
Police Officers Reveal How They Respond To Their Friends Who Break The Law
[rebelmouse-image 18358665 is_animated_gif=We tend to think of police officers as stern symbols of justice. It can be easy to forget that Officer Smith sometimes takes off the badge and is just John or Jane. The transition between the two seems like it's difficult. One reddit user must have been wondering about the off-duty lives of police officers when they asked:
Cops of Reddit, how do you respond to your friends doing minor illegal things?
The answers were actually pretty surprising. We're not sure what we were expecting, but it wasn't this. A surprising number of people had buddy cop stories. Alright hollywood execs, get ready to take notes!
Don't Care
[rebelmouse-image 18358666 is_animated_gif=If by minor you mean something like jaywalking, having a drink on the beach or smoking a j, I generally don't care. I tend to ignore these things even if it's not my friends doing it.
When I say I generally don't care, that means the person committing the offense isn't acting like a douchebag and is being safe. If someone is walking through 3 lanes of busy traffic, causing a safety hazard to themselves and others, then I'm gonna stop them if I can and tell them they're being an idiot. I've never given a ticket for that before, but there's a first time for everything. If you're drinking or toking in a public place and you're being rowdy and disturbing the peace, then I'm gonna take your stuff away and tell you to get lost.
If they don't comply, then we'll go from there. Communication is always the first line of action.
Don't Tase Me Bro
[rebelmouse-image 18358667 is_animated_gif=My brothers a cop, he didn't care that I would drink underage. But he did tell me if I ever even sat behind the wheel of a car while drunk he would tase me into next year.
Thom
[rebelmouse-image 18344878 is_animated_gif=Were all about 19/20 at a party at someone's house.
Thom (yes, Thom. Not Tom. Thom. We used to pronounce it "thommmb" to annoy him, with the h) arrives, having been attending Police college for about two weeks.
He literally went around checking there was no-one under 18 drinking. He was told to f*** off.
Then he found a bunch of us in the garden, passing around a j. He grabbed it, stamped on it, and warned us
"If anyone has any more DRUGS on them, I will call my boss and get you arrested."
We thought he was joking. We rolled up a new one. He was not. He actually called his boss. I can only imagine the hilarity at the other end of the phone. Thom left the party, red-faced.
The Moment I See It
[rebelmouse-image 18358668 is_animated_gif=My buddy is a cop. He knows I smoke. It's not legal here. He has told me that he doesn't care as long as he doesn't see it.
**"The moment I see it, I have to do something." **
That's his line and I respect that.
If You Can't Beat Em, Join Em
[rebelmouse-image 18358669 is_animated_gif=My friend's dad was a cop growing up. minor illegal things he also did like piracy, and fire works.
Confiscated Fireworks
[rebelmouse-image 18358670 is_animated_gif=Back in the 70's, it was my cop uncle who would bring the fireworks to the 4th of july party. We always assumed it was fireworks he had confiscated. Yeah, he was kind of a d!ck in some ways.
Business Face
[rebelmouse-image 18358671 is_animated_gif=They all have a line which they do not like being crossed and will give you a heads up/signal for you not to cross it. Disregard it, and they will turn on their business face.
Not Worth The Trouble
[rebelmouse-image 18358672 is_animated_gif=I have several friends who are - and in various stages of police authority.
The general consensus seems to be that it's not worth the trouble to be so pedantic about them as to harass on their friends and play the cop around them.
One of my close friends summarized it as, 'if you're not hurting anyone - I don't really care.'
Cop At Poker Night
[rebelmouse-image 18358673 is_animated_gif=We have a cop at our poker night we do almost every month and private (or not certified) poker rounds are illegal where I live.
The cop just said
"For a fiver noone's gonna stand up and arrest you, so why should you care?"
Probably Look The Other Way
[rebelmouse-image 18358674 is_animated_gif=My brother is a cop. If he's not on duty and I do something minor, he doesn't care. If he was on duty he would probably look the other way.
Law Enforcement Circle
[rebelmouse-image 18358675 is_animated_gif=Cops lose friends that aren't cops. Cops end up with very few friends outside their law enforcement circle. The jokes aren't funny and everyone thinks the job is cool/neat/interesting and wants to tell you about the ticket they got or that time they did something illegal... Rapidly...the friend circle goes away. The job is isolating.
