The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: Vagabond on May 16, 2011, 10:22:45 PM
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I grew up in a family of cops. I grew up surrounded by cops would be better to say. Even though I've never worn a badge, and don't think I have the right personality for the work, I've learned at the feet of some men who were truly exceptional police and sheriff's deputies. Even most of the ones I've encountered up here are decent enough, even if they do generally display yankee arrogance.
Things change, true enough, but the basic stuff of community outreach, that doesn't change. Things like creating issues and threatening law abiding citizens with weapons does not help community outreach.
I'm a kinda neighborhood Dad to a lot of these kids. I've showed them games to play. Helped with homework. Occasionally gotten onto to a kid who was out of line. I'm not tooting my horn, I just regard it as being a neighbor and a citizen.
Enough of my navel gazing, now onto why I'm posting this:
I live on a dead end street.
Saturday, after I cut my lawn, my son wanted to play outside. So I told him to go out into the front yard, and let me finish my water, where he was on my property and I could see him easily even with the blinds not completely open.
There were other kids playing in the area, some younger than my son.
I saw a sheriff's deputy patrol car looped around leaving then stopped and waived my son out of the yard. My son, having had only positive interactions walked up and said, "Hi" (This part of the conversation as best as I can reconstruct from my son.)
The officer then asked my son how old he was. (4)
I heard the officer ask him where his parents were at as I opened the door to my house and called my son back to the yard. I stepped out to the sidewalk as the officer got out of his cruiser. He asked why I was in the house with the shades drawn an him outside. I told him that I was watching the whole time and was about to come out, and further that he had no business calling my son into the street.
He proceeded to threaten me with a ticket for unacompanied minor. I pointed out that there were at least ten kids within fifty feet of his patrol car and he was going to be awfully busy enforcing that ordinance in an area that was generally safe, him being the only stranger in the area and all. (There were at least three kids other than my son guilty of the crime of being outside while 4.)
I backed onto my property trying to put myself between him and my son and room between me and him, and trying to keep body posture, voice tone, and face as neutral as possible. My "bad cop" sense was tingling. I was already scanning him for information, name tape, body posture, location of hands in relation to weapons, facial demeanor, general threat. The sort of things one pays attention to when faced with a deadly animal.
He pulled a taser gun and pointed it at me as I got outside of arm's reach. I got irritated and asked him why he was increasing his threat matrix against someone who was not threatening anyone, in full view of a bunch of kids. We stood there for a good fifteen seconds until he lowered his weapon. I told my son to go into the house. I told the deputy that unless he had a very good reason to continue the encounter I was going inside. He failed to respond, so I went back into my house. I observed him leave from my front door.
With LEO's like this, thugs are redundant.
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What is name tape?
I hope I can stay as cool as you did, if I ever get into that type of situation.
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What is name tape?
I hope I can stay as cool as you did, if I ever get into that type of situation.
Name tape, Name badge, same thing really. A name tape is similar to what you wold find on military BDU's or ACU's with the individual's last name on it.
My dad always stressed to me about watching things to tell what an individual might do. Though my Dad is better. Things I had to scan for taking precious time, he knows in an instant glance. He also taught me how not to elevate the situation especially when the other guy is armed and you aren't. He emphasized staying calm and paying attention to what and how was being said as well as the surroundings. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but I avoided saying anything hostile.
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I've got two whole departments just like that (City PD and County Sheriff's Office), Vagabond. Whole damned lot of 'em more interested in their personal power trips than in actually enforcing the law. I really feel for you, sir.
:cheers1:
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If you had a meth problem going on like we do, the city and county boys usually have something to do. :thatsright:
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I am sorry you, and your son, had to deal with that. What I would like to ask the officer, why did he pick only your son to speak with. That seemed rather strange since you had a lot more kids playing in/near your yard. And unaccompanied minor? Since when is it a crime to let your 4 year old play in his own yard? I can understand the charge if you were letting your son run all over the neighborhood by himself, but on your property? Give me a break.
Have you called the supervisor of this cop? He had no reason at all to pull a taser on you. I would have asked him if he was seriously going to taser you right in front of your son. And then proceed to tell him that your son would end up viewing cops as "bad guys" because they tasered his daddy.
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That is bizarre, and more than a little scarey to me.
I, too, grew up in a family of LEOs. All but one were good cops, and the one was just a flake when he had marital problems. My father taught us all how to observe and assess interactions with bad guys and bad cops. He repeatedly warned us there was a fine, gray line between the two.
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That is really a strange situation. Something screwy is going on there.
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That is really a strange situation. Something screwy is going on there.
I called another officer, an acquaintance, about this. I was venting last night.
The other officer called me back today, and after several phone calls, he said that the officer said I acted tense. Well good enough, hopefully it won't happen again.
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I called another officer, an acquaintance, about this. I was venting last night.
The other officer called me back today, and after several phone calls, he said that the officer said I acted tense. Well good enough, hopefully it won't happen again.
