Understanding Consensual LE Encounters

[CathyInBlue]

So much for talking to people while working. Look, it's great to know how to conduct yourself in public but for crying out loud...LIGHTEN UP FRANCIS!!! Sometimes a conversation is just that...a conversation.

It's all fun and games until someone gets curb stomped.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

Unless I have to, I don't talk to people who have the power to destroy my life and whose word AUTOMATICALLY carries more weight than mine.

Rattlesnakes are more afraid of me than I am of them. I still go to great pains to walk y around them.

Nice to see you are still around to keep us corrupt cops on our toes.

Frank, just from chatting with you and actually having met Dave, I think you guys would actually get along in real life

I can only talk about JBT stuff on INGO, I can't have conversations about how much of a piece of **** I am face-to-face.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

It's all fun and games until someone gets curb stomped.

And then its just fun.

 

[Bunnykid68]

Nice to see you are still around to keep us corrupt cops on our toes.




I can only talk about JBT stuff on INGO, I can't have conversations about how much of a piece of **** I am face-to-face.

Like I said, you would probably get along

 

[j706]

A topic that comes up on INGO from time to time concerns law enforcement and consenual encounters.

1. Question, 2. No, 3. Leave.

You don't have to play reindeer games.

Stop-and-frisk Florida: Here's how to avoid "consensual" police encounters.

Outstanding advice for the criminal element of our society. For most normal people...not so much.

 

[drillsgt]

Outstanding advice for the criminal element of our society. For most normal people...not so much.

Why do you say that?

 

[j706]

Why do you say that?

Whatcha hiding? Most people nothing. You don't get busted for nothing.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Whatcha hiding? Most people nothing. You don't get busted for nothing.

Given the opaque complexity of the law, contrasted with what it was a generation or two back, I really don't know what I may be hiding without realizing it. Then again, maybe nothing but saying, doing, or being wrong (non-criminal, but contrary to some police superstition) sets off some officer's super powers and I may find myself spending the weekend in the klink hard at work keeping my rear end a virgin until the court opens up on Monday to establish that there isn't any problem.

 

[j706]

Given the opaque complexity of the law, contrasted with what it was a generation or two back, I really don't know what I may be hiding without realizing it. Then again, maybe nothing but saying, doing, or being wrong (non-criminal, but contrary to some police superstition) sets off some officer's super powers and I may find myself spending the weekend in the klink hard at work keeping my rear end a virgin until the court opens up on Monday to establish that there isn't any problem.

I dont understand that kind of thinking. I have had many consensual police encounters over the years, including in foreign countrys, and I have never been arrested for anything.

I talk to people all the time when I am at work. When I do so I am not doing it to look for something or some reason to bust them. Maybe I am weird but I think it is weird to refuse to talk to anyone out of fear of being busted. I think it is even more weird to tell ones children to not talk to the police (as others other than yourself have suggested). If I am talking to someone during my enforcement duties pertaining to an arrest you can bet I already have and know what I need to know.

Btw what is a police superpower?

 

[IndyDave1776]

I dont understand that kind of thinking. I have had many consensual police encounters over the years, including in foreign countrys, and I have never been arrested for anything.

I talk to people all the time when I am at work. When I do so I am not doing it to look for something or some reason to bust them. Maybe I am weird but I think it is weird to refuse to talk to anyone out of fear of being busted. I think it is even more weird to tell ones children to not talk to the police (as others other than yourself have suggested). If I am talking to someone during my enforcement duties pertaining to an arrest you can bet I already have and know what I need to know.

Btw what is a police superpower?

In fairness, I generally deal with a specialized subset of police who are actively trying to find billable offenses. This is a much less common problem, particularly with members of a local department. When working, I have the constant threat of having my person, papers, and vehicle inspected for violations without there being any need for any particular cause or suspicion. Operating a truck on the road is much like being an inmate in prison so far as your presence is generally considered cause for suspicion and action based on that suspicion. When I worked for the DOC, I tried my best to be fair. Likewise, I appreciate receiving the same now, but it simply isn't worth the chance of trusting a strange LEO.

