Your Best (and worst) COP Stories

[Mike]

How many of you have a story to tell about a situation involving a police officer? I mean, there are times in my youth when I decided to either hide or run from the law. I'll post my story, but, I also want to hear yours.

This thread is a result of quite a few stories told on the mailing list. However, none of them have been shown on the website. I think it's great and of course the club does not promote this kind of activity what-so-ever. So, let's hear 'em!!

[John Coffey]

Living with a friend in Placentia California years ago I was driving a 1961 Ford Falcon, six cylinder (really only 5), 3 on a tree, and a lawn chair for a driver's seat - that I paid $5 (five dollars) for - the car, not the chair. Our house was 3 lots north of a 4 way stop and there was a short steep hill on the road just a couple houses farther north.

One afternoon I'm driving home with Kevin sitting on the passenger bucket and I blow through the stop heading north. As I go through Kevin looks to his right, sees a cop sitting about 25 yards from the intersection, stopped. Kevin yells and I floor it, figuring the extra smoke will confuse the cop.

We go past our house, up the hill, and do something resembling an e-brake turn (the e-brake didn't work) and head back south. As we start down the hill we pass the cop headed north. All we see is big white cop eyes and hear a Quadrajet in full suck.

Luckily, I had left the garage door open (we had just gone to buy beer) and I slid the old Falcon into the garage - denting the water heater in the process and tossing Kevin into the back seat. Kevin falls out and closes the garage door as we start to hear the Quadrajet suck coming our way. We run out into the side yard and peek through the fence as the cop flies through the intersection heading south.

A few minutes later he's back and heading west. And a few minutes later still he's back and heading east. Then he returns and parks near the intersection until it gets dark. When he finally left I got on my old Schwinn Varsity and rode down to the hardware store. I bought 6 cans of light blue Krylon spray paint and a roll of masking tape for $6. Kevin and I painted the Falcon that night. I saw the cop a few times after that and he stared at me and the Falcon long and hard, but he never pulled me over.

[kmack]

Bright sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky and I’m on my way to work in the left lane doing about 60 mph. Following with flow of traffic. There’s a slow car in front of me (left-lane blocker) so I move into the center lane to pass him. Just then, the new car in front of me (a plain, maroon Chevy Impala) puts its brakes on and slows down fairly rapidly. I have just enough room to make it, so I change lanes back into the left lane and proceed on my way to work.

A minute later and I notice there is an unmarked, maroon Impala following me with its red & blue grill lights flashing. So I pull over. This skinny guy in a nice shirt, tie, and slacks gets out and asks me, “What do you think you were doing back there?” I didn’t know what he was talking about until he said that I almost rear-ended him. I wasn’t that close. He proceeds to show me his badge and he’s an officer for TABC, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. Then he writes me a ticket for “Passing: insufficient clearance.” Hey, I made it didn’t I? He also puts down that it’s raining. What?

So my appearance day comes and I show up at the court ready to put in a plea of not guilty. I really wanted to test the system on this one. The give me a paper to sign with my formal plea of “Not Guilty.” But I notice that the offense now says “speeding.” Ok…. I start to laugh a bit then sign my name. This is going to be good. I proceed to get all my weather info collected saying there wasn’t a drop of moisture reported for a 3 day period during that time and some other miscellaneous stuff to back me up. Now I just have to wait for the court date.

So I’m sitting in the hallway of the courthouse waiting and I see this skinny guy so up, it’s the TABC officer. I like this even more now. I just smile. Then Prosecutor comes out and leads me into a small room to discuss with me what’s going to happen during this trial. He says I have a few options. “One, you can plead guilty right now for a lesser fine and some community service. Or you can continue with the trial, be found guilty, and pay a bigger fine and more community service. What do you want to do?”

