Welcome to the funny spot on your dial!

[WeyaH]

A buddy of mine (Bill) was an Army MP in Germany just after the Berlin Wall came down.

He worked in Customs, and often went undercover with the German police.

He related a story to me about one evening, he and a German cop were looking for some East Germans that had smuggled some firearms into West Germany. They found out that the BGs were in an abandoned building and the two of them went inside looking for them.

The two cops weren't being sneaky about their approach, and kept announcing themselves as they went from room to room. They had made it to the third floor, and heard some noise behind a closed door. They shouted for the BGs to surrender, but they didn't get a response, so they decided on a different plan. They were going to make a tactical entry with recon by fire (this is when MPs still carried .45s). Bill kicked the door in, and the German fired a few rounds into the room, and something charged them. Bill opened up with his .45 and put two rounds into the stray dog...10 seconds later they heard the two smugglers screaming that they wanted to surrender...from two floors up.

They caught the bad guys, but Bill still had to explain to the Command Sergeant Major exactly WHY he had discharged his firearm in a "reckless and unlawful manner."

Nothing like the sound of a 1911 to ruin a BGs day.

[Eddie2612]

Ok... When I was in high school in AZ, a good friend of mine's (who had moved to Scottsdale, AZ from Midland / Odessa TX) dad was telling us about his early days with the sherrifs dept in the early 80's.. Apparently during the Iran hostage deal the Midland area sherrifs dept decided they were going to ticket all Arabs they saw this day -- well, my friends dad told of this guy that he was pulling over (legit for speeding) and the guy throws his hands out the open window holding a passport yelling "I Isreali, I not Arab - I get 4 tickets already today" -- my buddies dad was trying not to smile (thought it was a crazy thing) - got the guys name and made the tickets go away..

Crazy..

[HankB]

i think I posted this story once before, but I like it so much it's worth repeating.

A guy I knew slightly 'way back in my college days apparently fit the description or profile of some wanted criminal - probably a bank robber or something. He was stopped by police, taken out of his vehicle, lots of backup called, cuffed and made to sit by the side of the road. Thing is, the guy was some sort of amateur magician, and got out of the cuffs himself - threw them in the (water filled) ditch along the road. Meanwhile, he just sat there with his hands behind his back. (For some reason, they didn't put him in the back of a squad car.)

Even after they tossed his car and realized he wasn't the bad guy they wanted, it took a while before they decided to let him go. Several of the LEOs drove off, and finally the cop who'd cuffed him came to turn him loose . . . but since his hands were already free, the cop wanted to know where his cuffs were . . . guy said "Oh, they were hurting me, so one of the other officers took them off."

"WHICH officer?"

"I don't know, with uniforms, you guys all look alike to me."

That was his story, and he stuck to it.

So the cop lost a set of handcuffs, and with the finger pointed squarely at his fellow LEOs, probably some ill-feeling resulted.

Moral: Don't mess with magicians. Even amateurs.

[jminn1]

Last Halloween we had a bit of a family emergency. I jumped on an American flight into Grand Island NE, rented a car and proceeded to drive North to my home town. I got about 20 miles out of GI and get pulled over. Anyone who lives there knows exactly where. A lot of tourists do too.

I was speeding, but in my defense, it was late, I was tired and stressed to the max, and just missed the 65 limit going down to 60, and I was doing at least 8 over...

The deputy sheriff who pulled me over took my license and the rental papers back to his car to verify I was "ok" to have the car, and whatever.

He comes back with a puzzled look on his face. You see, the rental paper work was from a company in Omaha, which is 130 miles away, not 20. Since I had flown into the small regional airport in GI, the rental agency was really from Omaha, and just had a satellite office in GI.

Long story short, the paperwork seems to say I rented the car in Omaha 30 minutes ago... and I'm 150 miles from there...

I couldn't help it.. I busted out laughing and told the office "but sir, I wasn't driving *that* fast..." and explained that I had really rented the car in GI, not Omaha..
He looked at me, kinda grinned, and said "slow it down, sir".. and let me go...

I'm still chuckling over not going "that fast..."
I hope he's still smiling too...

[Thanks to the officer for having a sense of humor and letting me go on my way.. it made a huge difference in my day...]

[Stever]

Not too sure about the validity of this story but was told it at CHL class. A police officer stopped an older lady (about 70ish) for driving erractically. He asked for her driving documents. She fumbled through her handbag and eventually turned it upside down to sort through. Out fell a .38 cal handgun. Not finding what she was looking for she opened the glove box, and among other things removed another .38 revolver. No driving licence being there she then fumbles under the passenger seat where a .45 revolver appears. The officer asked her if there were more guns in the car and she told him there was a shotgun in the trunk and another behind the front seats. The officer asked her "What on earth are you afraid of" The lady apparently replied " Not a thing in the world sonny"

[Jusme]

I have several stories from my days as LEO, but I wanted to relate one that happened after I left law enforcement. One job I had several years ago required me to get up and leave by 5 a.m. One cold morning I went out to start my truck and when I turned on the headlights I saw my neighbor from across the street walking towards me. He was behind an unknown man wearing only pants no shirt, no shoes ( it was about 30 degrees that morning) My neighbor was holding a revolver and as I stepped back out of the truck he asked if I had a cell phone to call the sheriffs dept. My neighbor had awoken and heard the guy trying to get into his truck, so he grabbed his gun and confronted him, saw me getting in my truck and brought the guy with him. I called the sheriff's dept, and within 5 minutes a young deputy arrived. I had gone inside and gotten my handcuffs and had the guy sitting in my driveway.

