(The Cop and I in the blazing sun –
He gets all the votes; I get none.)
There are some things, by golly, you just don’t get over! Warning: This is a rant about sometimes being right and sometimes being wrong and about always REMEMBERING being right, while mitigating the circumstances around your being wrong. This is about interactions with our policemen and women – usually in the form of traffic stops.
Now I hope you agree with me that most officers are just doing their jobs and most of them are pretty good guys. A few, however, have been in the saddle too long and have sores in sad places. This second bunch is just out to get you for something!
And, it’s time I get this one off my chest because it has been bothering me for a long while.,
When I was in The wrong, I just tried to get the thing over quickly, with a minimum of embarrassment, but when I was right and it was a clear case of entrapment or stupidity, I had a hard time controlling my temper. PS: I always did.
As to incidents where I held my temper despite being hijacked by those uniformed servants of the people:
Before going further with this tirade, I will acknowledge (This is hard for me.) that, in a few cases, I was not all that innocent when I was legally stopped for cause. In those cases, I tended to acknowledge the facts, accept the paperwork, mail in the fine, and, in one case, I attended a one-day “Comedy Traffic School. ” That was stupid but I was not given any of those trffic points, and my Insurance rates never went up,
As an example: We flew in to SFO after a trip back east, I picked up my car from long term parking and we dove to the normal on-ramp to US 101, but it was blocked –“Closed for cleaning. ” Searching for another entry, I stopped for a traffic light and started my U-Turn while my wife was yelling “and pointing to the NO U-TURN sign. The parked motorcycle officer pounced and we did our business. He then told me of the secret route to 101.
BAD EXAMPLE NUMBER ONE: Killeen, Texas, 1955. This place adjacent to Fort Hood had a policy of stopping and fining the military personnel at random, and it was well known. Early in the morning I was driving toward the Fort Hood gate with
three others in my car. We were all alert to hidden cops and I was driving slowly, well under the posted 35 MPH zone when I was pulled over.
All four of us told the officer that I was not speeding, and he KNEW I was not speeding, yet he SAID I was speeding. and I got the ticket. I went to court with all three of my passengers. “Court” meant walking into the (at the time) ratty Killeen police station, down a long hallway with cells on both sides and into a ten by twelve foot room with no chairs but with a person calling himself a ”Judge.” The judge listened as we told him what we KNEW to be “ fact.” Then that crook said: “The court rejects your reasons and fines you ten dollars.” (At that time, I could not afford a ten dollar fine but I had to pay it.)
Later, we got our revenge – sort of. The situation got so bad that the Commanding General of the First Armored Division took action. After a long drought, Fort Hood had run a pipeline from a nearby lake to the post to supplement the water supply. They had been giving much of the water to the town, but after he became fed up with the town’s treatment of the military, he stopped the flow of water to Killeen. He told them to shape up if they wanted it back. They did.
EXAMPLE NUMBER TWO: San Francisco. Traveling east, heading downtown, I came to a four way stop,. As I approached, I clearly saw a SF PD Black and White, parked on a side street right at the street was on. There was a male officer in the driver’s seat and a female officer in the passenger seat. Since I saw them, I was behaving very,, very carefully. The male was turned toward the female and they were in a conversation. I stopped carefully then proceeded, but the flashing light went on and the two officers were on me immediately. The male officer informed me with a straight face that I had “failed to stop”….a blatant LIE. I HAD stopped and HE was NOT looking in my direction when I did so. The female office must have been very new because she would not meet my eyes.
