Getting pulled over by police really sucks. Getting a ticket really sucks. But just because you're pulled over doesn't mean you're necessarily getting a ticket. These people could have gotten away with it, but they blew it.
Mark_Levins asked: "Officers of Reddit, when has an excusable action turned into a moment of 'well...now I gotta arrest you'?"
We're impressed by his patience.
"I was a Park Ranger and we used to have a bunch of kids who liked to sit on a hill and smoke weed. Now they walked in and out and were just goofy kids and basically behaved so I left them be until Travis came along.
Travis had a joint in his hand as I walked up, he was told to toss it in the drain. Travis takes a big ole hit and exhaled in my face. I still let it go but began to simmer, he pinches the cherry and tries to pocket the joint. That was it Travis gets clipped, dumbass had an ounce in his sock and several blunts in his pocket. Stupid."
The worst type of person.
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"Every drunk, tough guy at a party I'm breaking up will most certainly go to jail when he otherwise woulda been free to go. Ironically, we're rarely there to make an arrest.
For thought: there's 2-6 of us and 20-50 of you. If you get in anyway combative or aggressive with a us, in front of your friends, we will nip that in the bud. Getting swarmed by the suddenly courageous is unpleasant. Minus the baton strike, the movie Superbad portrays it adequately. Just leave."
......wow.
"This was a kid I went to school with. He is a whack job and always has been. He was expelled from my middle school for writing bomb threats.
A couple years ago (he was 19 I think), a member of his family found a gun that he had and turned it into the police. All he had to do was either ignore it and lose his gun or go in and prove that he had paper work to back it up. Instead he chose to go in and claim to be a homeland security agent (with a fake badge to back it up). Police searched his home and found an arsenal of weapons and explosives."
Maybe it's time to look for a new roommate.
"An ex-roommate of mine decided to stop off in a town she wasn't familiar with on her way home from work to smoke with some friends she'd met recently. After staying just long enough to smoke a bunch, she drove down the road, not paying attention, and swerved right in front of a cop.
I've since visited this town, and it very much has a vibe of pulls you over "Hi, do you need directions?" I'd bet that's what the cop was thinking when he pulled her over. She managed to escalate this to refusing to take a breathalyzer, to yelling at the cop for harassing her, to pinching the guy when he cuffed her.
I was on a lease with this person, and didn't want to be responsible for her part of the rent, so I drove out and bailed her out after midnight on a weekday so that she could go to work the next day. Bail, of course, started off as $40, for a traffic violation, and escalated to several hundred when it turned out she had technically assaulted an officer. And the next day she goes to work with a bad attitude, gets fired, and GOES BACK TO THE SAME TOWN, AND GETS PULLED OVER AGAIN."
The dog also had a warrant.
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"I was on a ride along with a State Trooper. He pulled this girl over and after running her info she had a warrant so she needed to be taken in. She didn't want to leave her dog and car on the side of the road so she asked to see if her boyfriend could come pick her car up.
20 mins later the boyfriend was there. Trooper ran his license to make sure he was good to drive. He had a warrant also, so he went to jail too."
Not a real thing.
"Pretty much every sovereign citizen digs themselves a hole when they get stopped. What could be a simple speeding ticket/warning escalates into multiple tickets and usually a criminal charge for resisting arrest.
Also, if your having a verbal argument and you call the cops, it's probably not a good idea to tell someone else you're going to kill them while the cops are present. That's the easiest lockup you'll ever get."
Not so confident now, huh?
"WAS a cop. Best one that immediately comes to mind was a kid who was speeding - nothing crazy, just like 10mph over. Pulled him over, and was in the process of giving him a warning when I noticed he had a radar detector.
I point at it, and he smiles and confidently says "It's ok, you can have one if you have a permit."
"Do you have a permit?"
"...uh, no."
Ticket. Sorry bud."
Big mistake.
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"Not a cop, but we heard some rumbling around in the garage (we left the garage door open on accident) and when I went to check, there was a 18 year old girl drunk off her standing in my garage. (BTW, if you think you're going to be a big bad ass when there's an intruder in your home, think again because I screamed like a little girl!). Seeing that it was a young girl and my life wasn't in immediate danger, I called the cops while my wife and MIL got her story. Turns out the neighbors had a small party and kicked her out for being an jerk, she wondered into my garage to steal cigarettes.
The cops show up, and tell her that she can go home with her mom since I decided to not press charges. Mom convinces her to get in the car, they start to drive off while we are making small talk with the officers.
The mom gets the drunk girl in the car and to the end of the block (4 houses down), and she opens the door and runs. The cops take off after her telling us thanks but she's going to jail now.
