Cops showed up at my house tonight...

[Vash02]

Yeah, ya know what REALLY sucks? having a cop show up at your house. Listen carefully cause you all will love this. When i left a renting place parking lot and was going to sam goody i started going forward and was almost to the parking lot when some car comes out of nowhere and jets right in front of me. So i go into the parking lot not thinking anything of it. I decided to come straight home after that. About a half hour after i got home (11 pm) the door bell rings. I went upstairs thinking that it was some of my friends and i was pissed cause it was way to late to be screwin around. When i got upstairs i soon realized it was a cop. My dad had been drinking a bit but he IMMEDIATLY took my side. The cop says that a lady was nearly struck when a red ford explorer ran the stop sign and nearly hit her. She then followed the car into the sam goody parking lot and began writing down the license. Once the driver of the explorer realized she was writing down the plates he sped off." It sucks cause basically it didnt happen like that at all but the cop believes her over me of course.
Luckily my awsome dad has the cop on his heels now. the cop wanted to talk to me about it but my dad said "Nope, he's a minor you get to talk to me instead". The cop says "well, the fact of the matter is that he was driving recklessly". and my dad says "FACT OF THE MATTER???? were you there?" cops says "No". Dad said "Well, then you have nothing, this conversation is over" and my dad shut the outside lights off on him!
To top everything off, my dad called down to the station to file a complaint. when the cop left he said that next time he would deal with it on the street and so he'd be "sure to get his man". Dad's like "the hell you will". so anyways, the police station said the supervisor would call us in a while...but guess who called?!? THE COP. He denied ssaying all that crap about getting me on the street but he is in more trouble then i am cause he has a complaint on him now. Im not nearly out of the water yet.
Im pretty worked up right now. I dont really feel to good and to be honest im a bit spooked. My dad really backed me up the whole time and both my parents are extremely awsome about it. All in all it was a night i wont soon forget. Not a good way to start a 4 day weekend.

[Sooky]

Sounds like that cop got owned.

[Vash02]

I've calmed down a bit now and we've talked to the shift manager. We gotta go down to the police station tommorrow. From what i understand we gotta go to court if we are gonna dispute the ticket. This is not cool at all.

[OfficerGoat]

Wait a second here... he wrote you on that? WTF ... yeah .. I'd be going to court and then some. I would love to see what his PC is going to be on this one. Oie.. I hate folks who abuse their power.

[Vash02]

The biggest problem I have with all of this is that her story is kinda dumb yet the cop deffinatly believes her over me. he said "why would she lie about this?" hahah.

Here is what is dumb about her story. She says that i ran the stop sign but why didnt she make any attempt to break or honk? Plus im not dumb enough to run a stop sign when there are cars coming. I think everyone knows better then that. She was deffinatly wasnt even close to me when i was looking (while stopped) at the stop sign. My theory is that either she turned off of a side street or she wasnt going the speedlimit.

[darklord]

People driving: sucks. Trust me, I got into an accident at the beginning of the year, the guy files a claim and BS's about having a passenger in the car (I have 3 witnesses to testify otherwise). Result? If he wins, my family pretty much goes broke.

From what you're telling us it seems like a minor case... ALMOST only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades. So, don't sweat it. The cop sucks, like most cops do, and you probably don't have much to worry about, besides a minor traffic violation.

[PyRo]

If the cop didn't see it technically it should be her word against yours, with no proof either way. Doesn't that amount to no case against you? Although traffic court judges don't always follow that. Most cops won't even write you unless they saw it, another cop called it in, or their are multiple witnesses and your doing somthing really stupid.

As for the guy lieing about a passanger in the car, doesn't it say on the police report that he had no passanger?

[pbcustom98]

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Originally posted by Sooky
Sounds like that cop got owned.

owned goes a little something like this...haha

Daniel

[Sparq]

So all I need is a lisence plate number to convict people I hate of traffic offences? Great!

[jdev]

just to be a little inquisitive, and the be 100% sure, the officer wrote you a ticket based on what this lady had claimed happened?

did this lady get your entire plate? (i would have to assume so seeing how a cop showed up at your door. then again, according to this lady, you sped off from the scene, how was she able to completely write down your plate?)

what this will come down to is you asking this question directly to the officer:

"were you on the scene as this lady had described this, did you see this happen"

be respectful about it, dont act all tough, just ask the question. the officer is going to say no.

you then proceed to ask:

"did this lady approach you directly and report this, or call 911/call center/dispatch."

this may be tricky. chances are, this lady frantically called 911/call center. alot can be lost in translation between the original story and what the desk sargeant relays to the nearest officer on duty.

if she called the station/911, you then ask what he did as soon as he got the call.

he is likely to say that he got the call from dispatch, and your license plate, then proceeded to your house. ask why wouldnt he go back to where this was reported to question the lady? why didnt he go back to the scene and make an investigation, try to locate you in the area.

now, on the off chance this lady found the nearest police officer, ask if the officer always takes at face value what is reported to him without regard to an investigation. if this was also true, why would the officer not have immediately found you after it was reported to him.

what it comes down to is a report that someone was doing this. now, unless someone in the position to make a judgement on you whether you were doing this or not, I.E a police officer (because remember, you grant them this power to make said judgements) saw you do it, all it is is heresay. this woman would have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this incident occured. chances are, she will have to come into court and testify to this as well infront of a judge (not sure how it works in your area, but in MA, you appeal your ticket to a magistrate. if magistrate decides against you, appeal to a judge)

keep in mind, if you do go infront of a magistrate, you CAN ask these questions to the town prosecutor. due to the fact that the officer is not required to appear for the magistrate hearing, the prosecutor wont be able to answer these questions on the officers behalf. If he does, make sure you write them down. also, go to the police office and be sure to get a copy of the officers report. that may help you greatly in court.

good luck!

.joe.

[edweird]

Originally posted by Sparq
So all I need is a lisence plate number to convict people I hate of traffic offences? Great!

Well that and to get some little old lady to call it in for you. Its always better to work the little old lady thing... its almost as good as the female rape defence laywer angle.

[Vash02]

Thanks for the advice everyone. So far i havnt heard anything else about this so i guess everything just got dropped. As far as i know i dont have a ticket or anything so im really not sure what is happening (if anything)

[SIGSays]

who cares about the po po

[Caffiend]

I hate old people that don't know how to drive/have too much time on their hands. Thank god I live in Tucson where there are no ol....wait a minute.

Best of luck with the ticket man.

[PyRo]

If they are mailing you a ticket I would imagine it could take a few days. Then again I was supposed to get a $3k bill for a telephone poll that I hit (some paperwork must have gotten lost somewhere) and that never came so maybie you got off.
As for old people who don't know how to drive, yeah it sucks. I don't think it would be to bad of an idea to have people take another road test every ten years or so, and be a little more strict with no driving due to medical conditions. Someone around here had some sleeping disorder (forget what it was) well he fell asleep in the food store parking lot and managed to damage 13 cars, fortunatly noone got hurt. That lot is a major PITA to get around when awake.