Couple Who Catch Cop Speeding Could Face Charges

a_nonamiss writes "A Georgia couple, apparently tired of people speeding past their house, installed a camera and radar gun on their property. After it was installed, they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit. They brought this to the attention of the local police department, and are now being forced to appear in front of a judge to answer to charges of stalking."

Comments

Moo

[Chacham]

apparently tired of people speeding past their house

Well, according to the article "They have said they did so in hopes of convincing neighbors to slow down to create a safe environment for their son."

thinkofthechildren will get you a lot futher than speed.

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

Chacham character choice corrected: "chronicling," "celerity" contained corruptions. Ciao, Coward.

Re:Moo

[sholden]

Now just wait for SWAT to serve a no knock warrant on the "wrong" house.

Re:Moo

[mrbluze]

"A Georgia couple, apparently tired of people speeding past their house, installed a camera and radar gun on their property. After it was installed, they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit. They brought this to the attention of the local police department, and are now being forced to appear in front of a judge to answer to charges of stalking."

Wow! Mobile police offices - must need a lot of horsepower to tow that thing!

Re:Moo

[utopianfiat]

It doesn't matter whether or not they had a radar gun or a method to calculate the speed of passing objects. Did you read the post?
 
  they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit.

So whether or not the office was speeding is a non-issue. I'm pretty sure driving an entire police office along a residential street is illegal in some way.

Re:Moo

[revolu7ion]

the Sipples' attorney, Edward McAfee

Mr McAfee halted proceedings and demanded the courtroom be swept for viruses.

Re:Moo

[aevan]

If you put it there, possibly some sort of charge for trying to cause injury or such would arise/suit be pressed...

but if some peckish beaver were to decide to partake of a nearby tree that just happened to fall...

...you did say it's the township, not you, responsible for maintaining (discovering) the state of the road 0:-)

Trouble is holding the beaver against that tree until he's hungery.

Re:Moo

[joshetc]

Trouble is holding the beaver against that tree until he's hungery. For some reason I don't think countries come from beavers...

Re:Moo

[Nutria]

Trouble is holding the beaver against that tree until he's hungery.

For some reason I don't think countries come from beavers...

Hungery? Where's hungery? Are they at war with Bulimia?

Believe it or not...

[drsquare]

You don't actually own the road in front of your house. They should increase the speed limit by 20mph to show this couple who's in charge.

Re:Believe it or not...

[drago177]

relevant joke worth the read (somebody tell me if true):

I always wanted a hopped up muscle car when I was younger. I couldn't afford one. Now I can, and I have one. It is a '70 Mustang, and her name is Bessie. Bessie is the prototypical juvenile, male-caveman, scratch you crotch and drink cheap beer car. Chromed engine, dual exhaust, 250 horsepower, big tires, tra la la la.
I'm driving Bessie on Beach Boulevard behind an ancient guy in a beat up truck. He decides to turn in front of me without a blinker. I accelerate to swerve and avoid him, and this asshole, overaerobicized woman jumps in front of my car with her hand up.
Meet Ethel, the neighborhood busybody/nuisance. She proceeds to yell in my window, "Hey, slow down you fucking idiot." I'm a well-bred, mellow guy by nature, so I ignore this. As I drive away, she yells, "asshole" at me again. Twice? Fuck that. I turn around and drive up next to her.
"Do you have a problem?" I ask.
"Yeah, why are you driving like an idiot?"
"I was driving like an idiot? How, exactly."
"You were speeding. I watched you."
" You were? I see. How did you measure my speed?"
(Ever the interrogator, I am.)
"I heard you."
"So, you measured my speed by ear?"
"I can hear."
" How fast did you HEAR me going?"
"Look," she says, "I don't have to take this. Here comes a cop. I'll wave him down."
THE POLICE? This woman is a trip. She waves him down, and proceeds to tell him that she observed me speeding.
"What happened?" he asks. I told him the story, and told him that I accelerated to an indicated 33 mph (the speed limit is 35) to avoid a collision.
"Are those mufflers legal?" Ethel asks. She's pushing it. I reply, "I have a C.A.R.B. exemption for them." I give the paperwork to the cop.
She tries to find another thing to screw me with. She says "What about those big tires? They CAN'T be legal. " I began feeling little overheated gears in the back of my head start to turn.
"These tires were available on the 1970 Boss 429, " I told the cop, " Which makes them street legal as a replacement."
Ethel gets angry. She whines, "So you're not going to give out any tickets to this asshole?"
The cop says, "No, I am not."
I've about had it. So I say, "Sir, this woman told you that she left the street at the corner, and she met up with my car here. According to Title 39, pedestrians have to cross the street at a right angle. This woman admitted she crossed at a 45-degree angle, which is a ticketable offense."
"What?" The cop looks confused.
"Also, she told you that she walked in front of my car to stop me. A citizen can't detain someone without probable cause, under Terry v. Ohio (My new favorite case). Since she couldn't measure my speed, she had no probable cause to detain me. That is an indictable offense."
The cop says, " But, I didn't see any of this."
"But," I said, "I did, and, as an officer of the Court, I can demand her arrest. I'll agree to dismiss the Illegal Detention charge, but I want her cited for not crossing at a right angle and Hazardous Conduct on a Public Street."
The cop called his Lieutenant, and after the cop told the story, he authorized the summonses.
She went home with $215.00 worth of traffic tickets, and they are worth a total of four points against her license, as well as the appropriate insurance surcharge!
Of course, if she demands a trial I won't prosecute. But the look on her face as she walked away was more than enough satisfaction for me.
Yea, I've passed the bar, and I'm on a mission from God.