The deputy arrived, jumped out of his car, and almost tackled the guy, he then realized the guy was already cuffed and said who cuffed him? I told him I had, and told him he could just swap his for mine or take mine off and put his on. This took much longer to work out than it should have but he was a rookie. He then reached for the keys on his radio and got a startled look on his face that I instantly recognized (not that I would have ever done anything similar) His patrol car was still running and so guess where the keys for his locked patrol car were? Yep, he even went over cupping his eyes in the classic pose to verify where they were. I tried no to laugh as he had to call for a back up unit. Turned out the BG had been in a domestic disturbance about 5 miles away and had been pretty badly beaten up by a family member and had started walking. The deputies had been looking for him and so he was trying to crawl into my neighbors car to hide and get warm.
I felt bad for the deputy when the back up unit finally arrived with the spare key from the sheriff' office. they had to wake up a lieutenant, to get access.

[fickman]

I have had so many LEO friends tell me they know another officer who did this that I'm sure it's more urban legend than anything. It's amusing nonetheless:

*Male officer pulls over a female driver in her mid 20s for speeding*
Officer: May I see your license and proof of insurance, please?
Female (handing it over): Did I do something wrong?
Officer (looking at cards and beginning to write): You were speeding.
Female (flipping her hair): I thought ya'll don't give tickets to pretty girls.
Officer: We don't.
*Pause*
Officer: You'll need to sign here, please.

[srothstein]

I felt bad for the deputy when the back up unit finally arrived with the spare key from the sheriff' office. they had to wake up a lieutenant, to get access.

I have lost track of how many officers have been locked out of their patrol cars, including me. Most departments now get the cars all keyed alike for the fleet. San Antonio got them all alike but it was different each year, so you had about 4 keys to open the whole fleet. It did not take most officers long to learn to get two sets of keys, one to use and one to keep on their belt to avoid being locked out. Since the keys were alike, we never had to call the LT, just another officer. Of course, they would never let you forget it either. Well, until you came and unlocked their car for them.

One of the other benefits of having all of the keys alike was that it made it much easier to play jokes on other officers. Some jokes we did include moving their car while they were in the restaurant eating, putting things in the car for them (usually things with an odor that would have called for a lot of Febreze, but some of the objects were live animals), and rigging the vents to spray powder on them. In SAPD we would keep the reports we wrote stuck in the driver's visor, so you could put a cup of ice in the visor and it would fall on his lap when he put the next report up there. And you could turn the siren on and trap the PA speaker in the space between the door and seat with the mike button pushed in. This kept the siren from going off, well, until the driver opened the door releasing the mike anyway.

[Jusme]

Yeah we didn't have our keyed alike but it was habit especially on midnights,to leave the car running to go in to a convenience store to get coffee. So it wasn't uncommon for the new guys to come out missing their car usually just moved to the side or back of the store while you were across the street watching through binocs. The expression was pretty funny the look of panic while holding their coffee.

[RPBrown]

Many years ago, my now deceased father in law was with a county department not to be named here. That department had the duty of patrolling part of the areas around Lake Houston. I have not been there in many years so I don't know if it is the same now but back then it was a very wooded area and had lots of wildlife. My FIL was an avid hunter but was rather, lets just say unscrupulous. He was one of those few that thought that because he had a badge, he could do no wrong. Anyway, he was always spotlighting deer and shooting them from the car (always wore earplugs while on patrol out there). He would carry a rifle with him on duty, shoot the dear, roll it onto a plastic paint tarp he carried in his car, and load it in his trunk to take home. This area was very un-populated at the time but he would get an occasional call of someone hearing shots fired. He would then run the call with the deer in the trunk.
One night he was on his usual patrol/hunt, spotted a deer, put his rifle in place, sighted the deer and shot. Just then he saw glass breaking as he had forgotten to roll down the window. He usually rolled it down when he started patrolling this area but had forgotten to this night.
Now is where this gets funny. Since he was on deep nights, and took his car home, he was able to get the window replaced the next morning and thought he was in the clear. Except, his LT was doing a surprise evaluation on him that night and he did not get as much of the glass cleaned up as he though. The LT sat in the seat, squirmed around a bit he said, stood back up and had about 10-15 shards of glass sticking out of his pants.
I do remember that after taht night, I did not get as much venison from him as I once did so I think it may have put an end, or at least a slow down on his poaching.