The 'police superpower' reference, flippant as it is, comes with the following foundation in truth. There are a number of superstitions I have encountered from assorted representatives of the profession. My favorite is the belief that an inoperative headlight is a harbinger of bigger and better problem issues worthy of attention. I have run into a few other examples that hinge on acting on the perception of something not quite right, but so far as I am concerned, someone getting the heebie jeebies for some ill defined reason is not sufficient cause for prying.

So far as driving is concerned, federal regulations calling for fines of thousands of dollars per incident for relatively petty offenses is not doing anything toward mitigating the concerns that go into these concerns. Again, this is not an issue with local departments, but it does take an effort to keep it straight, especially as the state personnel enforcing CFRs* are turning up in stranger places every day, including camping the roads in industrial parks. If I see LEOs at a scale house, there is no question of who they are. Other places, not so much. Seeing them out of their vehicles in public can also be challenging the more nondescript uniforms become.

Moving away from this specialized corner of the law enforcement realm, another concern is asset forfeiture. Given that this has become a major source of funding for a number of departments and that there is virtually no protection from abuses and no burden of proof other that having been caught in possession of something of value, I certainly don't get the warm fuzzies here. As much as some of us are decried on INGO for exploring without necessarily endorsing some 'conspiracy theories' there is surprisingly little protest about being deprived of personal or real property based on a cop conjuring up on the spot what amounts to a small-scale conspiracy theory--and somehow it is perfectly legal. All it really takes is having some green in your jeans and it is presumed that if you possess cash, you are engaged in nefarious behavior.

*I am not certain whether state law imports directly from the Code of Federal Regulations or whether qualified motor carrier officers are like the National Guard with one foot on each side of the fence so far as belonging to the state or federal government is concerned. The bottom line is that they do in fact enforce CFRs which are subject to change at the stroke of Ray LaHood's pen, again magnifying the concern of being busted for something you didn't even know was a problem.

 

[j706]

I dont know much at all about the trucking laws so I am not qualified to offer any worth while opinion. I have never heard of the headlight thing either.

What I am mostly referring to is a mindset of refusing to speak to a officer for fear of being arrested for something. I can say with confidence that most of us have more important things to be doing during our shift that to strike up a conversation with someone in hopes of being able to charge them with something. I don't want to sound lazy but I had just as soon not charge someone with something than to charge them. Arresting someone is usually done because they are in need of it. Most often because they are or have been causing problems or stealing peoples stuff, driving drunk, you know the kind that are basicly being a drain on society.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I don't know much at all about the trucking laws so I am not qualified to offer any worth while opinion. I have never heard of the headlight thing either.

What I am mostly referring to is a mindset of refusing to speak to a officer for fear of being arrested for something. I can say with confidence that most of us have more important things to be doing during our shift that to strike up a conversation with someone in hopes of being able to charge them with something. I don't want to sound lazy but I had just as soon not charge someone with something than to charge them. Arresting someone is usually done because they are in need of it. Most often because they are or have been causing problems or stealing peoples stuff, driving drunk, you know the kind that are basically being a drain on society.

I can easily understand your point, and it really does put me on the horns of a dilemma. In general, I tend to like everyone until given a good reason not to, and also tend to issue trust more easily than I should. In your case, you are a keeper of the peace and my guess is that this is exactly what those to whom you answer want. Unfortunately, this isn't universal. It is hard to explain how much I miss the time I lived in Plainfield. It was the only time in my life that I can say that I felt truly satisfied that the police were exactly what I had been taught from childhood to expect of the police, and it was a great comfort.

One of the problems I see is with the money. When performance is evaluated by tickets written, fines collected, or revenue generated through asset 'forfeiture', there is much incentive for abuse. When the police are measured by the absence of problems in the community, then there will be a tranquility that stands in evidence of a job well done.