Those police offices are a real danger

[ghoti]

they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit

Wow, that's one fast police office!

Re:Those police offices are a real danger

[Qzukk]

You think police offices are bad, you should see how post offices drive! They don't even care if its raining, sleeting or snowing!

Re:Those police offices are a real danger

[Rob the Bold]

they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit

Wow, that's one fast police office!

Where I live, police offices routinely go over 750mph, so it stands to reason that those down south in Georgia are going even faster.

Another Arrest

[Nrbelex]

The couple then placed the entire Bartow County Police Department under citizen's arrest for intimidation...

Moo

[Chacham]

Couple Who Catch Cop Speeding Could Face Charges

Certainly, capricious captions claim: Careless Cop Caught Cutting Celerity Cap; Criminal Court Charges Capturing Couple

Cartersville: Child-caring couple connect camera, chronicalling cop cutting celertity cap. Court...

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[istartedi]

If local cops are mis-behaving, this is what IAD is for, and if IAD is corrupt, that's what the FBI is for, and if the FBI is corrupt, that's what Canada is for. :)

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse, if I stop paying for them, guess who can come knocking on my door, with force? The very same people I am not happy with. 1. Buy shotgun and sandbags.
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

Desert island

[Travoltus]

There is no government on a desert island.

But you might get visited by pirates.

Re:Desert island

[callmetheraven]

Unless things have changed lately, Antarctica is still unclaimed, but you'll need to bring extra long undies.

Re:I see this all the time.

[AP2k]

What is their excuse[?] Gasoline conservation.

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[6Yankee]

Enough people have to be able to understand those big words, first.

Re:Service to whom

[Mr. Underbridge]

The police are there to do the paperwork after you are unable to protect yourself.

Or to clean up the mess after you're able to successfully protect yourself. ;)

Re:To all the cop haters!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former law-enforcement professional, you should know that you have the right to use paragraphs. If you do not know how to or cannot afford them, paragraphs will be created for you. You have the right not to use rhetorical questions or other meaningless interrogatories in your diatribes. You have the right to utilize commas to offset interjections.

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[grolschie]

Cops are people. There are good people and there are bad people.
Therefore, there are good cops and bad cops.

Nonsense argument.

Cats are animals.
There are furry animals and there are scaly reptilian animals.
Therefore, there are furry cats and scaly reptilian cats.

I for one, welcome our new hypocritical, speeding, scaly reptilian cat overlords! ;-)

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[Kythe]

Who the heck do you think you are, ruining a perfectly good libertarian rant with your real-world considerations?

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[rts008]

Escape to the north? With Global Warming(TM) it should be a choice.
Hint: in the meantime, learn to club seals- it's all food if it ain't trying to eat You!

All of these posts suggesting 'move somewhere else' seem to be missing the point, and also that mindset contributes to the current problem.

Okay, say we (in the USA), all move to Canada....we will bring the 'cancer' with us, infect Canada with the same ol' BS, then what?

I say fight the infestation where it is, then we can safely annex Canada as per the Fallout series games. (just joking!-WTF with that?)

Oh yes, while I'm on a roll...Kill all the whales, wipe out all rainforests, and invest heavily in petrochem research- fsck all alternative energy!

Did I forget anything?

Re:Give me a fucking break.

[Anonymous Coward]

My opinion on cops is consistent with the documentary The Departed.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0407887/

Re:The police are not there to protect the citizen

[Jedi Alec]

Still, there's a lot of hate for the cameras in many areas. I've heard that they're going to place second cameras to catch the vandals who're taking out the speed cameras in Ireland. Or was it Scotland? My solution to that - Wear a mask.

Everybody knows that law enforcement can find you based on a single crappy analog recording of your back by extrapolating the reflection of your shoelaces in the window reflection behind you and tracing it back to a single batch sold at some obscure shop with an easily harassed salesman, don't you watch shows like CSI?

Police office

[MS-06FZ]

I'm pretty sure driving an entire police office along a residential street is illegal in some way.

Of course! What town doesn't have a law against that on the books?

- Well, most don't have a law explicitly forbidding it - but usually the local sodomy laws are broad enough that you can charge them under those.