[Jusme]

Another post regarding ND brought to mind an incident that happened several years ago at the department where I worked. Our range qualification was held every six months at our department's range which was just inside the city limits in a rural area. The range master would notify everyone of the date and then you could come in either on duty or off and qualify. The department supplied the qualifying ammo so everyone would unload their guns before entering the range. Our Chief of Detectives pulled in and opened his trunk to unload his gun. For reasons still not clear, he decided to dry fire it after he thought it was empty. He put one 9mm round through the bottom of the trunk, the gas tank and into the ground under the car. Several of us heard it and ran towards his car to make sure he was OK. He was standing there with a strange look on his face as the sound of gasoline leaked out from the tank.

I think he said the paperwork took him almost 4 hours to complete (this was before computers) He got written up and had to re-qualify each quarter for a year, before he could re-earn his expert marksmanship pin.

As I posted in the other thread, our department did not have the Hollywood version exploding gas tanks.

It just leaked all of the gas out and had to have a new tank installed. We did ask the Chief if the detective could be put on the SWAT team in case we needed to shoot the gas tanks of fleeing cars.

[Keith B]

We did ask the Chief if the detective could be put on the SWAT team in case we needed to shoot the gas tanks of fleeing cars.

A friend of mine was a firearms instructor at the Missouri Highway Patrol Academy. He said SWAT was an acronym for 'Students With Aiming Trouble'.

[Jusme]

With all of the posts in other threads mentioning traffic stops and how being polite has helped them receive only a warning instead of a citation, I was reminded of my attitude when I was a LEO. My philosophy was, that if you were polite, or you made me laugh, chances are you weren't going to be cited.
One incident in particular occurred one day as I was headed to fleet maintenance for fuel, when I saw an on coming Chevy Blazer. The speed limit on that particular road was 30 MPH and as I turned my moving radar indicated that they were already traveling at 40 and as they got closer they kept speeding up. I locked them in at 50, and as they passed me I saw that it was two women, with the passenger turned around reaching into the back seat, not wearing a seat belt. I also saw that their inspection sticker was expired. As I made a u-turn and pulled them over, I saw that the sticker on the LP was also expired. I approached the driver's side and made contact with the driver, I listed all of the violations (speeding, no seat belt on passenger, expired registration, expired inspection) She listened to everything I said and the turned and backhanded the passenger and said "That's why you wanted me to drive your car!"
The passenger explained that the speedometer didn't work, and that they were headed to get the inspection, and registration done during their lunch. The passenger was looking for her paperwork to take to the courthouse that was in the backseat. I got so tickled I couldn't write the tickets, so I told them that they had better have the stickers done, and that I would write them if I saw them again.

[OldCurlyWolf]

With all of the posts in other threads mentioning traffic stops and how being polite has helped them receive only a warning instead of a citation, I was reminded of my attitude when I was a LEO. My philosophy was, that if you were polite, or you made me laugh, chances are you weren't going to be cited.
One incident in particular occurred one day as I was headed to fleet maintenance for fuel, when I saw an on coming Chevy Blazer. The speed limit on that particular road was 30 MPH and as I turned my moving radar indicated that they were already traveling at 40 and as they got closer they kept speeding up. I locked them in at 50, and as they passed me I saw that it was two women, with the passenger turned around reaching into the back seat, not wearing a seat belt. I also saw that their inspection sticker was expired. As I made a u-turn and pulled them over, I saw that the sticker on the LP was also expired. I approached the driver's side and made contact with the driver, I listed all of the violations (speeding, no seat belt on passenger, expired registration, expired inspection) She listened to everything I said and the turned and backhanded the passenger and said "That's why you wanted me to drive your car!"
The passenger explained that the speedometer didn't work, and that they were headed to get the inspection, and registration done during their lunch. The passenger was looking for her paperwork to take to the courthouse that was in the backseat. I got so tickled I couldn't write the tickets, so I told them that they had better have the stickers done, and that I would write them if I saw them again.

I likely would have done the same. Including telling them that I had better not see them again with the expired inspection and license.

[grent247]

Alright here's one, that involves an officer blooper towards the end(sorry, gotta tell the first to get to the end).
I drive a commercial truck. Was on a run down to an un-named border town. I was always told to check under, inside, and over my truck if I did any stopping dye to illegals looking for free rides. Didn't think anything of it.
Stopped at a truck stop, fueled up, pulled forward. Went inside to get the receipt that's required by the company I drove for and as I was walking back out I stopped to purchase some tamales from a local vendor.
As we're haggling back and forth, he points to a group of 6 and says he feels sorry for the driver of the truck they were approaching.... My truck...
I run about 50 yards(no small feat for my 265lb 6ft 4in self) and catch them literally on top of my cab. Yes, 6 full grown people managed to get up there in seconds.
Chaos ensued, 5 got away, one got carried by his neck inside the truck stop.
Officers finally arrived and put the one I captured in his car. He proceeds to get my story, at the front of his car. Mid summer, border town, and he doesn't even realize the bg is locked in his car with it off. 10 min into giving the story, I realize his car is awful quiet. He attempts to open the door and it's locked. Windows up, guy in the back burning up but not wanting to make the officer mad. I'm not sure what happened after that because he said he had all he needed from me. I went back to work, but I can still imagine him trying to explain that to all the guys back at the office.