can find my story HERE

Its a good cop story...I think

Several years ago my daughter and I lived in the country; we came home from a meeting to find an intruder in our house. Thankfully he went out the front door as we came in the back.

I immediately dialed 911 and we went into the bathroom and locked the door to wait for the Sheriffs Deputy. Needless to say my daughter was terrified and the 20 min wait seemed to take much much longer. The 911 operator stayed on the line with us and told the deputy where we were in the house.

Please understand that the county Sheriff's department was badly understaffed at the time. He had a huge area to patrol so the wait wasn't that excessive as there were only two on duty at any given time. In fact he had left the other deputy at a murder investigation to come to our call.

When he arrived he checked the place out very thoroughly and the intruder was gone. However, he noticed that my daughter was still very scared; he asked her if there was anything he could do to make her feel a little better; he knelt down to her level and talked to her; he checked every place she asked him to including under the beds and up in the trees and any where else you can imagine a scared 7 year old might think of. He then told her that if anything else happened she should do what we did while waiting and lock ourselves in the bathroom and call 911 and he or the other deputy would be there as quickly as possible. He also promised her he would drive by our house to check on us throughout the night. He went above and beyond to assure a little girl she would be okay.

A former colleague was working as a reserve deputy (he has since been hired by them) he responded to a house fire; when he arrived the house was fully engulfed and although the fire department was on the way they hadn't yet arrived and were in fact still several minutes away. He saw two children trapped in the house. He entered the house and was able to save one. Pretty remarkable given he had no equipment to protect himself. Still he felt a tremendous amount of guilt because he was unable to save the other child. He is a wonderful, courageous man that I respect and admire.

[edit on 11-5-2008 by gallopinghordes]

"Personal stories" right? Okay, I chose one, finally. Unfortunately, I don't have a "good cop" story to go along with it.

A certain family member was driving and pulled over. It was a harassment pullover - there wasn't even a bad tail light or any other excuse. The passenger was this family member's BLIND fiance.

The cops stripped the family member on a public highway - 100% stripped - no underwear even. Angry because they found nothing and had to let my family member and his fiance go ... they dashed to said family member's new residence where he had just moved in to live with his fiance and SHOT her seeing eye dog DEAD!

The dog was not an attack dog, never made any aggressive moves toward the officers when they KICKED down the door and pillaged his residence without a warrant. Again, they found nothing ... and then ORDERED said family member to move out of the particular city ... which he did right away.

Seems POSSIBLY his crime was living with this certain fiance prior to marraige, as they yelled at him about it. They never got married after all of that.

The law just isn't the LAW down here in Texas!


[edit on 11-5-2008 by Trexter Ziam]

Changing Light Bulbs

Where I work for years, I worked a Community Police Patrol. Part of the duty is to walk through the neighborhood, usually a high crime one, and interact with the residents there. As a general rule, the criminal element is usually transplants from another area. So interaction with the community inspires trust and cooperation is combating unsavory societal elements.

In my travels, early on in my career, I met this older woman who invited me up for a glass of tea. I accepted and we developed a relationship. One of the first things she confided in me, was her frustration at getting older and not being able to do all the things she used to when she was younger. Like changing light bulbs. I offered to help her and proceeded to change all of the light bulbs in her home, and there were quite a few.

As the years progressed, it got to be a regular weekly thing for me to check with her and if she had any light bulbs out, I would go in and change them. She made me Thanksgiving dinner on a number of occasions when I was single and of course there was always the ever present glass of iced tea.

When I retired, she came into the retirement party, a much older person, but still getting around pretty good. She came up to me, grabbed my neck and while hugging me, said: “Who will ever change my light bulbs now that you are gone.”

After we both dried our tears, I brought her a glass of tea and introduced her to a good, new officer whom I can only hope is still changing her light bulbs.

This is a story that a cop friend of mine told me.

Someone i worked with needed a ride home when i lived in west Palm Beach Florida.Anyway when i get him home,a friend of mine is there and wants to know if i can take her kids to her moms.i agree and ask if she has any car seats for them, and she jumps in a van, as she says no, and then drives off.So here I am with 3 kids and they are supposed to by law be restrained in one of them car seats.I am taking the kids home driving extra careful and staying well under the speed limit so as to not attract attention to myself .I am going down a road called Kirk and as i approach the intersection of Purdy Lane the light goes yellow.I could have hit the brakes hard and stopped,but because as i was right at the edge of the intersection I proceeded.this light turns fast from yellow to red and would not surprise me if it was intentional.There is a car to my right on purdy and the front end of the car is far over to the right side and parked at an angle as if she is ready to make a right hand turn.As i am about to exit the intersection ,i can hear the roar of an engine.Instinctivly i press harder on the accelerator but my car does not react immediatly.it was an old car and hesitated momentarily if i punched the gas.i get hit in the back end by a very old lady,that i am guessing,suddenly noticed i was there and reacted by stomping on the accelerator rather than the brake.when the police got there they took the old lady to the side and talked to her in a soft voice as if she was their grandma.When they came to me i was told"Look at this ladies car,it is new and you could have ruined it.They explained to me what happened.That I saw that the light was yellow and tried to race the light and that i was speeding.They gave me a hard time and talked at me very loudly and called me a liar when i said my version of what happened.until that day i had a spotless driving record.When the lady left she got in her car and proceeded down the road in her car on the wrong side of the road,while a police officer stood there and watched.

