Woman Arrested for Warning People About Speed Trap!

Originally posted by Foxy1
OH sure! out of all the people on the sidewalk the one with the sign that says speed trap ahead was the girl who obviously was breaking the law by not being on the sidewalk...makes perfect sense doesnt it?

Again, that is her side of the story. As I stated I would like to see the Police side and go from there. Since she is the onlyone talking, should we not exercise due dilligence and get ALL info before going down the blame road?

Thats all I am saying - get all the info first.

reply to post by Foxy1

If I knew a speed trap was ahead I would slow down...sooo is that considered ineffective? I slowed down didnt I? oh wait but the cops didnt get money...so I guess your right?

The whole point behind speed traps is to get the driver in question to slow down and obey the speed limit all of the time....Not just when a police car is in the area.

Originally posted by 3n19m470
It's been a pretty clear message with these people... You do NOT mess with their money. They need to spend it on more tasers and drones, and taser drones.

I find these comments amusing.

Please, respectfully, do some research and learn how law enforcement works, what part of the government law enforcement is part of and how resolution of citations issued are resolved (hint: The Judicial system).

Police can write all the tickets they want.

Its entirely up to the Prosecuting Attorney as to whether or not those citations will be prosecuted or dismissed by the PA.

If the person pleads guilty / is found guilty, the judge determines the fine, not the police.

That money goes into the general fund of the city, not the police department.

Police have absolutely nothing to do with prosecuting a case, determining innocense or guilt or assessing fines / penalties. As a matter of fact several states have State laws that specifically addresses and restricts / prohibits how much money collected from moving violation citations can go to a law enorcement agencies budget.

Originally posted by OccamAssassin
reply to post by Foxy1

 

If I knew a speed trap was ahead I would slow down...sooo is that considered ineffective? I slowed down didnt I? oh wait but the cops didnt get money...so I guess your right?

The whole point behind speed traps is to get the driver in question to slow down and obey the speed limit all of the time....Not just when a police car is in the area.

edit on 30/6/2012 by OccamAssassin because: (no reason given)

I still believe the main point is to collect money.
As to how effective they are, what driver does not know that speed traps exist? Still, 70% of drivers speed. Not too effective, IMO.

reply to post by UltimateSkeptic1


You are both absolutely right. But you need to understand that a police officer can charge you at anytime with anything. It is up to the court to determine if he was right. If an officer is a tool and makes a lot of overblown charges that tend to get slapped down he will have a problem. But not before a few people end up going to court to establish that fact.

In this case I think that what it boils down to is:

1. She screwed with the police
2. The police screwed with her
3. She gets her day in court

If you do not have to time to spare to deal with being screwed with by the police then maybe leave them alone. OR...go about screwing with the police in a smarter way. I have no problem with messing with the cops. I just think that this lady got the just reward of being stupid, blunt and obvious.

Originally posted by OccamAssassin
reply to post by Foxy1

 

If I knew a speed trap was ahead I would slow down...sooo is that considered ineffective? I slowed down didnt I? oh wait but the cops didnt get money...so I guess your right?

The whole point behind speed traps is to get the driver in question to slow down and obey the speed limit all of the time....Not just when a police car is in the area.

edit on 30/6/2012 by OccamAssassin because: (no reason given)

This is exactly the point people need to be seeing. Yes, she might have slowed someone down where the officers were, but does that automatically mean they're going to stop speeding all together? Absolutely not.

reply to post by UltimateSkeptic1


I remember hearing a while back in my state, that flicking your front headlights to opposing traffic to warn motorists of a speed trap ahead is against the law. I would think if they really wanted to pursue it as an obstruction of justice, than I guess they would have some legality. You are in some sense preventing someone who is speeding from getting a ticket. It would be like someone acting as a lookout for police while someone is robbing your house (although you can't compare speeding in a car to burglary).

The idea of blinking your front headlights to opposing traffic is almost like an unwritten common courtesy law to other drivers. I guess we're all breaking the law.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse

What about GPS with built in speed camera warning? That is even still legal here in the nanny state of Norway.