Felon With Cop Friends
[rebelmouse-image 18358676 is_animated_gif=I'm a felon with several friends that ended up being cops.
They mess with me all the time.
Remove Myself
[rebelmouse-image 18358678 is_animated_gif=Former Cop - if what my friends were doing had no fall back on my life, I didn't care. If it could cause issues in my job I just removed myself from the situation. All of my friends are big enough to get themselves out of trouble
Don't Make Me Choose
[rebelmouse-image 18358528 is_animated_gif=Some things don't bother me.... so I ignore it. Others do and I remove myself from the situation. Most of my friends hit a stage where I tell them to never put me in a position where I need to choose between my job and a friendship. It's disrespectful for them to even think it's okay to do that.
Speeding tickets, sure...everyone speeds. Some crimes, my hands are tied. There is no discretion and I have a responsibility.
Two Different Kinds
[rebelmouse-image 18358679 is_animated_gif=As a cop I feel there are two different kinds of law enforcement officers.
A Police Officer - concerns himself with trivial matters and likes to wield their power, will ticket anyone for anything and thinks every law has to be enforced.
A Cop - Joined the job to put bad guys in jail, actively seeks the worst crimes. Understands that people make mistakes and leveles with people that are just living life. If you are a good person and don't try and bullshit the Cop he will look after you and try to do his best not to f*** your day.
I would prefer to go after actual crooks. Cops will joke with you and have fun on the job.
Myself and my team luckily are Cops.
Losing Friends
[rebelmouse-image 18358680 is_animated_gif=I lost a few friends as a result of becoming a police officer. When I got back home from training, I went to go see a buddy and it was like seeing the bad guy walk down the street in an old western, where shudders close and doors lock and all that. They thought that because I was now a police officer, I was going to run in there and arrest them all.
First of all, I was an MP in the Air Force (Security Forces, as we call them). My primary mission was nuke security, and the other was the law enforcement. Sure, on the base we had all the same kind of stuff you see in any town. Suicide, homicide, vehicle accidents/incidents, larceny, burglary, and on and on.
I have written many speeding tickets, and other traffic tickets. I've let just as many people go with a verbal warning. I've responded to many things, including a child being run over and killed by an SUV backing out of the driveway, and a suicide via gunshot to the head.
Sometimes it is tough to go about the day in the same state of mind after your response. When people are awful to cops because they got pulled over, it really isn't fair. You broke the law. If I just came from a scene watching them scrape a toddler off the pavement because of negligent or reckless driving, how do you think I'm going to feel about you driving like an a**?
I did not mean to vent here. It just sucks being treated like garbage because you have a badge. Cops are people, too. They've got emotions just like everyone else. Why don't you hold yourself to their standard?
Also, as an MP, I didn't even have jurisdiction outside of a DoD installation, so my friend was foolish for thinking that I could do anything anyway.
I lost more friends when I became a correctional officer, because they had been to jail and were apparently mistreated all the time, so I must be a CO, too. This is a big reason why cops end up with cop friends.
Too much hate, guys. Good and bad people are everywhere.
Giggles Like Crazy
[rebelmouse-image 18358681 is_animated_gif=My Brother likes to scream "STOP BREAKING THE LAW A**HOLE!" when I am driving and then he giggles like crazy when it startles me.
H/T: Reddit
When love is on the rocks and there's no salvaging a relationship, it's better for a couple to call it splits.
Sometimes the reason for a breakup is obvious.
Other times, it's more complicated.
But the people involved going their separate ways is better than staying in an unhealthy relationship.
Curious to hear from ex-lovers who've been there, Redditor Lishasquarepant asked:
"What caused your last break-up?"
These Redditors found they and their significant other were no longer on the same page.
"Simply, we grew apart."
– catetheway
"Same, I feel like Michael Scott everytime I try to start another relationship. 'No question about it, I am ready to get hurt again.'"
– Gthew
Happier Apart
"Same. We loved each other like siblings, not spouses... Ugh! Lovely man though who now has a fab girlfriend. We are good friends and much happier apart."
– MoxieHasKnottyBits
No Regrets
"Same. And it f'king sucks, but that’s life. It’s been a year and I still hate every second that she’s not in my life, but at the same time I know she’s happier now than she would’ve been if we stayed together."
