The Glade 4.0

I'd rather cops didnt pick and choose what laws to enforce. They aren't legislators. They aren't juries. If turn signals should only be used when other cars are present go tell your state assembly person.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I addressed both points already.

A) The direction is irrelevant, I agree. If they're on the road then you should signal, which I said with my second sentence. The important part was the fact that the cop was on the road.
B) If the cop's lights are off, then they should be parked and don't need to be signaled to

Personally, I agree with you. That's probably exactly what I'd do. However, whether your fine with it or not, the cop has not done anything illegal, immoral, or unethical if he does give a ticket. It may not be morally praiseworthy either, but that's irrelevant.



I can see why you might not like it, and that's understandable. You can always go to court and pint that out to the judge. Maybe he'll see that as a reason not to fine you.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, he isn't. You can't do that. If he searches someone's car for marijuana just because he saw someone not use a turn signal, or administers a breathalyzer for that reason, then he's violating the laws of search and seizure (unless he asks for, and gets, consent).

If he stops a car for not using a turn signal and then, based on other observations, develops probable cause to believe marijuana is present in the car, or that the person driving is intoxicated then he can search, or arrest for DUI and then administer a breathalyzer, but then he must be prepared to explain his probable cause to the satisfaction of a judge.

Either way, there is nothing wrong with the initial stop. No one misunderstood the example.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We're not talking about whether he's doing anything illegal (he's not), immoral (subjective), or unethical (the same thing as immoral.) What he's doing is being an *******. That's the important part.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

If the cop is parked somewhere off the roadway, then yes, you're right in the sense that no one is on the road. The cop car might, as far as you know, not even be occupied. However, it's also irrelevant. Turn signal laws don't state that there has to be someone present for you to signal to, just that you have to signal. The officer should, however, take into account whether he himself was on the road and driving and therefore put at risk, or if he was parked somewhere and off the roadway, when deciding whether to issue a ticket or merely a warning.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Whether he's being an ******* is unimportant. That's entirely subjective. All this carrying on about the spirit of the law and why laws exist and so forth is a matter of individual opinion. The job of the police is to enforce the law, and because we are not capable of doing so with 100% perfection and omnescience, we grant certain discretion in doing so.

It is not in the job description of any police department I have ever seen to "avoid being an *******". If by that you mean not talking to a citizen in a rude or abusive way, sure, that's part of the job but we're not talking about that. We're talking about issuing a ticket or not. It is not the job of the police to do things in a way that convinces you, or anyone else, that he's not an *******.

The only reason this is important is that Coro started talking about "pigs" which is a commonly accepted pejorative for cops who skirt illegality, or outright break the law in their actions hoping that their status will cover them. I object to that because merely issuing a ticket that displeases a member of the public is not illegal, immoral, or unethical and does not make you a "pig." A person that thinks a cop who issues a perfectly legal traffic ticket based on discretion is somehow in the same league as a "pig" who (for example) invents traffic violations is, themself, a pig and an *******.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE we're not arguing what's legal or illegal or whether or not we all should follow laws regardless of the situation. I was merely trying to describe a situation in which you'd see a difference between a nice cop and an ******* cop. I think we should all be able to agree that a cop in a parked car pulling over someone for not using a turn signal on an empty road in the middle of the night is kind of an *******.

I thought we agreed already the problem was if he gave a ticket, not if he pulled the guy over.

I don't necessarily disagree with "nice" vs. "*******" but again, ******* is totally subjective and I don't see much point in just establishing that we all have different opinions of what's an *******. I got that. If you want to think he's an *******, by all means. I probably agree with your above statement, depending on the exact details.

However, it' not against the law or a violation of the job description to be an *******, despite the fact that much assholeish behavior is illegal or against the rules for cops in and of itself. again, my objection is to using the same way of talking to describe corrupt "pigs" and cops we personally disagree with. that's the problem with Coro's example. He is describing legal behavior using pejorative, very vague language, to imply the cop in his example is doing something wrong. Then when it's pointed out that this isn't the case it's "oh, well you didn't get the point of the example, he's really doing this" which is then against the law.

No. It's not that anyone didn't get the example; it's that he changed the example. He either doesn't understand the laws of search, seizure, and arrest well enough to understand how to create an example without jumping back and forth between legal and illegal behavior, or he doesn't care, and just wants to rant about pigs.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, I think everyone understood your example, we just didn't agree with it. Your confusing "fishing for a DUI" with using years of experience to know that if someone fails to use their turn signal at a stop, after bar close, there's a fair likelihood that they may be intoxicated and part of their JOB is to investigate that kind of thing.