I truly fear for our society when I read the thinking behind some of these posts.....

1) In the U.S. at least (I'm not sure about the U.K. or other countries) there is a presumption of innocence. The courts must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that you committed a crime.

The thinking that this girl was obstructing police from pulling over speeders presumes the drivers were guilty.

It doesn't work that way. You can't obstruct the police from arresting somebody when there is no evidence any crime was committed.

2) The girl was holding a sign that said "speed trap!!!!" Again, here in the U.S. she's allowed to hold a sign that says anything she wants. It's a 1st Amendment RIGHT, not privilege granted to us by our benevolent dictators.

The girl was not "messing" with the police. Messing with police would be if she interfered with them AFTER they pulled over somebody they thought was speeding.

Causing no speeding cars to drive by the speed trap set up by the police is awesome! It's what the police should want, right? No speeders on the street?

This girl with her sign accomplished at ZERO cost to the city what the police are getting paid to do.

If the city truly wanted to stop speeding they could just hire people to stand around with "Speed Trap" signs at random places. Of course that's NOT what the police want. The police want to use speed traps as in income stream to offset the cost of operating the police department.

Do you really need a white paper that proves this point?

Ok, then here.

Abstrat

In this paper we study the political economy determinants of traffic fines. Speeding tickets are not only determined by the speed of the offender, but by incentives faced by police officers and their vote maximizing principals. Our model predicts that police officers issue higher fines when drivers have a higher opportunity cost of contesting a ticket, and when drivers do not reside in the community where they are stopped. The model also predicts that local officers are more likely to issue a ticket when legal limits prevent the local government from increasing revenues though other instruments such as property taxes. We find support for the hypotheses.

Link to white paper that details findings above for anybody who is so naive to think that the police aren't giving tickets to bring in money.

Wait???

What's that I hear????

The City of Houston has a budget problem????

HOUSTON -- The City of Houston faces a massive budget shortfall in the next fiscal year and that means as many as 2,300 city workers could lose their jobs. Even the city’s police and fire departments will face substantial cuts, reducing their budgets by 5 percent.

Source

So what this really comes down to is something very simple:

The City of Houston has a over-bloated government that isn't financially sustainable. To help offset the costs the Houston Police Department sets up speed traps. The young woman in this story was well within her rights to warn drivers of the speed traps. The police were pissed and violated her rights, detaining her for 12 hours for standing on the road according to their own report.

The police have a duty to protect our rights, not violate them for their own self-serving financial reasons. That's what makes this story so screwed up. That, and the girl was doing more to help her fellow citizens than the police and she got arrested.

The police violated a citizen's FIRST and FOURTH Amendment rights when this is what they should be protecting.

This is why the very first sentence of the Bill of Rights is: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Amendment IV: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Houston police abridged this woman's right to speech, her freedom of "press," and her right to "peaceably assemble," being "secure in her effects," when in fact this is what they are responsible for protecting.

The only thing that would make this story better is if she had a legal gun in her backpack.

We have all heard about ticket quotas in place at many cities.

That tends to point toward a desire for revenue increase.

Surely by warning people of a speed trap near by - it will make people driver more careful anyway? So why is it bad for her to warn people, exactly? Is it bad because they can't make money from speeders?

reply to post by MrJohnSmith


While that may be true in the UK that such a thing could get you arrested, this happened in the United States. Here we have the right to free speech. She committed no crime, which is why could not charge her with obstruction of justice. When the police set up road blocks, they usually have to publish a notice of the road block, they don't disclose the location. This is something that is becoming more and more common here in the states. While the government is trying to clamp down on the rights of the people, people are starting to fight back. I applaud her. Given the chance I will do the same as she did.

In his picture it looks like she was on a sidewalk. Now I wonder if she also stepped into the street and then was arrested or was the in the street charge misreported.

Houston police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said that officers found Plummer standing in the street, waving her arms as she held the sign.

But Plummer denied ever leaving the sidewalk on West Dallas Street, alleging that the arresting officer invented a reason to detain her.

