Posted: 7/12/2005 4:57:54 AM EDT
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I would have asked the obligatory "OK, which one of you guys did this??", but that would be insulting!! This guy is a l-o-s-e-r. 'Law & Order' fan locked up By STEVE VISSER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 07/12/05 The driver donned a "DEA" cap and had a pair of handcuffs dangling from the rearview mirror, but the two police officers doubted he was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent using blue lights. Dale Dalton Hammock spent Thursday night in the Gwinnett County jail after another motorist called 911 to report a green Dodge Ram pickup was using police-style blue lights to run red lights on U.S. 78 near Stone Mountain. Gwinnett police officers R.L. Klok Jr. and Matthew Bonanno stopped Hammock and quickly determined he wasn't a federal agent. Klok wrote in his report that Hammock didn't pull over for his siren but instead got caught in traffic, allowing the officer to drive up beside the pickup's window. "I had to tell the driver to pull over three times before he would comply," Klok wrote. "I patted Dale down for officer safety. Feeling no weapons, I then started to ask him about the blue lights." His answer? "Dale stated that he was not a police officer or a federal agent, but a big fan of the TV show 'Law and Order,' " Klok wrote. Hammock's red eyes and the "moderate odor of an alcoholic beverage" on his breath and the near-empty but still perspiring beer can under the front seat prompted the officers to arrest him on a DUI charge. His blood-alcohol content, according to a later test, was 0.189, more than double the legal limit, said Officer Darren Moloney, spokesman for Gwinnett police. Hammock also was charged with illegal use of blue lights. Klok said the 41-year-old Hammock had attached three LED — or light-emitting diode — lights to his rearview mirror, which plugged into the cigarette lighter and would flash when switched on. There was no explanation for the DEA hat or the handcuffs. Attempts to reach Hammock, who bonded out of jail Friday, at his Lawrenceville home were unsuccessful. Klok quoted Hammock as blaming his sons for the lights, saying they had bought them at Wal-Mart and installed them in his car. He said he didn't know the lights were illegal. When all else fails, blame your kids!!  Moloney said the lights are legal — if used to decorate a bedroom. "It's when you hook them up to your car that they become illegal," he said. Moloney has heard the typical gripes from suspicious civilians about police misuse of blue lights at intersections, speeding and dallying at doughnut shops. He said when a squad car flashes its lights and siren to pass through a tediously long red light, the officer should be answering a legitimate call. Police personnel face severe sanctions for misusing blue lights, he said. "I can honestly say I never blue-lighted an intersection so I could make lunch," Moloney said. |
| I wonder if it's that range officer that is up at Wilson Shoals on Saturdays. He has an FBI hat and DNR hat in the back of his "cruiser". He's the only Navy SeAL/Special Forces/ Sniper gunsmith/firearms instructor I ever saw that didn't know how to rack the action on an 870, or sniped from the hip with an AK. |