I just think about what a chance the officers and I gave this young lady to go home free and clear and she screwed it up."
What did he think was going to happen?
"This happened two nights ago. I stop a car because his license plate light is out (must be visible from 60 feet or less). No biggie, operators not going to know this unless we stop them and most often, were just probing for a more serious offense. 10/10 give a verbal warning for this infraction.
I request a license and registration per policy and the operator then demands to know why I stopped them. I advise them that per department policy, I don't have to tell them until I obtain their license and registration as I request a second time. Operator then goes off about how they know their civil rights and what I MUST do on a traffic stop. I advise the operator that "it's an arrestable offense in insert my state for failure to submit to a police officer your license and registration upon lawful request and that I have to ask you exactly 1 time before I can charge you with failure to submit so for the 3rd and final time, please provide me with your license and registration."
Operator again goes off about his civil rights. I ask if he's sure he doesn't want give me his drivers license and registration. He again refuses and gets himself arrested...for a stupid plate light. Turns out he wasn't licensed and didn't have a license to give. But he could of said that. Either way, he was going to be charged with something."
At least he was honest?
"Not sure if this is what you meant, but...stopped a guy as his car showed as having no insurance. He was super confused about the whole thing, positive he had insurance and was full of the "I've never been stopped by the police before"(which was probably true). Either way, ran some checks with the insurance people and yeah, turns out he was insured, just wasn't showing up for some reason.
He's still apologetic, sorry for wasting our time, nice guy all round. We are literally getting back into our car and the guy is suddenly walking back and saying "I honestly do have insurance, I'm always honest, like, I had a few drinks earlier too you should probably know".
Look at my colleague with a shared look of disbelief, slowly get back out the car and breathalyse the guy aaaaand yep. Almost twice over the limit. Promptly arrested for drink driving. He didn't smell one whiff of booze and seemed fully sober to both of us. What on earth compelled him to tell us as we were leaving that he'd been drinking I'll never know."
Good thing the cop listened to this person.
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"While riding with a police officer on duty I saw a guy blow a red light. I told the officer, but he said he couldn't give him a ticket since he didn't see it happen. I mentioned that the guy had no tail lights as well - so he begrudgingly stopped the truck.
When we walked up to the window the officer asked, "do you know why I stopped you?" to which the guy responded with "yea, cause I blew that red light." The officer looked at me and shook his head then asked, "why did you blow that red light?" "Because the brakes are bad in this truck and I couldn't stop that fast." The guy ended up having a warrant and had weed in his truck.
The officer, who I rode with often, asked me to write out the tickets (he'd sign them) while he did the arrest paperwork. I wrote him for no tail lights and for unsafe equipment (the brakes.) The officer asked why I didn't write him for running the red light - I said, "because you said you didn't see it." He was like, yea well, he admitted it - that's enough for me.
Moral of the story if you have a warrant or weed in your truck don't drive around with bad breaks, no tail lights and running stop lights."
Bad idea.
"We had an undercover store cop in our grocery and business was slow so he checked the parking lot and found a guy working on his car.
The store cop would check in on him and even helped him work on it. When done, the driver pulled a bag of weed and offered to get him high, so he arrested him.
The cop said 'the bag was too big to let him go.'"
This spiraled into something worse.
"We got called to a disorderly guy in a trailer park. We get there, get everything calmed down, get everyone's information, and run NCIC checks to make sure no one has any warrants. At that, barring someone having a warrant, no one was getting arrested and we weren't even writing a report.
The disorderly guy gives a bad name because he thought he had a warrant. We go to put cuffs on him and gives his real name...and he didn't have a warrant. We arrest him for giving false information. While we're finishing up, the guy decides to slam his on head repeatedly into my sgt's brand new patrol car (literally picked up the day before and it didn't even have 100 miles on it.) All caught on video, so now he also gets a destruction of property charge and then goes to hospital for an emergency commitment because after doing that he made suicidal statements."
This was easily avoidable.
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"Not a cop, but around here a hispanic man got pulled over for broken taillight, or something like that. The cop told him to get it fixed and was going to let him go.
As the cop was about to walk away the guy in the car said "No cocaine!" Cop was like, "Excuse me?" "No cocaine in back."
Cop proceeds to ask the guy to step out of the car. and to open the trunk. The entire trunk was filled to the brim with bricks of coke."
How kind of them.
"Not an arrest but a citation. I was at house for a burglary call and asked the homeowner where the money had been taken from. He says "the end table". I point to one of two end tables and ask "this end table?" He walks to the end table, says "yeah, took it right out of this drawer" and opens the drawer.
I look at the open drawer and see the burglar was kind enough to leave the homeowner's half ounce of marijuana."