From: Bill Kealey (cwkealey@atlanticbb.net)
Date: Sat Jan 01 2005 - 15:55:12 PST
Hello Sonny and the rest of the gang,
I partially agree with what you commented on about LEO's not knowing their
job and also the comment about LEO's being asked questions.
More has to be considered, IMHO, as a retired LEO.
I admit that I NEVER knew everything about the job. I often was asked
questions that I did not know the answer to or wasn't Positive that I knew
the answer.
I am not embarassed or ashamed of that.
I am pleased to admit that I can read and having the books with me Most of
the time for the type of enforcement that I worked in was a big help. I
also took the persons name, phone number and address so that I could find
out the answer and then get back in touch with them. If they didn't want to
give the information to me, no problem, I always carried my business cards
(purchased then later made by yours truly as my agency would not pay for
them) and gave them out with my home phone number and when I obtained one
the e-mail addresses both home and at work. Then when I found out the
information, I contacted the person and gave it to them.
But, if I was in a situation where I was writing a ticket (my
jurisdiction/agency called them citations and written warnings) I had better
be right or I had to answer for it with my supervisor. As a rookie, I
learned very quickly not to write things when I didn't know for sure that I
was right. My sergeant made me go to the person that I issued the citation
to and apoligize. I also had to go to court and explain to a judge as well
as the entire population of the court room that I had written the citation
in error and politely ask the judge to void the citation. You see, in my
agency every citation was a criminal charge. Therefore, we did not have the
authority, nor did anyone else in the department, to void the citation once
the defendant signed his/her name to it. In some instances we could ask the
States Attorney void the citation but that did not always work either. I
found that I would rather err on the side of the person who I was
considering issuing a citation to. But that was how I did things.
Others did things differently.
And, to comment on Many others opinions about ticking off the officer ...
absolutely be, if you can't handle nice, at least polite or curtious. I
also found out dealing with the public that it is always better to start out
friendly as it is easy to escalate the situation. But it is extremely
difficult to take an already bad situation and make it nice.
Most situations, IMHO, the officer has a certain amount of choice as to how
to handle the violation or other situation. Granted this is not always the
case but usually in my experience anyway, the officer has the authority to
make judgement calls. I personally did not like issuing citations and
preferred to issue warnings. Warnings did just as much and didn't cost
anything other than the cost of printing them. Only some of the violations
where written warnings were issued showed up in the computer system later
... this was intentional based on the type of violation. We had some, very
limited, laws where there were no discretionary options for the officer and
citations had to be issued. In those cases we could vary the fine using
creative writing techniques if the supervisor wasn't around and in many
cases I wrote the minimum fine possible in others attitude certainly entered
into play and the fine was the maximum or somewhere in between. Some people
just refuse to cooperate and have a chip on their shoulders on both sides of
the fence. There were truly wonderfully nice, polite people whom I had no
choice but to issue citations to them and I asked them to appear in court.
If they did, I commented at the end of the trial but before sentencing, if
found guilty, about their attitudes. This more often than not got the fines
reduced or dropped and jail times dropped. Many of the officers whom I
worked with did the same things, that's how I learned to do these things.
Because in the Police Academy we were taught to write citations and few
warnings, all people are bad and lots of other things that the officers in
the field had to clear out of newly appointed officers. Some, never learned
to be nice. But, again, that's in every business, community, group and the
such. Some people are nice and agreeable and others just aren't. Some who
are normally nice have bad days, I certainly did and did my best to make up
for it. That did not always work either.
I guess what I am dragging this on and on and on about is to finally say
that if you ask politely a question of any officer and the answer isn't what
you think it is ... rather than be angry or discourtious ... ask the officer
to show you in the law and explain it as written. Some, quite frankly won't
do it and some probably can't do it. Next step is to ask them to get you a
copy of the law or at least tell you the section of the law so that you can
look it up yourself. Most librarys as well as the Internet have the
Federal, State and Local laws available for free. The problem is finding
where to look in the many books.
Oh, yeah, to get back to what I wrote first here, the law books that I had
to carry with me were only a small part of the laws that I enforced because
my agencies officers are empowerd to enforce ALL of the laws of the State of
Maryland and as deputy federal officers many also had to enforce certain
federal laws. I had to carry a gym bag and brief case with me filled up
with large and small books about laws. My home also had a bunch of law
books that I would look through in my spare time to help the public as I did
not have an office to report to every day and only got to the office once or
twice a month. On good months I skipped the office altogether as evil
creatures dwell there, like supervisors. <grin>
AND, our laws changed so often that there was no way that I could keep up
with the changes. I did not enforce truck stuff, though I had the
authority, just never the reason to. I did stop a tractor trailer truck
without the trailer one night (out of a total of almost 25 years of LE) only
because it was a really dark night and heavy rain. I almost ran into him as
he had not checked his lights before setting off and None of the tail or
brake lights were working. I could have written him several citations (we
did have motor vehicle citations along with our own criminal citations) but
instead just gave him a verbal warning then followed him home to make sure
he got there without anyone running into him.
Please ask the officer questions, that is why they are there. I always
preferred to answer a question before someone got into trouble rather than
have to stop them for violating the law and then tell them what was wrong.
Bill Kealey
MVPA 24623
1954 USMC M38A1
1972 USA M35A2
1985 USAF M105A2
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sonny Heath" <sonny@defuniak.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 01, 2005 17:04
Subject: Re: [MV] Heading for the scales, now open...
> For the most part you are right but it gets on my nerves when a LEO don't
> know his job and can't answer questions. I disagree totally with the
> thought that a LEO shouldn't be asked a question.
>
> Sonny
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