A cop comes to your door after 9 o’clock at night, asking you to step outside. His reason for being there is that he saw your car run a red light 3 hours earlier, while he was off duty and driving his own personal vehicle on the way to the gym. If you go to the Twitter post below, you can watch the video that was captured by the woman’s doorbell camera. The video is in multiple parts. (Sorry, still having issues embedding tweets.)
When the woman refused to step outside, he stated that he is going to mail a traffic citation. The problem that I have is the woman talked too much. I give her a C. What she should have done is:
- Don’t answer the door. This is what doorbell cameras are for.
- Through the camera: “Do you have a warrant? No? Then leave my property.”
- Then stop interacting with him while you record the entire thing.
- In most jurisdictions, cops don’t have the right to arrest for a misdemeanor without a warrant, unless it is happening right in front of them at that moment. This guy is clearly out of bounds.
- You want to mail me a ticket? Go ahead, asshole. I will hire a lawyer for this one. I don’t care what it costs, I will pay it.
This cop is clearly abusing his police powers to settle his road rage issues. The ticket likely won’t hold up in court. I would love to know how this turned out, but I can’t find the rest of it anywhere.
The funny part is the people who are claiming that cops are always on duty. I would love for a cop to make this argument in court. The next question should then be, “Are you permitted to be intoxicated while on duty?”
Then there would be a follow up question: “Have you, since becoming employed as a police officer, ever been legally intoxicated?”
If the answer is yes, then the obvious question to come next is: “So which is it? Were you intoxicated on duty, or could it be that you AREN’T always on duty?”
No, cops aren’t always on duty. A Dallas cop who is in Vegas at a strip club isn’t on duty. A cop on his way to the gym in his private vehicle isn’t on duty. If he were, then he would have performed the traffic stop then. Of course, that is fraught with its own risks.
I had a guy back in 2016 who tried telling me that he was a cop and that I was under arrest. He shit a brick and ran away when I produced a handgun. I don’t believe people who claim to be cops but don’t look like one.
3 Comments
Chris Mallory · December 13, 2024 at 3:43 pm
In my state a sworn LEO has legal jurisdiction in all areas of the state. So a sworn LEO employed by a city in the Eastern part of the state still has his LEO powers in a city at the other end of the state, 400 miles and six hours away. A sworn LEO also has full arrest authority 24/7 while they are in state. So on duty while they are in state is semantics. They may choose not to exercise that authority, but they still have it. That is why for a long time the hospitals and some businesses would only hire cops as “private security”.
My state also has what are called “Special Local Peace Officers”. These are tied to a specific property, apartment complexes are the usual place they work. They have the power of arrest but only on that property except while in pursuit of a person fleeing from the property after committing an act of violence or destruction of the property.
TLDR – Know your state laws.
joe · December 13, 2024 at 5:28 pm
i think you posted the wrong twit address DM…you are right though…don’t answer the door…let his dumbass write you a ticket and mail it…can he prove you were driving the car when it happened?…swear to it in court…fuck him…i would fight that ticket all day long…that is about as chicken shit as you can get as a cop…
Jester · December 13, 2024 at 8:27 pm
So he waited till he was on duty instead of perhaps calling it in to his PD? Showed up hours later to track her down? He was out on a power trip alright. And wanted to intimidate her. I wonder if he had found out the car was registered to a man if he would have behaved the same?