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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."
Like any job that any of us have, most people work in order to better their own lives. We work out deals with our employers to enter a relationship where both parties profit -- the worker doesn't have to worry about handling the day-to-day surivival of the business, and the employer fulfills a position that he/she can not do as efficiently as the employee. All employment is mutually beneficial or the two parties would not enter into the agreement in the first place. This is true of all positions, but it is especially true of any "public" official -- cops, public school teachers, politicians.
The problem with public officials is that they have the right to use excessive force in order to protect their position. The average citizen has no right to call out any public official on any illegal actions since the average citizen has no real power against non-elected public officials. If a cop breaks the law, there is almost nothing you can do to fight them. There is a lot they can do, off the public record, that can harm you more than they harm you in their lawbreaking. Remember, cops are not here to protect you, there are there to protect their jobs -- and many of them love the power they wield over the average citizen. Why else do we have cop unions?
We are not free from the tyranny of cameras -- many police cars already have them, and they are not audited by any watchdog group. Our phones can be tapped, but we have no right to listen in on the phones of those who supposedly serve us. The public official is the watchdog of the general public, not vice versa. Is it any wonder that I am anti-State?
What you do on your property is no one's responsibility but yours. If someone's light-rays that bounce off their body enter your property, they are now YOUR property. You might even say that those light-rays are pollution, but I think that is pushing the definition of pollution a little too far. When a bunch of cops stopped an alleged speeder in front of my old house, I complained about the constant blue and red lights and strobes keeping me awake -- I was told I have no right to prevent it. If a cop speeds in front of my house, I should be able to to make note of it, but I can not. Informing your elected official about the problem will do only one thing -- give them reason to make a new law protecting their kin in tyranny. It surely won't help you, it won't bring you more freedom.
Don't be shocked as the tyrants find more ways to increase their power of tyranny. They are not here to help you, there are not here to protect you -- there are there to protect their own incomes and pensions, and you are powerless to stop it as long as you continue to vote into office people who love the authoritarian powers attached to both the liberal and conservative sides of the political system. When will people learn that it isn't left or right, it is pro-tyranny and against-tyranny -- liberals and conservatives are on the "pro-tyranny" side of the coin. The opposite side of the coin is not a libertarian, as some might think, but an anarcho-capitalist.
You will reap what you sow, friends. These folks put up cameras because the police did nothing for them to prevent speeders. This is to be expected -- when you need help, you won't find any.
I was actually considering putting a digital camcorder in my car to record what I see, to show people how idiotic the drivers are in my area. Basically, what they do is camp the passing lane or otherwise form walls that slow down traffic well below what should be possible given the road size and traffic level. Yes, even 18-wheelers camp the passing lane. On a three-lane freeway.
Then one time I saw a police car on the freeway that did exactly that. Thanks, Officer Jerk, for setting a great example.
Personally, I wish more cops would speed. Everyone feels compelled to go slower than the police, so whenever a police car is nearby, the cars around them turn to molasses. It's amazing.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
It seems if the matter were to be brought to court, it wouldn't get far I imagine. I think the cop got as far as he did just because he is a cop. If it were someone else, nothing would have happened. I am guessing someone told the cop he was being an idiot, which is probably what any cop would tell anyone else trying to press charges.
We have a busy-body on our street. She seems nice enough, but she tries to take care of the "speeding" problem herself. She will occasionally zap people with a radar gun and talk to them (or their parents). I think once or twice she's called the cops. And if she doesn't have the gun out and "thinks" you're speeding she'll yell out to you.
But I find myself insanely annoyed (border-line angry) at one thing she does. If she's driving towards you in the opposite direction and "thinks" you're speeding she will pull into the middle of the road with her SUV to get you to stop or slowdown.
WTF!
Yes people speed on our street, but not by much and not often. It's a short windy street that doesn't really take you anywhere. But the speedgun is a bit much. Heck, the street just loops back into itself to make a letter P so it's not like a shortcut to anywhere so there's little point.
And stopping in the middle of the street to stop cars is pretty hazardous.
It is incidents like this and so many others (the police arressting people for taking a picture of their actions, etc.) which cry out for David Brin's "Transparent Society"http://www.davidbrin.com/tschp1.html.