Personally, I've never had what I'd term a "negative" experience with the police. I've been pulled over several times over the years for speeding. EVERY time I was indeed speeding. i.e. I was breaking the law. Now I obviously don't agree with the speed laws, but it's not the cop who created that law, it's just his job to enforce it. Without exception, every time I've been pulled over (in several states by the way) the police have been professional, courteous and in many cases nice enough to write the ticket for less than the amount that I was going or to let me off with a warning.

No, we don't agree. I think you're completely wrong.

I once was driving home from a friends house when I was a senior in high school. I had a curfew of 1am and it was very close to that time when I was going home, so I was going a little over the speed limit. As I was driving a dropped something and made a quick attempt to try and pick it up off the floor of the car. It was quickly obvious I wasn't going to be able to reach it so went back to focusing on driving. Apparently while I was trying to pick the item up I swerved a bit and a police officer saw it. The officer pulled me over because he suspected that I was driving drunk. He asked me if I'd been drinking, which actually surprised me, as I hadn't figured out I had weaved when trying to pick up the item yet, ran my info and then had me do a quick roadside sobriety test consisting of following a pencil as he moved it around. Became obvious I wasn't drunk and he let me off with a warning about watching the road and keeping from swerving.

That cop wasn't an ******* at all, he was doing his job.

That's a cool story and all, but a completely different scenario from the one I offered. Let me clarify:

A cop pulling over someone that is driving in accordance to all laws (stopping correctly, obeying speed limit, not driving erratically) that just-so-happens to forget to use a blinker when there's no one else around is kind of a dick. I understand he wouldn't be doing anything wrong. Disagree with that, if you like. I wont be defending the position any further than this.

I don't think the cop in your story was being an *******, either. You got pulled over at 1am for going over the speed limit and swerving. That is very reasonable.

Edit - I'm going to clarify my position a bit more since I got a PM

We got too hung up on the turn signal portion of the argument. In CA we don't actually have to use turn signals if there's no one around so it's a non-issue for me. My main opinion is this: if the reason that a law exists is not applicable in a certain scenario, there's no reason to enforce that law at that time. I don't like the idea of enforcing laws just because they're laws.

I don't see how you think that someone who fails to use a blinker is driving in accordance with all laws. Sure, they were driving in accordance with all the other laws, but not this one. Why should the officer ignore that particular law just to avoid "being a dick"? Especially if he doesn't actually give the person a ticket, assuming there's nothing else wrong with them?

Using a blinker is a habit. It's something you do out of muscle memory for the most part. Not always, sometimes people legitimately forget. However, a cop won't know that's the reason till he stops the person. Maybe that person never remembers their blinker. Maybe they've been drinking. Maybe they have a warrant and are so worried about what the cop is going to do that they forget. You can specify in your example that they just-so-happened to forget, but it's unreasonable to then judge your hypothetical cop based on that because the only reason you know is that you're the author of the scenario. A real cop cannot see a situation from that perspective.



What, exactly, makes one more reasonable than the other? He's driving in accordance with all laws.. except for the speeding and swerving. I understand that you probably have a picture in your head of what "driving over the speed limit and swerving" looks like, but what if it was only 1 mph over the limit? What is "swerving"? We often hear people complain about stops for "driving erraticaly" as if it were some sort of phony excuse for a DUI stop. That's exactly what swerving is - driving erraticly.

You said above that Aizle's scenario is completely different from yours. I don't see that they are; they're very very similar. In the one Aizle described, my level of suspicion of DUI would not be all that much higher than in yours. Either way, I would not know until I made a stop.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You don't see a difference between driving perfectly and neglecting a blinker on an empty street versus speeding and swerving?

Well, I do, and in my state there's a very real difference. Sorry you disagree.

No, I don't and frankly, I've seen plenty of both - enough to know that the difference is pretty trivial unless we're talking about extreme levels of speeding and swerving. Both are minor misdemeanors in Ohio where I was a regular cop, so that state doesn't see much of a difference. I don't know what difference your state sees, but I don't really see that it matters. Last I checked, there was no level of violation below which enforcing the law automatically made you a dick. Like I said, speeding and swerving could mean a lot of things. If we're talking about a single little swerve that doesn't even cross lines and 3 mph over the limit, that's less concerning than not using a signal to me.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The majority of people on this forum don't dislike cops. They dislike bad cops and feel that they encounter bad cops more often than good cops.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

That's very true. I used to want to be a cop, actually.

