Inside the Cop Shop...

[SiG Lady]

This is long, but rather amusing.

Community policing question:

I would like to know how it's possible for police officers to harass people and get away with it...?

Alleged cool cop response:

It's not easy. In California we average one cop for every 2,000 people. About 60% of those cops are on patrol, where we do most of the harassing. One-fifth of that 60% are on duty at any moment and available for harrassing people. So, one cop is responsible for harassing about 10,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial, business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 20,000 or more people a day. A 10-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds. This gives a cop one second to harrass a person, and ¾-second to eat a donut AND find a new person to harrass.

This is not an easy task. Most cops are not up to it day in and day out. It's just too tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those whom we harrass:

PHONE:

People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harrassment. "My neighbor is beating his wife" is a code phrase we hear a lot. Then we come out and give special harrassment. Another popular one on a week night is, "The kids next door are having a party."

CARS:

We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars blasting music, cars with expired registration stickers and the like. It's lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harrassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, are drunk or have an outstanding warrant.

RUNNERS:

Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harrass them for hours.

CODES:

When you can think of nothing else to do, there are books that give ideas for reason to harass folks. They're called Codes: Penal, Vehicle, Health and Safety, Business and Professions... They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people.

After you read the Codes, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy smash a car window. Well, the Codes say that's not allowed. That meant I got to harrass the guy.

It's a pretty cool system that we've set up, and it works pretty well. I seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it because the good citizens who pay the tab really like that we keep the streets safe for them.

Next time you're in my town, just give me a single finger wave. That's a signal that you wish for me to take a closer look at you and maybe find a reason to harass you.

Am looking forward to meeting you.

[Mike Dame]

where do I sign up?

[3quartertime]

Funny,  but too true probably.  It brings to mind the movie 'Super Troopers'.  If I could be a cop like that you could sign me up too!!!

On the other hand to harrass a cop back;  

Invite him to your range to shoot!!!

Most won't come.  They probably think of safety concerns which are in many cases valid.  But I also have seen some of them shoot...

[jhgtyre]

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3quartertime wrote: On the other hand to harrass a cop back;  

Invite him to your range to shoot!!!

Most won't come.  They probably think of safety concerns which are in many cases valid.

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Yeah, but if you keep an eye on the officer you can prevent him from violating too many safety rules!

-ld

[joenuclear]

Our club once shared a range with the local P.D. We had a saying "We've never had an accident that didn't involve a police officer!"