If you wanted to push the issue call and ask for a supervisor, Lieutenant or above, and ask for the department's policy on use of force in writing. Their basic policy manuals - not specific tactics - should be public knowledge. I wouldn't think drawing even nonlethal weapons, in broad daylight, in front of children, and on a subject that's cooperating is standard operating policy. However, I'm guessing you're better off letting it go and keeping a close eye on who drives down your street.
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I called another officer, an acquaintance, about this. I was venting last night.
The other officer called me back today, and after several phone calls, he said that the officer said I acted tense. Well good enough, hopefully it won't happen again.
I'd be "tense," too, if I saw some cop (who should and does know better) had called my child out into the street. Flippin' idjit, he is.
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I'd be tense too! You shocked me when you wrote he pulled the taser. Personally, I wouldn't let this go. Outrageous.
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What is the standard procedure for pulling a taser? I obviously have no clue about law enforcement tactics, but I imagine there is big difference between someone who is tense, and needs a taser drawn on them.
I know whenever I am pulled over, I always end up nervous.
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I feel your pain, vagabond. I don't wish to "bash" police, several of my family members are LEO's (city cops and sheriff deputies in Fla). Cops are human just like the rest of us and like any group there are going to be some bad apples.
I ran into one several years ago. He beat the living crap out of me after he handcuffed me. I was a back seat passenger in a friend's car one night. My friend Bob was driving, another guy in the passenger seat and me in the back. As we were leaving a gas station Bob "lit 'em up", squealed the tires a bit. Not even much really, just a chirp. Immediately we got pulled over.
We pulled out of the gas station on the corner that is the town line between Amherst and the City of Buffalo, on Main st. As soon as we got onto Main as Bob chirped the tires the lights went on behind us, Bob signaled a right and turned onto the side street there, pulled to the curb and shut the car off. I could tell right away this was going to be bad. I was right. The cop didn't pull in behind us, he cut in front of Bob's '76 Monte Carlo diagonally. He got out of his car, slammed his door closed and stomped over to the driver's side. He was already extremely agitated, yelling at Bob. "What the **** was that, cowboy"? He went on like that for a bit, cussing a blue streak, not waiting for Bob to answer any of his questions which weren't really questions, just abuse really and getting more worked up. This was a Buffalo police officer, in uniform and a black leather jacket but he looked like a bum. He badly needed a shave and overall just had a disheveled appearance.
He told Bob to get out so Bob did, at least he started to. Officer Martin Dwyer grabbed his wrist as Bob got one foot on the street and wrenched it behind his back, forcing him to the street on his face and came down on him heavily with his knee to Bob's neck and handcuffed him. Mike, in the passenger seat said out loud "what the ****"! This infuriated Dwyer even more. He jerked Bob to his feet and handed him off to his partner, Faraco as he came around the front of the car, telling Faraco to "stuff him". Then he continued around to the passenger seat for Mike, pointing at him through the windshield as he came "You, hotshot, get the **** out"! Mike got the same WWF treatment on the sidewalk and was then dragged by the cuffs behind his back, on his knees scrambling to the back seat of the police car. Faraco came for me but I was already getting out and put my hands on top of the car as he approached me. He just cuffed me and walked me over to the police car and put me in the back with Bob and Mike. That's when I noticed he looked nervous, he kept looking nervous the whole time as if he was a bit taken aback by his partner's actions. Faraco got in the passenger seat of the cruiser and got on the radio while Dwyer was apparently occupied with searching Bob' car. That took awhile. A long while, it seemed. Finally he got in and drove us downtown to the police HQ building. We drove right in to the basement parking garage. Faraco took Bob and Mike and walked them to a set of elevator doors nearby. Dwyer got me out of the car and as I was halfway out and not fully yet on my feet he grabbed the chain between the handcuffs behind me and commenced to drag me on my knees like he did Mike back on the side street towards the elevator doors which where opening. He told Faraco "go ahead, take 'em up". He did, Dwyer kept me back and waited for the doors to close. He shoved me up against the wall face first, knocking me off balance and I took a step back away from the wall and straightened up. He slammed me back into the wall and held me there with his nightstick across my shoulder blades, "you just keep kissing that wall there champ"! Once he got me on the elevator he did the slam to the wall thing again, into the back corner. That's when he began hitting me. He must have slapped me in the head twenty or thirty times before the doors opened a couple of floors up. All I could do was try to shrug my head down into my shoulders but he kept slapping me so many times on the right side of my head as he held me by my collar with his left. By the time he dragged me off the elevator and past a couple of doors into the booking room my right ear was ringing.
Faraco had Bob and Mike there sitting on a bench. Dwyer had me stood at the counter to give my information to the woman officer seated there behind the counter, he kept slapping me in the back of the head. "Answer her"! slap! "Give her your ****ing name"! slap! Faraco, Bob and Mike were all wide eyed at this but the woman officer never batt an eye at it. I couldn't hear her questions because my ear was ringing so loud.
