Secrets of the City

Mrs. Lungs saw this yesterday and it got her pretty upset with the way the incident was handled.

Lawsuit coming, no doubt.

The public coffers are already empty and now we have to scrounge up more money to give a bad driver a bunch of money because some cop is an idiot.

Draining fast, since Trillion became the New Billion.

Sam Salter be gettin’ paid….

Esp. since they dropped the charges due to insufficent evidence!

The public coffers are already empty and now we have to scrounge up more money to give a bad driver a bunch of money because some cop is an idiot.

Solution: hire fewer idiots as cops.

i side with the police 99% of the time on these things. this is that 1%. i can’t believe she arrested him. 37 hours is a long-ass time to sit in a jail cell for not pulling over quickly enough. he deserves compensation.

I saw this too and couldn’t believe it. I’m sure they’d be blaming him if he pulled over on 94 and the cruiser got plowed by some idiot changing lanes while on their cell phone.

If you look at the time stamp it shows something around 11:45 pm on 12/31/08. I’ll bet this officer thought she had a drunk driver on her hands and reacted as such. It’s good to know that officers crank the radio while patrolling.

Also it looks like he stopped and she wasn’t paying attention and that is why the accident happened. I does not look like it was an intentional ramming.

If you were a cop and knew you were being recorded wouldn’t you make a statement out loud of what you are thinking to record it for future review?

I should also say that maybe he could have called into 911 to have them dispatch to the officer that he was looking for a safe place to pull over and not fleeing, but that idea doesn’t always pop into someone’s head when they’re being pulled over.

I do hate to defend the indefensible, but…

I wouldn’t call that a PIT maneuver I would not call it running into his car. His reaction was to jump out of his car, which you should never ever do. It is a very threatening action, and police person is likely to pull out his or her gun, which happened in this case. This is what caused him to be cuffed. Finally, he is bringing this up now in effort to win in the media. This happened a month ago.

He is right to be upset. He may have a case, but it is not as cut and dry as it appears.

One more thing. Hey people! This could happen to you if you do not signal your lane change!!!

Douglas, I hate to admit it, but I rarely signal a lane change. Yes, I’m one of those…

Actually if this wasn’t New Years Eve she would have never even pulled him over. She was amp’ed up that she was going to get to taser or shoot a drunk driver. The state patrol is the worst. Might as well be mall cops.

I should also say that maybe he could have called into 911 to …

Ahem. Not an option for SOME people, Alie. Besides, if he did that, they’d cite him for using a cell phone for driving.

Cubbie, I asume that the 37 hours is because it was a holiday, and he was held until courts opened on the 2nd. It might not have been you, but there have been other  people who commented “thems the breaks” regarding others arrested and held over a weekend in arguable situations.

And Douglas, if it wasn’t a PIT maneuver, and was simply “running into his car,” that seems like it woulod play to HIS favor, not the trooper’s.

Where are all the freakin’ cops when I’m behind all the idiots (’cept aliecat) who don’t ever use their signals?!! Huh? Where? Oh, eatin’ freakin’ pizza or down at the freakin’ donut shop, are they?

Obviously, because it was late on New Years’ Eve, cops were keeping a close eye on all errant highway behavior. But I really think cop machismo has gone way overboard in the past decade or two … and it hasn’t been abated any when things like the Patriot Act — that, more or less, say a citizen is guilty until proven innocent — gets passed by Congress.

[rant off]

And Douglas, if it wasn’t a PIT maneuver, and was simply “running into his car,” that seems like it woulod play to HIS favor, not the trooper’s.

I agree to some extent.  However, why does the news describe it as a PIT manuever when the tape does not support that?  He was going slow.  The officer was going slow and smashed into him.  It just says to me, that he is pleading his case with the media.

I think the cop even admitted to using the PIT maneuver…

Nood, it’s ok to call me on signaling. It’s a bad habit from learning to drive in SD.

Douglas, I think the news is calling it a PIT because the authorities are calling it a PIT. Even the Mankato State U law enforcement professor called it a PIT, I believe. Bouza did too. They’re just using the terminology that the people “who know” are using.

noodleman, the amped up police actions probably isn’t helped by the number of cops coming form military experience either. Especially when they’ve got multiple war zone experience under their belts, I think a some of these situations, they’re may fall back into their military training, rather than their police training.

i agree douglas. this was not a PIT maneuver. she just rammed him because she knew she could, or overreacted.

mnblrmkr, that does sound like something i would say, actually.

While the cop may have been legally justified in citing the driver for not signaling, this case sends out a bad message.

The bigger picture, one the cop apparently failed to grasp, is that drivers should move out of the way of emergency vehicles in the safest manner possible. That the driver failed to signal only shows that he may have been more concerned with getting out of the way, and that the urgency of the moment may have made him forget to use the blinker.

Evidently the cop saw the turn signal violation as the icing on the cake.