Paul Barnard

How did you manage to accumulate enough encounters with cops that you can accurately profile them through the keyboard?

HoustonB

How do you know that CB HI's profile is "accurate", do you have some metric and insight that the rest of us do not have? I took it to be a generalization. Further, your use of the term 'them' is plural, CB HI said "this one" which is singular. Are you just practicing your trolling skills?

Also what does "through a keyboard" have to do with anything? Are we now supposed to have a telepathic interface to our computers?

I've seen a cat put more effort into puking up a hairball, than you appear to have put into your piece of monkey vomit.

CB HI

HoustonB did a great job of covering it.

But I do have some basis of experience:

Dad was the budget analyst for major city police department, got to hear about the FBI investigation of local cop dealing drugs at my High School and his methods of coercing sex from High School girls. Also got to see the good cops, one my dad (being former English teacher and school Sup) helped to prepare for police exam.

I have commuted on motorcycle or bicycle all of my adult life - more chances than I care to talk to ignorant cops about their wrong ideas of what those specific laws mean. Reporting and dealing with Hit/Run, reckless endangerment, and other cases as both the cyclist and a witness.

Collateral military duty as Officer in Charge of Military Police Unit that interfaced with local police.

Next door neighbor is a cop, his watch unit got in quite a bit of trouble giving FBI raid information to drug gang and providing protection to cock fighting ring. Three of his buddy cops went to prison, while he and about 4 others got off with internal whatever cover-up.

Performed environmental assessments of every police building on Island of Hawaii while the cops shop talked.

Most cops I know or have had contact with have been good, a few like the OP cop have been bad cops that go on power trips.

Your turn to provide a basis for all your post and claims in BFs.

Ajenkins

OP here. I thought you guys might like to hear story #2 which I didn't put in my blog. What I wrote about in my blog was my second encounter with the cops that week. My first had occurred two days earlier....

The previous tete a tete had occurred on Wed. evening. Sometimes, instead of riding my bike, I walk to work and home -- it's only a couple of miles. It's on a two-lane state highway, but if the traffic isn't busy, it's a beautiful walk.

So, anyway, Wed. night, I'm walking home about 8 p.m. Walking in a wide berm, against the traffic, of course. Listening to the wind in the woods, when some driver gets a bad case of target acquisition, and I'm the target. I yell, step aside, he buzzes along down the road. No big deal, it didn't look to be aggressive, nobody hurt.

I take another 5 steps, when a goddamn squad car squeals into a U-turn and pulls to a stop with me in the cross-hairs of his searchlight. After the usual driver's license request (ok, I did say "You really want my driver's license? For walking?"), he gives me the third degree. I swear on a stack of Effective Cyclings, this is how the conversation went:

Cop: Where are you going?
Me: Home.
Cop: Where's that?
Me: Top of the hill.
Cop: Where are you coming from?
Me: Work.
Cop: Where's that?
Me: Bottom of the hill.
[pause with glare]
Cop: You do this a lot?
Me: Do what?
Cop: Walk to work.
Me: I'm walking home.
Cop: You know what I mean.
Me: I walk when I want to.
[more glare]
With that, he takes my license, freakin' runs it, then comes back and tells me to have a nice evening.

Never said a word about they chump who wired it over the white line at me.

A word to the wise: If you like cycling, do *not* come to Northwest Connecticut. They're gunning for all the non-traditional road users here.

mocolotion

You're a confrontational prick with a bug up your ass. With any luck the next cop you come across will break your face with his club for being such a ******

dynodonn 

Oh the irony!

Rx Rider

****** was going to be my screen name 'cause that's the sound little knobby tires make riding over grass and ducks.

CB HI

+1

kalliergo 

I guess it wouldn't be productive to ask mocolotion to explain his reasoning, huh?

Ajenkins

Hahahaha! Mocolotion, you've got to remember, I was clearly being stopped for being in the way of a car that swerved toward me. So, right off the bat, I knew I was already through the looking glass, and red was black and black was white. When you find yourself in places like that, you keep your mouth shut. You seem to think that I answered the cop's questions while twisting my handlebar moustache and sneering like Snarky McSnark. I didn't. I answered his questions directly, honestly, in a fairly monotone voice.

What I didn't do -- and this is where people get screwed up -- is I did not volunteer any information. Even though I don't think he had any right to it, certainly, if he had asked for my business address, I would have given it to him. (I would even have given him my home address without pointing out to the poor fellow that he had my drivers license in his hand and he would probably be able to read my address if he concentrated hard enough and moved his lips.)

The guy asked me questions, I answered them, precisely, honestly and without rancour. And for that I'm being a confrontational prick with a bug up my ass? No, apparently I'm a confrontational prick with a bug up my ass because I did not volunteer information that the cop had no right to.