– throway35885328
Having no communication is the worst part.
Silent Partner
"He slowly got distant. I believe he lost interest and didn't dare be honest with me about that."
– GaiaNatur77
The Late Blame Game
"I had that happen as well, but then he pinned it on me being distant and not affectionate enough."
"My guy, if you pull your hand away every time I try to hold it, I'm gonna stop trying to hold it. And if I ask if something's up and you repeatedly tell me everything is fine, I'm going to believe you. Don't wait till I'm at my worst moment and then reveal you had issues with me for 3 months and break up with me for it being 'my fault.'"
– Billielolly
"Everything Is Fine"
"Oh man, the asking repeatedly and getting a 'nothing' reminds me of a story."
"My friend used to ask her ex this every time he was unusually quiet. He’d always say he was fine, then at one point, told her to stop asking because it was making him feel weird."
"So she did."
"Six months later he initiated a divorce because she didn’t care about his feelings anymore."
"Like…don’t ask for sh*t then get pissy when you get what you want."
– TheRealJackReynolds
And then there are those who were not invested in the relationship for a long time.
The Struggle Is Real
"He seemed to struggle with the concept of not f'king random people."
– spanglesandbambi
Leaving The Problem
"He moved to his country because he missed his family. So he only sent a WhatsApp message saying he was going to stay there. I would have preferred a call at least to break up a marriage."
– kattia12
New Life
"Something similar happened to my cousin. He married her in the US, they had a baby together.. a few years go by, he misses home, goes back to visit.. His family had an arranged marriage ready for him 🤦🏻♀️ He ended up with a new wife and new baby. Hasn’t came back."
– MysticalMom7
A Foreign Custom
"It just seems so surreal that a grown a** adult with a wife and baby would leave his family behind for an arranged marriage. I'll never fathom the mentality."
– ro0ibos2
Ouch
"I wasn't having sex near as often as she was."
– YourWordsMatter
Breaking up is hard to do.
But a good thing to remember is that love can be found again and the new relationship can be even better than the previous one.
And that's something that can't be recognized until you look back in retrospect.
We all have to kiss a few toads.
Everyone looks back on their high school experience differently.
Some wish they could relive it all over again, while others are more than happy to put it all behind them and seldom, if ever, look back on it.
Of course, no matter if they look back on high school with pleasure or disdain, everyone has a few memories of their classmates.
Particularly the one who always seemed to be getting into trouble.
Constantly landing themselves in detention and, in more severe cases, landing themself in trouble with the authorities.
Some of these students thankfully grew out of their bullying days and have grown and learned to treat others with respect and kindness. Others were not so lucky, and still found themselves getting into trouble long after their school days were over.
"Who was the worst student in your high school, & what did they do that was so bad?
The Beginning Of The End...
"There was a kid who walked up to the pencil sharpener and set the substitute teacher's hair on fire from behind her with a cigarette lighter and then claimed sparks had flown out of the light switch."
"Yeah."
"He's in prison for other stuff now."- isfrying
Lucky The Room Was Empty...
"I knew a lot of sh*tty people back in school, but I think the guys who dropped a whole desk out of a third-story window onto some kid qualify as the worst, purely because I think that qualifies as an attempted murder."- WixedEcho
Doesn't Exactly Scream True Love...
"The boy that put a pipe bomb into another kid's locker because he talked to the girl the original boy liked."
"He went to a juvenile program and then disappeared."- dreamermom2
The Demon Student Of High School...
"A girl at my school took the ashes of her recently deceased grandfather."
"Baked it into cookies and handed the cookies out amongst her classmates."
"Nine students had eaten them before she revealed the urn and told them what she did."- FiddlerofSticks
What A Waste, So Close To The End...
"He put LSD in a teacher's drink and they tripped."
"12th grade, he got arrested as he should have."- Amy_OZ
How Did He Even Get The Job?
"Not me, but my daughter and her female friends in 9th grade."
"There was a boy who was disturbed who was making threats to the girls in his classes."
"The girls told me he had photos of dead animals he'd killed."
"Anyway, for whatever reason, my daughter felt like telling me about it for the first time well into the school year, like in November or so."
"I had no idea this was going on until then."
"I called the teacher first, who was a man, and he was afraid of this kid."