"He couldn't take me to jail for holding up this sign or he would have. So all he could do was make up something fake about it," Plummer told KRTK. The officer searched Plummer's backpack, she said, and threatened to arrest her for obstructing justice, a felony charge.

After being held in jail for 12 hours, Plummer was released on bond, and will soon appear in court to face her misdemeanor charge.

Originally posted by Believer101

This is exactly the point people need to be seeing. Yes, she might have slowed someone down where the officers were, but does that automatically mean they're going to stop speeding all together? Absolutely not.

And cops stopping speeders does?

So I guess all those drivers collecting tickets or driving on suspended licenses or working on their 75th DUI learned their lessons a long time ago then, right? The news here just showed a guy who got his 80th DUI and he has already done prison time for his bad behavior twice. He just doesnt care.

People are either going to behave or they arent. No amount of law enforcement short of execution upon first offense will ever prevent misbehavers from misbehaving.

If there was a woman like this on every block warning of speed traps people might actually slow down and stay slowed. Her warning is more useful than any cop. Especially since half the time those "traps" are empty cruisers staged.

Tickets dont work. Just ask Massachusetts how their "ticketing cell phone talkers" campaign is doing. Last I report I read said cell phone use while driving is on the rise despite all the threats the state can muster.

People dont learn unless their attitude changes for intrinsic not extrinsic reasons or they wrap themselves around a telephone pole.

Originally posted by Silcone Synapse
reply to post by UltimateSkeptic1

 

We have the same crap in the UK-its a big no no to tell another driver there is a speed camera.

Where has it been described as a "big no no"? The fact is that there is sat nav/mobile phone software freely and legally available in the UK that actually warns you when approaching a speed camera location.

Originally posted by imagineering
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

You are still missing the point. Here you go folks "a case in point attitude" of what has enabled the conduct of police officers for so long!!

Go ahead and enable your own oppression Nixie.

Don't be a drama queen.

And actuallly dealing in facts instead of emotional knee jerk reactions doesn't lead to "oppression".

I already said that search of the backpack was illegal. A ticked off police officer took it a step too far. But he has a right to be ticked off.

That is her problem to deal with.No one can go to court for her.

reply to post by UltimateSkeptic1

Freedom of speech does not protect against treason, violation of national security, extreme obscenity, dangerous speech (such as shouting "fire" in a crowded place), or conspiracy. It also does not protect one who knowingly lies to harm another person (perjury, libel, slander). Freedom of speech does not allow anyone to disrupt lawful processes - for example shouting down a teacher or outbursts in a courtroom. Read more: wiki.answers.com...

"Freedom of speech does not allow anyone to disrupt lawful processes - for example shouting down a teacher or outbursts in a courtroom."

The term "disrupt lawful processes" can be used to justify the police actions. I'm not saying it's right that they arrested the women and charged her for a crime, but our justice system has a way of bending the law to suit their actions no matter what the public thinks.

But he has a right to be ticked off.

Everyone can get ticked off. Does that mean a person has the right to 'take it out' on some one else, no. Seems unprofessional.

reply to post by butcherguy


Silly comparison.

If she were standing there with a sign to slow down, with no speed trap, they would of sped. One person with no law enforcement capability is not any more effective.

A speed trap is a deterrant. Of course you can't catch everyone at every crime.
What they tend to do is focus on problem areas, whre there is a lot of kids or accidents.

If they really wanted to start ticketing more people, they could. It could easily be done through GPS, EZ Pass, or simply getting a "ticket" at the start of a highway and when you exit to clock your time.


And despite what people think, the money generated is only a tiny fraction of income for a municipality.

Listen too all you arguing for your right to break a law.

Trying to say that the police are oppressive.

Meanwhile, the police are telling you to slow down, they set up radar boards and speed traps to slow down.

Guess what, doing the speed limit is completely voluntary!! And doing the speed limit means no tickets and no revenue.

reply to post by roadgravel


When the person is obstructing justice, yes.