EXAMPLE NUMBER THREE: Mendocino County, Highway 1: Headed for Mendocino, and nearly there, we were second in line behind a huge mobile home, being escorted by pickup trucks and with lots of flashing lights. When the group of vehicles reached a slightly wider area, the caravan pulled half off the highway. There was a stopped line of cars with a traffic director holding them, in the other lane facing me. A flagman came out and directed the other car and me around the stopped traffic, then let the group facing me pass to continue their Journey. About three quarters of a mile further on, around a sharp curve and down a steep hill, a California Highway Patrolman beside a stopped Highway Patrol pickup, waved us in. He informed the other driver and me that we had “Passed a convoy, in a no-passing zone.!” we carefully informed the clod how we had been directed around the HALTED caravan and had done nothing wrong. He scratched his head and said we MUST have illegally passed the vehicles since he was parked there to help them along. We continued to try to reason with him and the other driver, an Asian lady, began to cry. He finally said: “I’m just going to write it up and let the judge figure it out.”
I sent in the required amount, appealed with full details and got my money back.
EXAMPLE NUMBER FOUR: Interstate 40, Flagstaff, Arizona. Headed East, we had spent the night in Flagstaff. At five AM, we entered I-40 East and it was pitch black. There was no traffic. Before I reached highway speed, some flashing lights and the Arizona State Police had stopped me. Where had he come from? I had passed no one and no one had passed me, and I was still in town!
This tall old Country Boy took my papers and went back and forth between his car and mine and finally advised that he had stopped me BECAUSE I WAS DRIVING WITH MY HIGH BEAMS! “But,” I protested, “I could NOT have blinded anyone because there were no other cars in either direction and there were thick rows of trees between the east bound and west bound lanes of I-40 throughout that area.” I told him that I was on high beams also because of the danger from frequently crossing elk in that part of the country.
His response? Tat I had temporarily shone lights in his face because he had been parked (Hiding) on the north side of my lane and facing on coming traffic headed east!
I refrained from saying what I thought – that, from HIS weird reasoning, no vehicle should ever have a high-beam option. He gave me a “warning” and a “Thank you for your Service” (My Military Retired ID Card had stuck to my Driver’s License before I drove off with my high beams on….to look out for that wayward elk!
To be fair, and to tell a tale on myself to show a more balanced view of our men and women in blue, I should tell you that late one night in San Francisco, I was parked on the left side on a one-way street in an “un-savory” part of town. We stumbled over people, hopped into the car, locked the doors and I pulled out into an empty street and was halfway through the intersection when I saw the light had turned red.., and I saw a Black and White with two SFPD officers. parked and watching foolish me!. I pulled over almost before their lights went on, but as they approached, their radio blasted out something important. One yelled, “Be careful in the future,” and they took off with sirens blaring. I got away from that one.
Now, after catching my breath, I’ll tell you again that I love and admire our cops!! I think they have impossible jobs and I think the vast majority of them do their work with pride.
Here’s an example of how I got to know beat offices on the job:
While stationed at For Ord in the early 70’s I was called upon three times to ride along with different Monterey Police Officesrs on paydays and at other special occasions. It was required military duty, handled by a roster and requiring duty until midnight, but I enjoyed it, And I got to see the thousand things Police Officers had to do on just one shift. Some specific examples I observed:
The gentle handling of a family whose members had been injured in an accident..
The firm but fair handing of juveniles who were throwing water baloons from overpasses.
The traffic stop of an eratic driver, his arrest and transfer to jail. All with respect but professional firmness..
The professional coordination with me when my ride- along Police Officer had to arrest a senior US Military Officer for a serious offense. (We had to coordinate and file a difficult report to the Senior Officer on duty at For Ord, so he could brief the Post Commander next morning,)
I’m not even going to tell you about the day on a New Mexico State road which traversed a couple of Navajo “Checkerboard” pieces of Land . Just as I topped a steep hill at the State road limit of 55 mph , I found myself on Navajo land….just LAND, no buildings or people…. and a posted speed 45 mph. The Navajo Police Officer at the bottom of the hill, with some little instrument aimed in my direction later told me all about the differences between speed limits, and he assured me there was no trickery involved in the sudden slower speed limit just a diver crests a hill. We jawed a bit and I mentioned that I had taught a couple of University of New Mexico classes “back there in Ramah” when I was Principal of the Zuni Indian School. Although there has never been love lost between the Navajo and he Zuni, gave me a warning and waved bye bye.