"Teacher said to call the principal and gave me his number."
"Principal said, and I quote: 'Lady I have 1200 students to deal with on a daily basis'."
"'I can't be worried about whether your daughter is safe at school'."
"Which was the wrong thing to say, bc it obviously pissed me off."
"He said that he put this kid and my daughter alone in a room and told them to essentially kiss and make up."
"Called the superintendent next, who was incredibly bowled over by the incompetence of the principal."
"He told me to call the police."
"Which was too late because I had already taken my daughter and 3 of her friends to the police to make reports and file for a restraining order."
"The next day the principal called to apologize, from the phone in the superintendent's office."
"The kid was removed from the classes with all of these girls, which was next to impossible."
"And less than a week was removed from the school."
"I think my daughter said that he's in prison now."- floridianreader
Some People Can Turn Their Lives Around
"Not the worst student but craziest thing to happen was freshman year this kid got caught using a keylogger to steal teacher's gradebook logins to sell grade changes."
"He was also stealing credit card info."
"Ran into him a few years ago and he actually graduated Harvard and is in real estate now."- AbortionCrow
Bad Decisions Have Consequences
Bullied other kids mercilessly."
"Stole cigarettes & alcohol from shops, to sell to other kids for cash he'd use to buy weed."
"A few years after high school him and 2 of his closest mates were hooning in their sh*tbox on the highway, playing Chicken."
"It was night time and they had their lights turned off, and they were driving on the wrong side of the road with the intent to make other people flinch & dodge before they had to."
"Other driver didn't even know they were there & just drove a straight path."
"So because of that the other driver obviously didn't dodge or deviate, forcing them to flinch and they dodged off the side of a road, right into a huge Gum Tree."
"All 3 killed instantly 140+kmph impact on a hardwood tree."
"Small rural area so the whole town grieved over the 'tragic loss of 3 young lives' but single kid who grew up around them knew better than to call it a tragedy."
"Glad the other driver didn't see them & suffer their fate."
"Gladder that they're gone."- Pharya
Some People Simply Never Learn From Their Mistakes
"One of the rich families kid was just 100% incapable of driving safely at all."
"We're talking at the age of 16 has already totaled 3 cars."
"His parents kept giving him new ones, not cheap ones either, Acura RSX, VW Golf, Subaru WRX."
"The VW and Acura he did nothing but crash them into trees while he had his DRIVING PERMIT - not even a license."
"The First WRX he had a passenger in it and decided to hit another tree."
"Passenger broke his neck but was fine."
"3 months later, parents got him his second WRX."
"Was doing 70+ in a 45 back road with a 2 girls in the car."
"Swerved to avoid a truck pulling into a road, clipped the back corner, spun the car sideways and got T-boned by a box truck/Uhaul."
"Everyone died."
"It was sad but I'm more outraged at his sh*tty parents."- Saturn_5_speed
One never knows the kind of person your classmates are going to grow up to be.
Though sometimes, you can't help but appreciate that you were right about your instincts to avoid certain people.
Who among us hasn't seen things that made us think we were still asleep?
Sometimes those scary movie moments are a reality.
Once in a while, Michael Myers IS in the shadows.
There are so many unexplainable happenings that leave our nerves wrecked.
As I type this, I swear I can hear moving in the bushes outside.
I'm not in the mood to be terrorized before bed.
Redditor TractorLoving wanted to hear about the things many of us have seen that left us shaken and a bit scared, so they asked:
"What's the most creepy thing you've ever witnessed?"
I've lost track of the number of things that have creeped me out in life.
I barely leave the house.
From the bushes...
"When I was about 12 I was sleeping on my trampoline with a friend and we heard the bushes move behind us, we flashed our flashlight to the bushes and a mountain lion was laying there stalking us, I have never run so fast in my life."
Fortherecord87
Voices
"Finding my dad dead in his recliner. I swear I heard his voice when the coroner came for his body."
PolesawPolska
"My granddad knocked over my great-grandma's ashes in his car accidentally, and to this day swears he heard her laugh, loud and clear as if she was standing next to him. She had a hugely wicked sense of humor and would have found this (and my very stressed granddad carefully collecting her ashes back into the container before my grandma saw) very funny."
