Try driving away from a cop in Texas...

[Bullwhip]

So...person tries to flee (leave) when I'm trying to contact them for a transportation code violation...this makes me a jerk and is bad PR?

OP wasn't a traffic violation, just a curious cop looking around.

I never called you a jerk, dont' know where you got that from. When you said you'd find a violation, I said that's why people are starting to resent cops, and that's bad PR.

Nobody hated Andy Taylor. Everbody hated Barney.

[gigag04]

So...person tries to flee (leave) when I'm trying to contact them for a transportation code violation...this makes me a jerk and is bad PR?

OP wasn't a traffic violation, just a curious cop looking around.

I never called you a jerk, dont' know where you got that from. When you said you'd find a violation, I said that's why people are starting to resent cops, and that's bad PR.

Nobody hated Andy Taylor. Everbody hated Barney.

I'll bet good money the officer had reasonable suspicion of DWI prior to making contact. The reason it got appealed so high is because he/she did not articulate that well in the report. I can often articulate a suspicious place reasonable suspicion contact, long before I exit my car. However, to the subject, they just see me knocking on the window.

Who's resenting the cops? Drunk driving meth heads? In the OP: if it were me making a consent contact, if there wasn't a violation, but I found another reason to detain him and prevent him from driving off, what have I done? Made a dope arrest and prevented a drunk from driving, that's what. GOOD POLICE WORK. Our officers should be doing more of that and not be tied up playing third party parent, and house call marriage coach.

Again, I'm convinced you have no idea what cops do. We can agree to disagree, but I find your opinions on "PR" as it pertains to LE odd.

[C-dub]

Again, I'm convinced you have no idea what cops do. We can agree to disagree, but I find your opinions on "PR" as it pertains to LE odd.

Good morning Gigag04.

I also don't really know what it's like, but I have had a few LEO friends over the last 30 years give me some pretty good hints. I also know that out of the four speeding tickets I've received in my life only two of them were legitimate. Two of them were outright lies.

The first one, I panicked and tried to run and hide. The officer just kind of shook his head and was very kind to me and only gave me a speeding ticket and didn't mention the attempt to evade him. The next one, I had exited the base I was stationed on my motorcycle going over the bridge and down to a road that was the end of a short highway that came to a traffic light. While waiting at that light a motorcycle officer came up behind me and around three other cars waiting behind me to pull up next to me and ask me to finish the left turn when the light turned green and pull into the parking lot. I did and he wrote me a speeding ticket. When I asked him why he said not to argue with him because he'd been following me for the last couple of miles. When I asked him what he was doing on my base he got really irritated. I wanted to go back to the gate and have the guards verify to him that I had just exited, but he wanted nothing to do with the truth. I ended up paying over $400 for that ticket because I was young and didn't know how to handle it and I was leaving for a six-month cruise and the court issued a warrant for me for failure to appear. One LEO very understanding and helpful and the other one a flat out liar that cost me money for something I didn't do where there shouldn't have been any contact at all.

That still doesn't matter, though. If I ever found myself in the position to help an officer, I would without hesitating.

[philip964]

Generally your interaction with a police officer in your car begins with you seeing red lights in your rear view mirror.

I guess here it did not.

[speedsix]

...the judge was imprinted with the misinformation that the red lights have to be on to signify a stop...when the man in the uniform walks up and knocks on your window, it's about the uniform and the badge...the fact that he didn't use his red lights on an already stopped automobile has nothing to do with it...you don't have to have a lot of common sense to be a judge...obviously...

[gigag04]

My zone partner saw a known problem child (car burglar and crack dealer) who we know to have a suspended DL driving. The guy pulled into his driveway. My partner parked, walked up, and sacked him up.

He maintained it was a bad arrest since my partner didn't use his overhead lights prior to making contact. I hope this goes to court.

[speedsix]

...sounds like that idiot would make a great judge...

[gigag04]

Generally your interaction with a police officer in your car begins with you seeing red lights in your rear view mirror.

I guess here it did not.

Maybe in your part of town. Id say traffic stops comprise about 15-20% of my contacts with the public. For patrol, this is high.

[terryg]

I though this court's decision was interesting.

The Appeals Court in Idaho decided a man was free to drive away from an officer who knocked on his window (and was found with meth) when the officer knocked on his window to ask him what he was doing. Because the Officer was not blocking his path with either his body or his vehicle, he could have legally driven off and ignored the knock and therefore
avoided the arrest.

If he had done that, I bet the same judge would have convicted him of evading.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I first read the story.

[sumyungai]

I though this court's decision was interesting.

The Appeals Court in Idaho decided a man was free to drive away from an officer who knocked on his window (and was found with meth) when the officer knocked on his window to ask him what he was doing. Because the Officer was not blocking his path with either his body or his vehicle, he could have legally driven off and ignored the knock and therefore
avoided the arrest.

If he had done that, I bet the same judge would have convicted him of evading.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I first read the story.

+1