What a heartwarming story gallopinghordes. Fact is people are people. There is good and bad in all of us. I'll never forget the 'amazing stories' or some such fringe tv show that spoke of the police officer who was basically a modern day angel. He'd have prophetic dreams. One was of a boy with a rose who desperately needed help. Days passed and he was becoming frustrated he hadn't found him yet. Sitting in a coffee shop on his 30 he looked over to find a 20 something with a rose tattoo on his arm. The kid was in a gang and headed down a bad road. He spent an hour talking with this kid in his paternal way. Years later the officer died of natural causes. He had no less than 60 of his 'turn arounds' attend the funeral. The boy with the rose was married with two kids and soundly a hard working family man. Never will forgot that story. Wish I could remember where I saw it. Back in the 80's. He was truly a modern day angel.

You want to get at the base root of "good" cop "bad" cop..
Look at our currtent 2 party sytem..
Short and sweet!

You guys on the ATS mix are my heros!! Need I say more..
You guys are mentors to me, and offer me a platform in which I am highly thankful that you listen to the word of serfs like me!!!

You know what Im saying.. .As I find many people try to expalin things to deeply.. yes I am deep , but so are you!!! nuff said!

jpm

We are really lucky to have the Sheriffs Department we have; for the most part they are professional caring people; tragically we lost one in the line of duty a year ago. He was responding to a 911 call and was t-boned by a delivery truck even worse the 911 call was found to be a prank. I had worked with Mike at the prison and he was a one in million guy. Prior to joining the Sheriff's Department he had attended seminary but felt he could do more good as a deputy. I still miss him.

That is EXACTLY why I have the utmost respect for them. They put there collective hind ends on the line every day to help shmoes out like us. Working and dealing with the dregs of society. Do it willingly and self effacing. My hat is off to every peace officer everywhere. It's a bear of a job, but somebodies got to do it.

Bad Cop Story

I was 20 years old at the time. I had been hanging out with my friends and having a few drinks, but I wasn't good to drive. I stuck around for a while until I sobered up and hit the road.

My house was about an hour away and I had been driving for about 40 minutes on I-287 when I saw the blue lights. I was a bit of a handful at that age, so I had my run ins with the law before this.

I was not nervous at all about being pulled over. I wasn't excessively speeding, I used my turn signals, and I wasn't drunk. I figured maybe I had a taillight out. It was cold and rainy out so I was surprised he was actually willing to pull someone over and get out of the car.

Anyway, it was pretty late and I was tired so I don't remember everything said. He told me why he pulled me over, asked me a few questions, and pretty much immediately had me step out of the car.

I was pretty surprised at the way things were going, but I shouldn't have been. I was 20 years old, driving a beat-up pick up, and it was probably 3-4 a.m. Profiling at it's finest.

He kept asking me, "What pills are you on?"

That's what I remember the most. I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn't taken any pills. I was stone-cold sober (which for me at that age sucked).

So I told him, "I had some beers with some friends earlier, but I made sure I sobered up."

Who said honesty goes a long way? So he quickly switched gears from the pills to doing a sobriety test.

I could be wrong, but I believe the only test he gave me was the one where you raise your foot in the air, look up, and try to hold it for 30 seconds.

I DID IT!

I held it up for 30 seconds, my foot my have dropped a bit a few times, but it never even came close to the ground. That's a hard test to pass when it's 4 a.m. and it's 40 degrees outside.

So he said I failed. Threw me in the back of the patrol car, had my car towed, and drove off to the station.

He gave me a breathalyzer. What did I blow?

The highest I blew was a .04 out of the two times I did it. Half of the legal limit. He then started to tell me I had a drinking problem because I had an Underage Drinking ticket before this (hey, college...).

I told him, "Look, I do drink with my friends, but I sobered up before I drove, and I drove responsibly".

Oh, I forgot to mention that I got pulled over for going "too fast for weather conditions". Not speeding, too fast for weather conditions. He said I was swerving also, but I think the fact that I blew a .04 speaks for itself on that.

So he gave me an Underage DUI, which is basically like half of a DUI (you lose your license for half of the time and get half of the fines - since it's pretty much a BS charge). Kind of a, "Well, you weren't drunk but you shouldn't have been drinking charge."

To top it off, he told my father, who bailed me out (thank God), that he pulled me out because he "smelled weed" on me. Funny, he never told me that and I hadn't been doing that.

That guy was probably the worst cop I ever had to deal with.