Tanyaaahhh
From the Sea
"When I was serving my time as an engineer in the merchant navy we used to have to clean out what is called 'sea chests;' they're basically big filters for seawater that we would pump in to use as coolant and if the pumps were on when we were dockside we'd find all sorts of things like bottles, fish, crabs etc."
"One day we opened up the chest, pulled out the filter, and immediately saw this gold shiny thing which turned out to be a Rolex watch. Usually, we'd just dump out the filter but with the mitigating circumstances, we went through it thoroughly and found a piece of a shirt with cufflink still attached and last but not least a nicely rotted finger."
"The police ended up closing off the dock and dredging it but never found anything on the end." ~ MarkyBhoy101
Terrified
"This guy followed me home. Said he saw me there often and named a few local spots I go to sometimes as places he sees me. It’s been about a year. Never saw him again. I was terrified for a little while for sure."
ewqdsacxziopjklbnm
Stay vigilant out there kids.
People are watching and some of us don't notice.
Back Up Creep
"I was in a restaurant years ago on lunch break. At the time I was a very thin 25-year-old woman. There was this big creepy guy sitting there who would NOT stop staring at me from the moment I walked in the door."
"I mean just open face staring without blinking for the entire 15 minutes I was eating several seats away. I asked for a box and left early to get away from him. As I walked out he said, 'You shouldn't be out alone. Someone's going to grab you and steal you away." 100% convinced creepazoid had someone locked up in his basement."
xain_the_idiot
'Youth in need'
"Was working in a restaurant. Nice place. That night we held a charity dinner for a 'youth in need' type of house. The guy representing the house, a worker there, was such a nice and kind man. Every teen there was only saying nice things about him. A good soul, that was giving everything he could for these teens."
"At one point they gave a big check to the charity. I must guess an amount they rarely received. Well under the excitement, that poor man had a cardiac arrest. Dropped there on the stage, cheque in hand. He couldn't be brought back. He died. Seeing this was already bad enough, but the kids everywhere in the restaurant screaming and crying for hours after... haunting."
Agronut
Inside the House
"One random night in middle school I woke up and had the odd feeling that something or someone was present in the house and coming towards my room. I was scared so I closed my eyes to pretend to be asleep. I could faintly hear something come into my room and it felt like someone was standing over me, looking to make sure I was asleep. I laid on my back, eyes shut, until the feeling passed, and ended up falling asleep. I woke up in the morning to find out that our house was robbed."
ThatOtherOtherGuy3
There in lies the rub...
"Well dressed 50 something business dude on a quiet Chicago L train reading a Wall Street Journal. Pretty woman with long curly hair dozing in the seat in front of him, her hair dangling behind the seat. The guy is rubbing and playing with her hair while reading his paper so I figure she's his wife or girlfriend who just wanted some space to nap."
"He is now intently rubbing and fondling her hair and not reading anymore. Suddenly she snaps awake and pulls in her hair like a bug was in it or something. She gets off at the next stop, he continues reading. They didn't know each other at all."
mtzuker
Why do people feel the need to overshare?
People really need to discuss boundaries.
If someone were to ask us which book we either hated or could not finish, we all have an answer to that question.
There are some books that simply do not work for us, while others stick with us forever.
Redditor Fair_Swing_6461 asked:
"What is the most challenging book you've ever read and why?"
'Ulysses'
"I have been an avid reader for many years. Thick and difficult books usually don't daunt me. 'Ulysses' by James Joyce has me beat, though. I just can't take the rambling about nothing at all and gave up 200 pages in."
- AppealAlive2718
Finnegans Wake
"'Finnegans Wake' by James Joyce: hold my pftjschute."
- A_Mirabeau_702
"'Finnegans Wake' is very similar to this for me. I tried to read both 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegans Wake' and never got too far with either, even though they fascinated me."
- TopRamenBinLaden
"'Finnegans Wake' is so much more difficult to understand than 'Ulysses,' in my opinion. 'Ulysses' is like a waking man’s stream of consciousness while 'Finnegans' is almost in a weird dream-like stream of consciousness that hits different readers in different ways. 'Ulysses' is Joyce playing with style/prose while 'FW' is him playing with language."
- philsqwad
Infinite Jest
"'Infinite Jest' by David Foster Wallace."
"Every page has footnotes that are required to understand the story. All 1,000 of them."