It's my observation that the vocal majority of the people on this forum actively dislike 'cops'...

I supposed you could say they only dislike 'bad' cops, but my take on it is that they assume they are (almost) all bad.

A firearm is designed to accurately launch a projectile with repeated reliability. The idea that an automatic or tactical weapon is more dangerous weapon for a criminal to possess simply isn't borne out by the consistently low number of such weapons employed before, during and after the Assault Weapons Ban. People have general feeling that weapons that are platform mates or resemble military/LE issued weapons for specialized combat are more deadly but that's all that is, a feeling. That's what makes the taboo so unreasonable because, well, it's not based in reason.

This style of taboo is carried over into most things in our modern society as it's a strongly perpetuated aspect of the protectionist culture. Hell, look at the assault weapon ban itself; it really only banned cosmetic features of weapons. People are afraid of what looks and seems scary, not what actually is. My car insurance went down after buying a WRX STi worth about 4 times as much as the Honda Civic I had before it despite being one year newer and having more than double the horsepower and almost triple the torque. This was because the WRX had four doors and the Civic had 2.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Cops are just people doing a job. Granted, it's a specialized job in that we almost all have to deal with one sooner or later regardless but it's a job nonetheless. I see them as any other people. Some are really nice, outstanding humans, some are contemptible and vile scum who should be crushed in an iron maiden but most are just average doing the same thing everyone else is doing.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

If one keeps getting the same experience with multiple different officers, maybe the cops aren't the assholes.

Sorry to interrupt your thread where we only laud police, I missed the notice. As for "dredging up an incident" (the incident I posted was in direct opposition to the one Aizle posted, to which I said he did great and needs to have an active role in training other officers), the one I posted happened last week, less than 50 miles from my house, and less than 20 miles from my brother's house. Aizle's video showed a respectful, knowledgeable officer making a weapon check in accordance with a citizen's Second Amendment Rights. The video I posted showed a group of police sergeants who were all at various times either ignorant of the law, bellicose, disdainful or downright threatening during a detention and subsequent arrest while violating a citizen's Second Amendment Rights. That's not "dredging something up", that's something that is surprisingly similar in many respects, but polar opposite in others, and worthy of posting IMHO.



I've had ~6 encounters with police while they were acting in the line of duty. 2 were exemplary, 2 were deplorable and 2 were unremarkable.

I've had three extended encounters with different off duty police in a social setting; 1 was outstanding and he's now a close friend, the other two were examples of boorish, self indulgent pricks who thought they were above everyone else - and the police were just as bad.



I can only assume that you count me as one of the vocal majority, and I can assure you that I do not actively dislike "cops", and your observation should be taken with a pound of salt, as your pool of observable behavior is incredibly small. I despise ignorant, corrupt, bellicose or power mad people wearing a badge (or any other symbol of public trust). I do not assume the police are (almost) all bad, as I know, trust and like far more officers than those I know and dislike. I am positive, however, that the damage ignorant, corrupt, bellicose or power mad police can inflict on society is orders of magnitude higher than can be done by the average citizen, and truly believe they a scourge on our society.

Now pardon me while I go have a few beers with some off duty Aurora SWAT operators.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

You are absolutely correct in that firearms in general are designed to launch projectiles and that, on average, tactical/automatic weapons are very, very unlikely to be used in crimes.

Tactical/automatic weapons are designed to kill people.. by means of launching a projectile. Numbuk is right about that. They can be sued for entertainment, but the reasons for automatic fire all pertain to combat. It can be used for entertainment (and there's nothing wrong with that), but that's not its design purpose.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

@Vindi

You may want to read what it is tht you post. According to the article, the incident happened on July 21, most decidedly not last week, as you say.

So yeah, I would call that dredging up anti-cop sentiment in a thread where no such discussion was taking place.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

July 21st is not last week.

Also, while your first post was praise for the cop, the second post started with "and that didn't take long, here's the other side". As if we are not aware all cops are not great on this board. What didn't take long? To find a video of a cop doing something poorly?

What, exactly, made this worthy of posting? Its proximity to you personally? Ok, I can understand that but make that clear earlier on. Or was it simply a need not to let anything positive be said about a cop or cops in general without a counterexample? No? Then why?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."