I left Missouri on my way to Houston about 12:00 last Friday.

at 4:00 I was driving thru Preston OK and stopped into a little store for some candy and a cold drink.  pulled out and every light in town was on so I didn't notice I pulled my light's about halfway out and my headlights had not come on.
I get out to the edge of town and realize it so I pull the light's on just as 4 (yes four) cop cars come boiling out of the gas station across the street.  they are on top of me within a couple hundred yards.  lights and strobes going but no sirens (always a good sign).  I put my blinker on and start to pull over.  one swerves in the breakdown lane (behind me) and the other takes up the right lane.  the last two cop cars shoot past and drive up the road as I pull over.  so I stop, put it in park, shut her down, turn on the dome light and roll down the window.  I get out my insurance, license, and CHL (concealed handgun license).  I rest my left arm on the window frame with the CHL clearly visible as off#1 approaches and it goes down like this.
me:  sir, I think you need to see this.
off: yes, yes I do.  do you know why I pulled you over
me: for not having my headlights on?.
off:  and your license plate light is out.  (i checked it later, it was)  
me: oh, um, yes sir.
off: where is your weapon?
me: in my backpack on the floor board in front of the right seat. (covered in jackets, CD cases and a blanket that just happened to fall off the seat.)
off: what kind is it?
me: S&W 629 6.5" barrel
off: do you have any warrants?
me: no (I think it's a funny question as in Texas you can't have a CHL if you have a warrant)
off:  if you check out you can most likely be on your way. (he walks back to the squad car)

(after about a minute off#2 walks up to the car)

off#2: here is your info, remember to check your lights, get that plate light fixed and have a good morning.
me: yes sir, you too sir,


damn, not paying a fine is sweet!  maybe I need to give driving instructions.

This cop bashing needs to stop

Yes, this cop bashing needs to stop!  They are just doing their jobs.  If you weren't breaking the law, you wouldn't have been stopped!!  It's your fault!  


oh... BTW... IBTL!!  

[/sarcasm]

It's quite possible for you to have a warrant and still have a valid CHL. It strictly depends on how fast the judge's office handles paperwork.  I arrested a guy on felony fraud warrants who still had a valid CHL 3 months after the warrant issue date.

As for the lights out,  It's an almost sure bet for a DWI/gangbanger. That's probably why you attracted so much interest, especially at 4am.

Matthew,  how good did you do yesterday?

i forgot to mention their is a Thunder Ranch sticker in the lower left corner of my rear window.  maybe it helped, maybe not.

John, I think that Korean ammo I got from Joe wasn't the best... from what I hear it's a little slower than M2, so that may have affected it.  Plus the rifle was a little dry, and short stroked on me in the prone rapid fire string.  

A good cleaning and greasing will help.  I'm going to start working on a good match load for her, and hopefully the next match, I should do much better.

(the best I got was a 159 on the offhand string... :) )

maybe I'll get flamed,and I like getting out of tickets, but a cop that dosn't right tickets isn't doing his job conscientiously. It is partly about revenue.

Police officers have a lot of discretion in their decisions. Many times they have the option to arrest, write a ticket, write a warning, give a verbal warning or do nothing at all, all at their discretion.

Just because they don't write a ticket doesn't mean they are doing anything wrong.

p.s. I think you're the only person I've ever heard complain about a cop [b]not[/b] writing a ticket.

Does a broken license plate light really justify a police stop?  He drove out with no headlights on, but big deal.  Bored cops with too many laws to selectively choose to enforce is the problem.  All this "discretion" that they have reeks of arbitrary governance to me.  In other words, they only pick on those whom they think will just pay the ticket and not contest it.

Your post is unclear if this occured at 4AM or 4PM. Around here it's not even starting to get dark until 4:30PM.

If it were 4AM (an hour when there are alot of drunks on the road), they probubly thought your were a drunk driver.

I dont do much DUI enforcement. But in the rare instances that I go looking for drunks I look for wrong way drivers or people driving with no headlights.

As for the warrant issue; a person cant have warrants when they apply. But they can certainly have one after it's issued.

Yes!  (Is the license plate light really out or did the driver just pull the fuse so his robbery victim couldnt see his plate number as he drove away?)

I regularly make stops for no license plate lights. What I usually find during those stops is gang bangers or illegal immigrant unlicensed drivers.