ItsJustMe

The cop didn't even really have an excuse for getting an ID unless he suspected you of some crime, and you had no need to have been carrying one. I don't normally have a driver's license on me when I'm riding, just dog tags.

phoebeisis

OP-
What is your best guess on why the cop stopped you?
My guess is walking at night in Conn is so uncommon that he decided to check you out to see if you were a criminal?
Is that it-he stops walkers at night?
This is probably fairly common cop behavior-stop talk get a read on citizen-just general police work with a dollop of intimidation(I'm watching you so you had better not commit a crime sorta' thing-not completely unreasonable in high crime areas-doubt Conn is high crime??-is it)

And -YOUR BEST GUESS-did this encounter have anything to do with your later encounter(cops talked decided you pissed them off-shared your name-so they actually targeted you) ?

So why the stop-and was the 2nd stop related to 1st-best guess? Not trying to pick a fight-just curious on the why. I probably would have acted a bit obsequious-armed angry people with arrest power bring out the coward in me!
Charlie
PS off for a ride- beat NOLA rain-dreary day in store!

atbman

I find this really bizarre, tho' I remember a BBC journalist being stopped in Beverly Hills while out for an evening jog (many, many, years ago) and subject to: (a) great suspicion (being in possession of a pair of usable legs was, ipso facto, probably indicative of either insanity or larcenous intent) and (b) bafflement that anyone should use said legs for anything other than pressing accelerator or brake pedals.

As for the idea that your behaviour might, possibly, be criminal, I wonder how many criminals walk along a 2 lane highway, putting themselves at risk, with a view to, say, mugging another pedestrian, or breaking nto a house and carrying away the loot on foot?

That such an LEO attitude exists indicates how far the US has still to go, culturally speaking, before developing a rational attitude towards a transport policy

mocolotion

Fair enough, but I still think your attitude towards the police is bringing a lot of their aggression out. If you were just polite and answered their questions directly and clearly I'd bet they'd give you a much easier time. Intentionally dancing around questions and refusing to provide them with answers to their cursory questions comes off as combative and uncooperative. I could see taking that approach if you truly had something to hide and didn't want to incriminate yourself, but when you haven't actually broken any laws and are in no danger of being arrested it it makes more sense to be polite and cooperative.

Paul Barnard

"cops like this one"


Oops! Back to fundamentals of English class for you Sparky.

unterhausen

somehow I don't see the societal need to have law enforcement officers where we have to act in a way that doesn't exacerbate their anger management issues. Maybe if they weren't using steroids, they could keep the anger problems under control.

wphamilton

One of our bedrock legal principles is that an American citizen is not obligated to justify his free exercise of his legal rights. The cop who demands answers from a citizen, who is committing no crime and in no danger of being legally arrested, is abrogating that fundamental principle.

Why do people insist that we politely cooperate with the abrogation of our rights?

CB HI

Agree.

Sadly, that discussion becomes a political hair ball.

genec

Who insists that we politely cooperate... and since 9-11, I believe some of our rights have been "suspended" for our safety... which of course would shock some of our forefathers...

"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither." --paraphrased from some guy named Franklin.

phoebeisis

I would not call it insisting you politely cooperate with the abrogation of our rights.
It is more a pragmatic choice to not antagonize an armed angry LEO who can beat, harass arrest or ticket you.

Yes it becomes a hairball-
PRO-"I have rights"
CON " But asserting them will waste my time, money, get me harassed, ticketed, arrested beaten to a pulp/killed"

The OP's experience has demonstrated asserting rights has a downside-
1)Ticket 2)Money 3) Time 4) Harassment- Initial walking episode might have precipitated the harassment of second trike episode.

Sure-maybe the other approach would have given the same result??
Still curious about OP's take on episode 1 bringing on episode 2. Seems odd to bring 3 patrol cars to "bring down" one pudgy middle aged trike rider.
Is this a "rich people" town?

wphamilton

Well the guy a few posts up did. I suppose we all have to draw our own line on how much liberty we're willing to sacrifice, and I'm of the mind to take my own chances and only give up the measure of liberty that is forcefully taken from me. But CB HI is right and this discussion can really get hairy.

genec

No matter what or how you interpret CB HI and the OP for their take on cops, you have to admit that having three police cars show up for a cyclist riding a bike in a legal manner on the street is a somewhat heavy handed police response. I don't think one has to be a "rocket surgeon" to "accurately profile" this situation.

mocolotion

Settle down there, Thomas Paine. We're talking about a nerd on a tricycle, not some sort of freedom fighter. Throughout his descriptions of the encounters he's had with the police the OP has taken a very strong holier-than-thou tone, and if you don't think cops are going to react to that then I think you're naive. We're now heard of two separate instances of the police making a determination that the OP was either a hazard or a nuisance to traffic and the only common denominator here is the OP. I'd say the problem lies more with the OP's behavior and attitude than it does with any sort of erosion of Constitutional freedoms.

I said it in my first post and I'll say it again: get a flag, get a blinking tail light, ride FRAP, and I'll add wear something reflective if you decide to walk on the roadway at night.

genec

Sure but does a holier than thou attitude justify sending three patrol cars? I mean the OP may be something of a doosh, but the cops seem to be a bit heavy handed too.

phoebeisis

Cops are usually heavy handed, but maybe the Walking Episode made our Killer Chiropractor a "person of interest"
3 cars-gotta' be something we are missing here!!
OP are you "known" in your city/town?
Competing with mayor's brother for patients??
Very affluent town-so little crime cops have time on their hands?