- HeliosTheGreat
House of Leaves
"I'm reminded of 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski, where the footnotes are the story."
- Viltris
The Silmarillion
"'The Silmarillion' by J. R. R. Tolkien."
"It's like the Old Testament of Middle Earth. I couldn't do it."
- doug1963
Being Mortal
"'Being Mortal' by Atul Gawande."
"My Dad read it to prepare himself for his death from cancer. He gave it to me and said he hopes it brings me the comfort of his demise as it brought him."
"I can't get past chapter three. I cry each time I try to finish it. Ugly uncontrollable despair cry."
"It is a great book, it has helped me a lot. The author has some important insights into mortality. But six years on, I am still not there yet."
- ohno_spaghetti_o
Les Miserables
"'Les Miserables' by Victor Hugo, in French. I was a second-year French language student."
- bustedaxles
"I came here to say 'Les Miserables' in English. The plot, more plot, 50+ pages of the history of Paris's sewers, more plot, more plot, more extremely long history."
"I enjoy history but don't interject an extensive detailing of it in the middle of a story."
- XShadowborneX
Blood Meridian
"'Blood Meridian' by Cormac McCarthy. Judge Holden is one of the most disgusting yet intriguing characters in fiction I have ever read."
- Andrista
Reading Comprehension Who?
"I've read a bunch of Thomas Pynchon and Dostoevsky cover to cover and forget everything that happened in them."
"I find it very hard to reconstruct the words on the page into a movie in my brain. I might as well be reading a bunch of numbers. Pretty much all fictional books are challenging for me."
- JFKRFJSRVLBJ
Lolita
"'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov. It's an infamous book that has been historically misinterpreted, romanticized, and weaponized as a love story, when it's really the account of the sexual abuse and manipulation of a 12-year-old girl, written from the perspective of the abuser trying to convince the reader of his innocence."
"Some scenes are gut-wrenching when you actually read between the lines and keep in mind who is telling the story. It's the ultimate 'unreliable narrator.'"
- CascadingStyle
Intruder in the Dust
"Anything by William Faulkner. Specifically 'Intruder in the Dust,' because that is the one I actually read. It was a requirement for one of my college classes. It was awful."
"He doesn’t use punctuation. Sometimes a 'sentence' can go on for pages at a time."
- Nomadic_View
"'The Sound and the Fury' did me in. I had to read it for my last year of high school at a time when you couldn’t look up summaries and whatnot."
"It was just an uninterrupted stream of consciousness with barely any punctuation or flow. The definition of word vomit. I felt the mental equivalent of motion sick when I read it, and thinking back on it I can vividly recall these feelings, even several years later."
- FEDophilliac
Quantum Ontology
"'Quantum Ontology: A Guide to the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics' by Peter J. Lewis."
"The book focuses on the three dominant interpretations of Quantum mechanics from a viewpoint of metaphysical ontology (the philosophy of what exists and what is real)."
"I have read many popular books on Quantum physics both in English and in Dutch. I can say I understand 70% of what is written in those books. This book sparked my interest very much when I came across it."
"I did not understand any of it. I could not finish the second chapter as I had no idea what the h**l this guy was talking about. It grounded my smug a** for a while."
- Some_Belgian_Guy
Moby Dick
"'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville. Just chapter after chapter describing whales and the whaling process. This might have captured the imagination in the 1850s, but when you’ve been watching Attenborough documentaries since childhood, explaining how big a whale is becomes tedious."
- berserk_kipper
"I think people approach it wrong. It’s not a book about an exciting adventure, although it does have that, it’s a book about being bored at sea and reminiscing on life. I hate when people say you should only read the plot chapters. The point of the book is finding meaning in the dull things around you, and the writing is beautiful."
- Tippacanoe
David Copperfield
"This is a strange choice because it's a classic, but I struggled with 'David Copperfield,' because of the writing style, by the author, Charles Dickens, who wrote these long, drawn-out sentences, and it got to the point, as I was reading, where I would just start to count, in my mind, how many punctuation marks there were, in each sentence."
- neoprenewedgie
While we could take this conversation as sad, seeing as how there are books out there that some people do not like, it's better to take it as a reminder that not every book is going to be for us, and we have every right to put that book down and pick one up that we'll love instead.