Ahh Preston Ok. GOOD GOD MAN DON'T YOU REALIZE WHAT A HAZZARD IT IS TO DRIVE WITH YOUR LICENSE PLATE LIGHT OUT. Thanks to the 4 coffee and Sweetroll stuffed Officers hanging at the gas station the citizens of Preston can sleep........oh never mind...meanwhile on the outherside of town Johhny and one of his dipshit highschool buddies are ripping off Mr. Johnsons garage of his tools(their 5th job of the morning) to hock at a pawn shop in the next county so they can buy that cool Jensen radio at Wally world.

This should clear it up:

"off#2: here is your info, remember to check your lights, get that plate light fixed and have a [red][b]good morning[/b][/red]."

Most drunks drive without their lights on, or so I've heard, and it's 4AM, prime DWI time, or so I've heard.

That went well.

I call BS. [@:D]

     There are the times when some folks feel they are treated unfairly by an officer, it is impossible to make everyone happy in "our" line of work. Officer discretion goes back to the two schools of enforcement, the letter of the Law , the spirit of the Law. Alot of the time it depends on the citizens "attitude" upon contact that usually determines which he/she will recieve. Yes, occasionally during a 12hour shift "we" stop and eat something and do the other things that "humans" have to do from time to time. I prefer the term "Law Enforcement Officer" over cop, emphasis on the word "LAW"... ps: remember what was said when a D.U.I. subject kills someone close to you when they didn't see them coming because the headlights were not on.(I pray that it never happens).

Like most things, you rarely hear about a service or product when someone is pleased with it, but if someone is unhappy with something, they try to tell anyone who will listen about it.
It's good to hear a positive LEO story.

yea,
and if i had named it "good leo story" who would read it?

Yes, it does justify a stop. I have been stopped on two separate occassions within a 3 year period for that very same offense. I have not, however, ever been a car thief, burglar, gangbanger, mafioso or anything like that. Just had a plate light out.

I have also been stopped for either one tailight or one headlight out on countless occassions. One stop for using fog lights within city limits as well. No, they weren't aimed up or anything but it WAS a technical violation of the law. Have also been stopped a number of times for loud muffler. Even stopped once for failure to stop behind a stop sign. I did come to a complete stop, just not behind the sign (there is a lesson here, stop behind the sign and THEN creep up if you can't see into the intersection)...this one was enough to justify two patrol cars and three officers. I think it must have been a slow night as I doubt I looked all that threatening/suspicious at 17yo,135# soaking wet and in my McDonald's uniform.

In any case, it has been exhaustively argued (at least in IL) that the comprehensive nature of the vehicle code makes total compliance virtually impossible and therefore certain violations should not justify a stop by law enforcement. The courts have consistently (in IL) rejected this approach by saying- tough, you broke the law which is there for your safety and that of others. Furthermore, how do we decide what is serious enough to justify a stop and what is not? that's not for the court but for the legislators- I think that the other (unstated) rationale is this....hey, if all you are stopped for is a license plate light, and that's all that's wrong, the worst that can happen is you get a fix-it ticket but you will probably get off with a warning...if you are up to other naughtiness, it gives Mr. officer a nice and legal way to catch you at it. Permits selective enforcement, yes...legal yes...fair...weeeeeelllll, that one is debatable.

Long ago in my rookie year I pulled over a van driven by a distinguished gentleman in his 50's for driving without headlights.

What the heck.  He seemed nice enough,  gave him a verbal warning and waited for the DL return for the dispatcher.  (No computers in the cars back then)

I was standing within arms reach of this guy, just chatting, when the dispatcher screams over the radio:

731!!! THAT GUY JUST KILLED HIS WIFE WITH A HAMMER!!!

We both froze, and the guy said,"Yes I did."

Things got REAL interesting from that point. He still had the bloody clothes and murder weapon in the van.

I'da pissed in my pants about then.

PONY_DRIVER

UUUHHH HE DID WHAT????? Like the other other guy said " ida pissed in my pants too!!!

didja go back and kick the dispatcher in the teeth?

Wayy back when, I had a dispatcher that, instead of using the code to tell me warrants wre confirmed on my subject, just said so. The guy I was dealing with (a single car minor accident at 12:30am) heard her. That started a 2 mile foot chase, in the dark, on a flood plain, after 2 straight weeks of rain, in January.
He went off the bridge (back road creek), I went over after him, thinking on the way down- how deep is the creek after all this rain- waist deep. Do water moccosins hibernate- dunno. This flood plain was just off Grapevine Lake.
I was really po'd about the new jump boots I had bought. I put 4 coats of polish on them to impress my sgt.- ex-Marine. At the end of my shift he asked why they were brown.
Jim

Four patrol cars seems risky; I would have gone with six and probably a SWAT team on stand-by.