In general, I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. The problem is that when dealing with people in positions of authority and giving the wrong one the benefit of the doubt, it may not be possible to recover even if I live longer than Methuselah. Now I have all the old worries coupled with the latest and worst from Ray LaHood coming up in a few months compounded with TSA 'VIPR' teams partnering with state and local police camping scales and in Tennessee inspection sites which are basically paved areas on the sides of the interstates where they can set up shop with portable scales and assorted personnel. With the TSA, they add x-ray machines that encircle the truck that you have to drive through. During the pilot program in Tennessee, they were searching trucks over some pretty silly things that looked more ominous on the x-ray than in person, but it still seems that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are taking quite a beating.

Similarly, I have seen instances of local departments doing things they ordinarily wouldn't do on account of receiving bribe money from Uncle Sugar. The problem is that this generally isn't announced and, of course, one never knows what Uncle Sugar may come up with next.

It really does get stressful and makes it very difficult to be fair to good officers without taking unnecessary chances. Then, it gets really wild when you consider the implications of the feds 'partnering' with state and local departments when considering the implications of the NDAA. After all, according to the DHS documentation, I am terrorist material. They plainly state that veterans, supporters of the Constitution, supporters of the Second Amendment, people who oppose illegal immigration, people who oppose abortion, and people who believe in the Second Coming of Christ fall into this category. Any one of these qualifies a person, and the only one that does not apply to me is being a veteran, so five out of six seems pretty damning by their standards. Taking this in combination with Obama's 'bitter clingers' and 'punish our enemies' speeches and the willingness of state and local police to accept federal money in exchange for enforcing items on the federal agenda is far from comforting.

In the end, I am left with more questions than answers while feeling the pressure that comes with not being able to afford being wrong. The one thing that I can be sure of is that the days in which you could pay your taxes, live by the Ten Commandments, and rest assured that you would have no problems with the law are long gone.

 

[Denny347]

*I am not certain whether state law imports directly from the Code of Federal Regulations or whether qualified motor carrier officers are like the National Guard with one foot on each side of the fence so far as belonging to the state or federal government is concerned. The bottom line is that they do in fact enforce CFRs which are subject to change at the stroke of Ray LaHood's pen, again magnifying the concern of being busted for something you didn't even know was a problem.

ISP Motor Carrier Enforcement (many of which are unsworn civilians) have to go through training that allows them to enforce Federal Commerce regulations. The 99.9% of the other LEO's in the State cannot. Traffic enforcement is ISP's primary reason to exist.

 

[VUPDblue]

I thought the ISP was only here to model those awesome mount me hats

 

[IndyDave1776]

ISP Motor Carrier Enforcement (many of which are unsworn civilians) have to go through training that allows them to enforce Federal Commerce regulations. The 99.9% of the other LEO's in the State cannot. Traffic enforcement is ISP's primary reason to exist.

My biggest question is how the authority is derived. In some cases, as with the infamous unfunded mandates, the states are required to adopt the federal requirements as state law and I wasn't sure whether they did it this way or the qualified personnel were operating directly under the auspices of the CFRs. Having had people argue incessantly over this tangential issue led me to attempt a dodge with an asterisk since the reality is that state personnel enforce CFRs regardless of the finer points of the legal underpinnings. Another trend has been certifying regular state troopers so you don't even get what little warning the different logo on the door offers.

In any event, the level of justification required for unwanted attention reminds me much more of the standards applied to incarcerated inmates and/or parolees than free citizens of the republic. It gets very stressful and very old.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I thought the ISP was only here to model those awesome mount me hats

 

[Rookie]

I thought the ISP was only here to model those awesome mount me hats

Mount me?




I just watched that the other night.

 

[j706]

I thought the ISP was only here to model those awesome mount me hats

I hate those goofy looking hats. Our chief is retired isp and for the last six years has threatened mandatory wearing of the things whenever we are out of the car. So far we have been lucky.

 

[drillsgt]

I thought the ISP was only here to model those awesome mount me hats

I have one of those hats but mines brown.

 

[VUPDblue]

I hate those goofy looking hats. Our chief is retired isp and for the last six years has threatened mandatory wearing of the things whenever we are out of the car. So far we have been lucky.

You think those hats are ridiculous? You should see our hats!