After we had given our names we got finger printed and photographed there at the counter and then walked out into the hall. Dwyer told his partner Faraco "frisk 'em". He frisked Bob and Mike and then Dwyer frisked me. He then pulled my shirt up, all the way up, forcing my handcuffed arms over my head with my t shirt up yo my elbows so I couldn't see. He yanked my pants down to my ankles, skivvies too. He left me there like that for what seemed like forever but was probably just a minute or two. Then he jerked my shirt down and told me to "pull your ****ing pants up", laughing. That's when I saw I was right in front of a doorway in the hall directly in front of a black woman officer seated at a desk facing me, five feet away. Faraco wasn't laughing with him. He looked just as nervous as before which gave me the impression that he felt Dwyer was out of line, unusually out of line.
That's the last I saw of those two of Buffalo's finest. We were taken t o cells by the black woman officer who was aparently waiting for me to get dressed before she came out into the hall as dwyer to his cuffs off me. He left me with blue fingers and a sprained wrist, BTW.
The next morning we were taken into a courtroom in front of a judge who read the charges. "Causing a disturbance", at least that's what I thought he said. There was no speaker system and I could barely hear him. "If you keep your nose clean I'll dismiss the charges". "Stay out of Buffalo for six months"!
About a year later I got a large envelope in the mail. Charges dismissed. I though about following up onn it but honestly I didn't want to pursue it because of the trouble it might bring. This cop was obviously out of his mind and I didn't want to give him a reason to come looking for me. Enemies are bad but criminally psychotic enemies are really bad.
It must have been about two years later (this happened in 1991) in '93 or so that the Buffalo News had for its headline one day "Officer Martin Dwyer disharged in disciplinary action" or words to that effect with a long article. This guy was likely the worst bad cop Buffalo had ever seen. He had a slew of people come forward with accounts like mine after he got into serious trouble and was fired, then reinstated and finally fired for good.
He beat up a lot of people in handcuffs in his career, pistol whipped suspects, shot at a private investigator and his Magnum Opus was putting his gun to the head of an off duty black New York State Trooper with accompanying racial epithets.
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BN&p_theme=bn&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_field_label-0=Author&s_dispstring=Martin%20Dwyer&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=1990%20-%201999&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(%22Martin%20Dwyer%22)&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no
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Jeezus, FB, that's a helluva story.
As Dwyer knows by now, karma's a bitch. What goes around comes around.
Glad for you there was no permanent damage. :cheersmate:
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I left out the unhappy ending. After we got released from the court we took a bus out of downtown out to the city line where the car was left. It was still there, surprised it hadn't been towed or ticketed. Bob noticed he didn't have his keys when we were given our wallets and other personal stuff back but he remembered he had left them in the ignition.
They weren't in the ignition. They were nowhere to be found. Bob had a crescent wrench on the floor of the backseat. I remember seeing it there before we got pulled over. There was also on the floor of the backseat a Budweiser 12 pack box stuffed with empty cans from being at the beach two days before. None of us had anything to drink the day of the incident. Now Dwyer's comments at the pull over scene about drunken suburban punks made sense. That was laying behind the car in the gutter, cans all over the street. The crescent wrench was on the floor up front on the driver's side down by the pedals. The turn signal lever was gone, never found that. The shift lever on the column was bent completely over the top of the column to the other side in a "C" shape. The plastic over the gauges was shattered. The ashtray was pulled out and tossed in the backseat, butts everywhere. The visors were both snapped off, one on the floor in front, one in the back. The lighter was gone too.
The car wasn't drivable, even if Bob had the keys but it wouldn't matter because the ignition was broken off the column too, probably with the crescent wrench. We had to call a flatbed to get it home to Bob's house. He wound up having to buy a complete column from a junkyard to replace it and get the car running again. Ever swap out a column? It is a royal pain in the ass to say the least.
We missed out on our planned evening of going downtown to the minor league Buffalo Bisons baseball game with Steppenwolf and Huey Lewis opening the show and fireworks after. Oh well. In the end Dwyer got his, that dirty rat bastard.
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Damn, that's adding insult to injury.....
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Holy Smoke FreeBorn. What a story! That cop was bad, bad, bad.
Back when I built water towers I traveled all over the country and I traveled as quickly as I could get by with. I was pulled over a LOT back in those days. Almost ever single cop I ran into was very friendly and professional.
I was polite and they were polite. I was breaking the law and they were doing their job. It was simple. Out of all the tickets I got there were only 3 cops that stand out as 'bad' cops. Out of those 3 I only had a real confrontation with 1.
The funniest one was when I got pulled over by a second cousin that I didn't know. Once we figured out we were related I told him I was going to tell Aunt Josie on him!
KC
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Ya, he was bad news Tex. I have to stress though that this was the one and only "bad cop" I have ever run across in my life. Like I said I have family in law enforcement, in the probation dept. too. A couple of guys I grew up with and went to school with are troopers. Also while growing up our next door neighbor was a trooper. He always got us into the troopers barn at the county fair and let me and my sisters ride the horses in the corral there. He was in the mounted division and I remember always seeing him on horseback in all the parades. Later he went into CID and acted as the Governor's personal body guard whenever the Governor came to Buffalo/Niagara Falls. The Sgt. that recruited me into the marines was just at the end of his hitch and going to the academy to become a N.Y. state trooper, which he did. Come to think of it, that was 25 years ago and he's probably retired by now.
Every one of these people are Type "A" first class personalities, top shelf people.