Bring on the cameras! Just give the ordinary citizens the right to access the feeds and observe and watch those who are the watchers. If a police officer knew a live feed of their activities was going out via the web, don't you think they would be a little bit more carefully in how they treat people?
Yours,
Jordan
I can't say that I'm surprised to read that this happened in Kennesaw, Georgia. For those of you who don't know what kind of place Kennesaw is, it has a law that requires the head of every household to own a firearm with ammunition. It's also the place that former US Representative Bob Barr called home and he was much loved there. That should give you an idea of the politics of the place, so no, I'm not surprised at all by this.
a->b, a->c does not mean that b->c
For instance:
NFL Players are people.
People are women and men.
NFL Players are women and men.
I'm not saying there aren't bad cops by any means, just point out that it isn't good logic.
By the way: in my state that civilian couple didn't catch anyone speeding unless:
1.) They've got a certified, calibrated radar unit.
2.) They are certified radar operators.
3.)They have a Radar Operator's Log showing that the unit had been properly calibrated before and after, AND were able to testify that they operated it correctly and picked the correct radar target.
If they didn't meet all those criteria all they did was get a radar gun to show a number, as my town's judge would say.
An answer to you and the post immediately below:
No physics don't change, training does.
A cop is better trained in tactical driving than the average citizen. You may be a good driver, but it is fairly improbable that you have the requisite training to make you safer at speeds higher than the average speed of traffic around you (which *should* be at the posted limit).
I don't condone that they would speed when off duty, and I think they should get a mark for it or some such, but as to why things are different, it's training.
I worked with a guy (he was head of security for my old employer). He was on a local road with steep ditches on either side for a rather long stretch (5 or 6 miles). It is a two lane road and there was ample on-coming traffic. A paramedic turned on their priority lights behind him (thus they were in a hurry and he was obligated to yield), but there was no safe way to get out of the way. His solution was to speed up to about 85/90Mph (50 speed limit) and pull over as soon as the road widened enough to allow so.
Well a cop heading the other direction flipped a U-turn and promptly caught up and pulled in behind him, citing him for: Failure to yield, reckless, speeding, evading (apparently the cop figured since his lights were on our guy was running, never mind he couldn't see them). Cop refused to listen to the explanation of no safe place to pull over.
Come court day bob told the judge what happened and that his was the only reasonable and prudent course of action. Judge asked what experience he had driving at high speeds. Reply? Pursuit instructor and EOD officer for HM Army and MI6 back home in England.
Result?
Case dismissed instantly.
It's all about training.
-nB
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Your nailed it right when you said "speed enforcement racket" because that is all it is. If the police were really out there to slow people down so less accidents happen, then they would:
a) have a very visible presence in traffic so that people could see that they are keeping tabs on it. Instead, they hide in the bushes so that drivers can't see them, and when people do see them they tend to slam on their breaks to slow down before they get checked. It can be argued that this causes way more accidents than speeding, but it is beside the point.
b) issue more points per violation on your license instead of a monetary fine. Don't you find it strange that the fines go up all the time, but the points you get per violation stay the same? If they wanted to slow people down, they'd start a "3 offenses and you get a suspended license" campaign.
Cops issue tickets to make money for the department, and thats the only reason. Case in point, in my home town during that midterm elections, we voted down giving the PD more funds to renovate their headquarters (the place is already pristine). The next day, they gave out a record number of speeding tickets.
I got nothin'
I have seen this story in the local news. Both me and the ball-n-chain were rolling our eyes. The police officer was pissed because the couple kept on bugging his boss with their idiotic complaint.
The speed limit in front of their house is 25 mph, coming kinda downhill. I think, in the Atlanta area where nobody drives under 50, this is just plain dumb.
They were the typical overreacting freaky parents who were making a stink out of nothing because they are a couple of those people who love to have something to complain about.
Heh, I live in North Pole, Alaska. Our cops are the constant but of jokes and curses because they won't spend any time solving crimes, they just want to write tickets.
Recently, the weather warmed up and the intersections got particularly slippery. At one intersection in particular there is a down-hill slope before the stop sign. A local cop would sit in a parking lot off to the side and ticket car after car that slid through the intersection for failure to come to a complete stop. Now, was he trying to enforce or encourage public safety? I think not. If he was, he could have put flares out or done something else to make people aware of a potentially dangerous situation until a gravel-truck could have been dispatched. No. Instead he was gleefully writing tickets.