“I’m sticking with not guilty. That’s still an option isn’t?” The Prosecutor hands me some paperwork to fill out real quick and asks me how I plan to prove myself in this speeding trial. I show him my weather data, which he seems unimpressed about, then mention the offense. “I’m here to defend a passing insufficient clearance charge. I don’t know what this speeding charge is about.” He shows me a photocopy of my ticket that shows my signature on it, but “Speeding” as the offense in a big white space right in the middle. “That’s funny because I have my original carbon copy of the ticket and it says nothing about speeding on it.” He takes my ticket and disappears.

A few minutes later he comes back in the room and says, “Well the case we had against you is not the case we thought we had against you. The ticket has been dismissed. You’re free to go.” I smiled at the officer as I walked passed him and headed off to work.

In hindsight I wish I hadn’t said anything about the ticket until we were in front of the Judge. I would have loved to see to look on the Judge’s face when I accused the officer of falsifying evidence. And I would have loved to hear what the Judge had to say about it. But it never happened and I got the ticket dismissed.

[JEFF]

My cousion and I were next to each other at a light- it's dusk.

I'm driving my '76 280Z,he is driving a '71 nova(one wheel peel).

We were so engrossed with the anticipation of our launch we

did not see that an officer was the 1st car at the cross street.

The light turns green and we hit it hard - both spinning to beat

the band. Ofcorse the officer pulls out our way - lights flashing.

I pull over on the shoulder and SHE pulls up to my window.

She says"don't move,I'm going to go get your buddy!!" I find out

later that he stopped less than 1/2 mile up for gas.

She wrote both of us for wreakless driving. Court date for him is

1 day before mine - Judge YELLS at him for dragracing in"HIS TOWN" - he gets full fine ($175) and all the points (6).

When i show up in the same Judge's courtroom the next day- He wants to know "where have i seen your last name before? "cousion was in here yesterday- same ticket.

He lets me off with careless driving - (1/2 as much of each)

-Jeff

[Bambikiller240]

My Fleeing from the cops story dates back to 1982. I had recently finished a 2 year project on the first 240Z that I owned. It was a late 1971 body shell with everything else (except the carbs!) out of a 1973 240Z refurbished and installed. Notable additions were the Bilstein Struts, Short springs, Camber Adjustable Aluminum/Delrin Suspension bushings, fat anti-roll bars F & R, 10mm short steering knuckles, 14 X 7 wheels w/ sticky Yokohama tires, and beautiful 1972 Orange (#918) w/ Clear topcoat paint job.

I used to take the car out every day on my lunch break and blast up Mines Road in Livermore,CA; a notorious, twisty two lane country road that stretches some 30+ miles towards Milpitas. One afternoon I had taken my usual run of about 8 miles out of town, exploring the limits of the car and myself while enjoying the sensations of drifting through the many kinks in the road, I'd made my turn to head back to work and had gotten about 2 miles into the return trip when I was surprised (as I flew through a blind curve in the road) by a Livermore PD cruiser heading up to Lake Del Valle. I had zero time to react as we passed each other. All I could do was to glance in the rear-view mirror just in time to see him light up his "Christmas tree" and stand on the brakes. As I was going about 70-80 mph, and another turn was rapidly approaching I put my mind back to the road in front of me and figured I'd continue my daily run until I saw him again, all the while hoping that I wouldn't see him.

Well, I never did see him again in the remaining 6+ mile trip to work where I pulled into the parking lot at work and parked at the back of the lot, quickly tossing the cloth cover onto the car. As I joined a few other employees walking out of the lot toward the shop, here comes Barney Fife slowly driving up the road. He had the Christmas tree turned off, but had his regular emergency flashers turned on as he crept along, looking into each parking lot that he passed. Presumably looking for me. It was a loooong walk to the shop while holding my breath all the way! Needless to say, I gave up the daily jaunts up Mines Road for about a month after that. As others have said, the elation and complete rush of beating the rap cannot be adequately described.

That was the only time that I tried to run from the cops. Every other time that I've been caught breaking traffic laws in the past 20 years, I've just pulled over VERY quickly and kissed their arse, and B.S.'d with them as much as possible. The result has been more "courtesy citations" than I could possibly count, and 4 tickets, each of which I've cleared through attending traffic school.