What angers me about this is not that he gave me a ticket! He was perfectly within his rights to write me up. I broke the law. It was his attitude and the mischievous way he went about it.

He never smelled alcohol or else he'd have gone for the jugular right from the start. Instead he was harassing me and rambling on about pills. Then he lies to my father about smelling marijuana.



The other story represents how I feel about police:

I had a flat tire. Cop pulls up. Doesn't offer to help or anything, just asks "So where are you headed".

I say, "Doesn't look like I'm headed anywhere, does it?"

So instead of helping me out or anything, he proceeds to check out my trunk with his flashlight and act like a jerk.

Then my father shows up to help me change my tire and it changes from attitude to suck up, "Oh how are you, sir." "What can I do to help".

What a . Acts like a dick to a kid and then does a complete 180 when my father showed up. Typical New Jersey cops. Complete idiots.

I've since moved to North Carolina and I've grown up a lot. Unfortunately the cops are a lot nicer here. I say unfortunately because now I'm just waiting for a cop to pull me over and try to push me around.

I will kindly tell him where to go, and if anything further ensues, there will be lawsuits galore.

*Edit:

Typed this entire thing up, and as I went to hit post, my power went out. Thank god for Firefox, restored the session and it was still here.


[edit on 11-5-2008 by Sublime620]

My story isn't necessarily good but it isn't bad either.


I was young and dumb. I had a BB gun that for the time looking amazingly like a real pistol. Since I was uneducated at the time about what type of harm this can cause, I went around the neighborhood pointing it at people and flashing it from my waistband. (again I did say I was stupid)

I later began shooting BB's at houses and ran off to my home. About 10 minutes after I got home 2 squad cars pull up. By this time I had my trigger lock put on and put it in my cheap $10 walmart safe. The officer knocked on the door and told my mother she had to see me.

She asked to see the gun and I told her it was a BB gun. She still wanted to see it since I was shooting at houses. SO.... I take it out of the safe, not realizing what I was doing and pointed it right at the officers face.

She could have been mean about it, as I was truly up to no good. She checked it out and told me not to point it or shoot it at anyone thats not a soda can. She was extremely nice.

I had a lot of runins in my old neighborhood. Including running from the cops several times to avoid going to school and crashing the neighbors car at age 12.

I was always treated well. The Gwinnett County Police Department has always treated me good.

To date, I've been drug free and stayed out of trouble. I truly credit the cop mentors I had growing up.

Most cop stories will be bad ones. Once in a while a human being gets a badge and acts like a servant instead of the master, and thats great. But the vast majority of cop's today will perjure themselves on the stand and will abuse the law to make a point. Most cop's care nothing about the rule of law and see themselves above all of us.

I have several stories: One time a cop stopped me at a roadblock and after I proved all my papers were in order, he looked at my black Mercedes and my very long hair and asked me to pull over to the ' inspection lane '. I did so. Then, a Sgt. came over and asked me to give them consent to search my car. I refused. The filth asked me why I was not ' cooperating'...I said this : " If you so much as violate the least of my rights, I swear to God that I will drive directly to the Federal courthouse and file a civil rights lawsuit against him personally. " Do what you want", I said , " But if you do not follow the law exactly I will sue yopu for all you own and ever will".

Then I refused to listen to all their garbage and just sat there and smiled while the freaks talked to each other...then they let me go with a scowl, which I returned. Also, as I was leaving I held up my videocamera and said " Good thing you backed off, you were about to give me a great case!!". Since then, these local yokels leave me totally alone. They see me coming and keep their distance as they know that anything they do will lead to them getting the shaft.

Another time a thug cop charged my daughter falsely...the scum was not even going to show for court but as I had an attorney waiting from out of town they made him come to court, and on the stand he got cvaught in so many lies...outright lies, that the judge dismissed all charges and chewed the cop out in court!! it was a wonderful sight to behold..that bald headed scumbag filthy cop hanging his ugly head shamed...caught being a liar.

Anytime I see that scum in public now I flip him off, openly and with a laugh...he can do nothing. It is perfectly legal to stick up any finger you wish to any cop at any time and they know me here: If any cop here tries me they will regret it. I doo not allow a dismissed charge to halt the process; just sue em!! Take the scum to Federal court and file on them. Often they will settle to keep from a worse fate and that means you win.

Cop's should be tyreated like minor servants....we should never put them on a pedastle or act like they are special...they are a danger to a free nation unless they are professional...and that is unheard of in the USA. I could go on and on about personal experiences with the cop's but the bottom line is this: Take a firm stand, show NO fear or intimidation and let them know that you appreciate them giving you a lawsuit to take their jobs and homes and cars and money...let them think about standing alone in a Fed court trying to lie their way out of THAT one!!

Cop's are almost all scummy liars and crooks and bulies, and when I hear about one getting the tar beat out of them it does my heart good....payback and karma are things that the cop's hate to think about. But it is what is needed to teach them to mind their manners and watch their filthy mouths.