This particularly upsets me because I used to be a cop and saw this mentality a lot. There is a lot of pressure to write tickets for several reasons: First, of course is the income from the fines, but secondly, it's a lot easier to justify your time when you can point to all those traffic citations than to report that you acted as road-crew for 4 hours while waiting for a gravel truck. That being said, some cops are just pricks and get off on that sort of thing - not even thinking about the emotional and financial impact on someone who has a hard enough time keeping mandatory insurance on their vehicle who now has to pay a fine and higher rates for the next 3 years.
I wonder how these people can sleep at night sometimes..."terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
This only works if the police don't kill you. I had a similar problem where the city I lived in thought it was a good idea to dump freeway traffic on one side of a residential neighborhood, and pick it back up on the other. They didn't want to build the freeway in the land that was already owned and waiting for the freeway. I personally witnessed over 150 car crashes in just the one city block in front of my house. A few pedestrians a year would get run down, and the police would tell anyone that called them about hit and runs in our neighbor hood that those were civil matters, so they would refuse to even take a report.
When my wife and I started raising a stink, and making public statements about the situation. Started taking photos, and logging traffic speeds... I received a phone call from the police department telling me "Your just trying to make trouble.", "You better drop this. We know who you are." Now, there are some who might claim that this was not a threat of violence, but I think most sane people would take it as a very real threat.
I hope by posting, it doesn't start all over with again, but if you stick with it long enough you can get them to stop harassing you. I have two seperate acounts that both resulted in officer losing their job, getting unpaid vacations and one of them went to prison on unrelated charged that were discovered durring my investigation.
So, Yea, If you end up on the recieving end of the stick, Give them one chance to calm down. Sometimes these bullies just need to feel like they are in control and having one up on you lets them make this claim to themselves. If that doesn't happen and they constantly mess with you or you end up getting cited for something you didn't do, Make a case out of it. The cops do end up corrupt like this but they can be delt with. The key is not to lose your control and give them stuff to work with. Don't do anything that gives them an excuse to screw you were they would otherwise have to make something up.
On another note, I have been contacted by the same police department to help them in certain ways since this has happened. It is like a few bad apples were spoiling the bunch and that bunch is now gone. I don't hold anything against the law enforcment officials themselves, I know it was certain people who had a problem not the entire system (even though they used the entire system).
The Fifth of November! The Fifth of November! Remember, Remember the fifth of November!
Because then they wouldn't need to have a "random gang related shooting, where the assailant could not be identified". They would simply drive over and arrest me for criminal activity. That combined with the fact that when the police threaten you, and the threat goes all the way to the top of the city government, you simply sell your home and move somewhere else. Yes, all the way to the top. It was the mayor herself that told me I would be receiving a call from the police department concerning my complaints.
There's a great hard Sci-Fi novel by Greg Bear called "Queen of Angels." The novel is set in the binary new year, 2048. Nanotech has transformed civilization and Therapied people get the best jobs/housing/care. "High Naturals" do not need therapy and are up there with the Therapied. The Untherapied, artists, outcasts, dreamers, and visionaries are becoming social outcasts.
This is not the best part though: Citizen Oversight is a clearing-house of all surveillance data--which is a terrifying thought in 40 years. Think of every single RFID chip, nano-camera, and swipe card going into one place. Imagine the immense power of that place.
Greg Bear posits that Citizen Oversight began as a way to keep track of population statistics and give the long view on civic needs. Then a very bad president named Raphkind comes along and says Law Enforcement has control over Citizen Oversight and America becomes an uber-police state. You'll get a fine in the mail for absent-mindedly dropping a bit of wrapper on the sidewalk or crossing a few seconds before the light changes. The people get fed up with this and Citizen Oversight is given to an ACLU-type organization with elected officials. It is no longer Big Brother and even the police have to come begging for info an a serial murderer. Citizen Oversight will only say if the murderer is in the country or not. Even if they have complete footage of the murder!
Anyways, Bear is an excellent author/thinker and his books give me hope for the future and my nieces and nephews. (Damned if I'm having kids.)
I tried that. The one local TV channel told me that they would not cover it because the city would cause them all sorts of problems if they did anything beyond a fluff piece, and the nearest station that was not inside the city limits was in San Francisco. They are far enough away that the problems of one neighborhood 60 miles away was not even on their radar.