[Z Kid]

I'd just dropped off a car at a friends house, and was coming home at about 2am with trailer in tow. I was pulled over by the police, your sidelights aren't working, explain that those are just reflectors and the sidelights are on the bar the sits across the back, he went on for a while about them being too far from the corner of the trailer etc etc. I just nod and agree, telling him i'll tell the owner to do something about it. Then he asks for the rego disk, being a friends trailer, it was in his car, as the dog eats it when put on the trailer in a holder, never fear, he runs the number through the computer and tells me it expires in august, and its now unregistered, if i move a metre, the $^!# will hit the fan. I try and explain that last time i borrowed it it was registered till august 2003, but all to no avail. WIth a stern warning, he tells us to leave it by the side of the road, in a dodgy neighbourhood and come back with a trailer to cart the trailer, and a summons will be in the post, which will inform us of a court date, where we will lose our licence and be fined. I sat bemused by the side of the road for a while, then finally just before 3 am, i rang my friend, the owner of the trailer, who confirmed the rego expiry date, august next year. Dumbass traffic cops. Drove home, thoroughly pissed off. I have since tried to chase up the summons etc, but strangley the cop hasn't filed anything.

[Datzun76]

Me and a friend were driving in a Fairlady Z and pretty much doing the same speed as the rest of the interstate traffic. A station wagon had even passed us. We come over a hill and a Florida State Trooper gets right up on our tail end and pulls us over for speeding. This cop must have been having a bad day as he was using every cuss word in the book when approaching the driver side of the car which I was seated in. Keep in mind in America the steering wheel is on the left side so the cop comes to my side to write the ticket. As I roll down the window he continues yelling and acts like we were driving 100mph. I let him mouth off and then look up at him with this calm expression " I am not the one driving the car officer" He looks inside the car and notices the steering wheel is on the other side. This just made him hit the roof for looking like an idiot for yelling at me. My friend and I both had a good laugh later after he was done with his temper tantrum and writing a BS speeding ticket.

[A2Z]

I was on my way back to college in northern NY... was in my friends toyota p/u speeding away up rt. 11, probably doing about 80 in a 55. my friend had no fear for getting tickets for some reason as just about every trip back to school he'd get pulled over atleast once.

so anyway, we're cruising 80mph or so and we see a patrol car coming at us. we slowed down a bit but he had still got us at like 77 in the 55 i think. he came up to my friends window, very polite actually, "know why i pulled u over? license and reg... unfortunately for the speed i do need to write you a ticket..." we said "ok" and he went back to his car to write the ticket.

5 mins always feels like 30 when ur pulled over, but we waited a good 20mins before he came back up to the window. seemed like it was extra long (remember we got pulled over nearly every trip)

so he comes up to the window empty handed. we look at him kind of confused becuz he had said we're getting a ticket and he didn't have one to hand us. instead he says "do you guys have a screw driver?" a screw driver?? uh no sorry... he says "well i'm terribly sorry, but while i was writing your ticket i put your license on my console, a call came over my radio, when i reached for the mic i knocked ur license down inside the console and i can't get it out. becuz of the embarrassment, i'm not going to write the ticket, but i need a screw driver to take the console apart. sicne you don't have one, could you meet me 2morrow?"

of course my friend agreed. he met him out at a traffic stop the next day. guess they chatted for a few hours and seemed like a pretty good guy... told my friend "if ya ever get pulled over up here, just mention my name!"

[Daniel]

It was sometime in around 1977 on thanksgiving eve.The family was meeting at our beach house for the feast.I left Charlotte about 1am.I liked night driving and decided I would see how fast i could make the 3 1/2 hour normal trip.I was young and at that time had never had a ticket.I thought I was bulletproof.About 45 minutes out I was running about 105mph and noticed in my rearview that in the distance a car was gaining on me.Either he's as crazy as me or he wants me I thought. After going over a hill I slowed and pulled into a parking lot for a chicken processing plant.The guard at the gate had his back to the entrance.I turned off my car and rolled passed between two pickups with campers.Shortly a highway patrol slowly rolled up to the entrance.he shined his spotlite ,but I was well hidden.A few minutes after he left I was gone again.All was well for another hour of about 90 average.Then as I went over a hill a local cop was coming the other way.Nowhere to go I kicked it until I saw a turn off.By then he was on me.I kept making turns until he hit the blue lights.Do you know how fast you where goin' he ask.No sir but I don't believe I was speeding I said.Well buddy,on the hill I clocked you a 90.When I reset it you were doin' 115.Why did you pull in here he ask?I thought there was a coffee shop in here I said.Well if you don't know how fast you were goin' I think you need a pot of coffee and if it wasn't my get off time I would carry your arse to jail!!!HE LET ME GO!!!He said that lots of cops were out between there and the beach.When i left him I thought "Why would he tell me that if it was true?I ran about 100 mph to the beach.As you arrive there is a steep bridge that gets you on the island.At the bottom of the bridge I was going 90mph.O.K.your here I said to myself.I let off the gas and coasted up the steep incline.As I crested the hill I was going35mph and saw a highway patrol in front of me,I followed him into town.OH the joys of youth!!

[carguyinok]

I wish I could say it was my story but..... It's dads

In the early 80s my father owned roller rinks. One night about 12am the phone rings. Its the police saying that the alarm at the rink was going off and asked him to get there ASAP. Now the rink was a 45 minn drive in light traffic and well over an hour with heavy traffic. Like I said this was late night so there was no one out. I was there when the call came and thats all he needed was the police telling him GET HERE NOW. My moms 1970 240Z was sitting there begging him. So he took it. He takes her Z and hits the empty highway. 22 minn. later he is sitting in the parking lot for the rink cop cars everywhere. Turns out it was just some punks screwing around and he is sitting there talking with the police. Then one of the cops chimes in saying (where do you live again?) my dad tells them. One cop starts doing the math and came up with average speed of over 100MPH :tapemouth

They just gave him a grin and one of them asked if he wanted to sell the Z and if not if they could go for a ride.

P.S. This was my moms Z . It was set-up tripple webbers 6 into 2 header large fender flares with the off set wheels and a full cage.

Yes it was a track only car from new till my dad bought it for my mom and taged it for the street after a repaint and new glass.

This car (was) the main reason for my ove of the Z. My dad got in a small wreck with it hurting the front end. The body shop was givin the car for the winter so they could take there time and do it rite. Plus they could get out of winter storage. Anyway The @#@# body shop pushed the car half way in and shut the door on the roof. Then they sealed around the car and left the whole rearend of the Z outside in the snow and ice for the winter while they did the front. Dont worry they didnt let it get frozen into the ground. All the salt there shop boy was tossing around kept it from seeing any ice:mad: It took less then one year from that winter till the whole arse end was GONE. Had it not been for that I am sure she (or I) would stil have it.

[delnor]

Ok, so I was driving my car (Dodge Stratus 2000 Not to exciting) and I got a speeding ticket at like 12 at night. Now, this is somthing I normaly would be fine with. However, this officer was an idiot, at least he wasnt paying any attention when he wrote the ticket. I got it back and he wrote that the insident occured in a block I wasnt even ever in. And he wrote that there was heavy traffic and there was no one on the road. So I have this lawyer friend who ended up going to court for me and taking care of it. Anyway I just posted this because I am so sick of cops writing down incorrect information!

[Daniel]

My brother inlaw is an inspector for fraud with a large insurance company.A guy crashed his 280xz into a tree.He claimed that the gas tank was punctured and the fuel ran under it and caught it on fire.When my brother-n-law saw the tank he noticed that it was a smooth V like knife stab.The kicker was the car was on a steep hill and the tank was on the low side!! So the fuel ran uphill under the car huh?? The guy was then promptly arrested.