Last Tuesday I was in kind of a pissed off mood. I had spent all day building up my little man’s syndrome at my full time gig and decided that I should head on into the PD to see what I could find. I spent the first hour or so just driving around the city trying to find a reason to stop anything that was moving. I’ve found that most of the time douche bags like to come out in the middle of the night on days in the middle of the week. I think that it makes it easier for them to commit crimes since all of the normal people are either at work or sleeping just so they can get up and go to work.
After finding absolutely nothing I was pretty much beat back down to boredom. I ended up just parking the car near the main drag and bull shitting with my buddy on the phone. He was working in another small town about 30 miles away. I kicked the chair back in the patrol car and stared through the windshield with a stupid look on my face. My buddy would be talking to me one minute then he’d stop briefly to enter a plate into his MDT. In the background you could hear the clickidy-clack of his MDT’s keyboard as he muttered the vehicle’s license plate over and over. “I’m glad to hear you’re busy, I got nothing moving out here.” I said into the phone.
Directly across from my patrol car was a large Chevron station with a little mini-mart attached. It was the only thing still open at 1:00 am. There wasn’t any car’s at the pumps and no one was inside. The lights from the pump area lit up the entire street. A faint florescent glow hovered over the surrounding buildings. I could see the gas station attendants sitting in lawn chairs out front, smoking cigarettes.
Speaking of gas station attendants! Do we really need these guys? Don’t get me wrong, the guys that work at this particular gas station are good guys, but every time I get gas at other stations the gas attendants are worthless. In Oregon it is still the law that an attendant pumps your gas. I hate it! Every time I pull into a gas station with my POV I’m wondering if the douche coming up to my window is a guy I’ve arrested. When I bought my new car the first thing that fucking under achieving, oxygen wasting, nipple head did was dump gas all over the side. That was after I had to sit at the pumps while he stared at me from the corner of the building as he tried desperately to suck the last little bit of cancer out of his cigarette. And what ever happened to customer service? When I was a kid, I remember the gas station attendant calling you “sir” and washing your windshield. Now all I get is a fuck’n Hell’s Angel wanna be coughing and hacking up lung butter only to spit out on the ground, narrowly missing the rear bumper of my car! I wish we were like other states. It must be nice be able to get out of car as soon as you pull up and put gas in your car with any incident. Here, every visit to the gas station is miserable.
Anyway, back to my little story here. I was talking on the phone with my buddy when I noticed one our local “project families” driving by. They were in their usual douche-mobile that has been towed by our agency a couple of times for various reasons. They always yell and scream and say things like, “You just take your badge and gun off and we’ll see how tough you are.” What bunch of dummies!
They pulled into the Chevron station with a silver colored newer model Ford Focus following them. I noted that the Focus’ license plate light was out. Then I turned my attention back to the douche-mobile. I wanted to be sure that the mother of the family wasn’t driving since our agency had just towed here yesterday for driving while suspended. That incident was kind of funny too.
Last night my sergeant noticed that she was out driving around. She knew that her license was suspended and was being very careful not to be seen by any of our officers. Well, she slipped up and drove by the sergeant last night. She had her really annoying son and street lawyer boy friend with her. My sergeant attempted to stop her on a public roadway but she quickly pulled into the driveway of a house. I don’t know why she thought that would help her out. So the sarge tells her that he towing the car. That’s when the street lawyer sprung into action. He immediately got on the phone and said to his DWS (Driving While Suspended) girlfriend, “Don’t worry, I’m going to make it so that he can’t tow this car.” He told the sarge that he knows the owner of the property the vehicle is currently parked in and that they are going to seize the vehicle for back storage fees owed by Ms. DWS. He then turned and started to get into the driver’s seat and start up the car.
Apparently all of this conversation had gone on just before I pulled in to backup the sarge. When I arrived the sergeant was in the middle of verbally raping Mr. Street Lawyer. I heard him saying something along the lines of, “You listen to me mother fucker! I’ve been doing this shit for eighteen years! If you get back into that car I’m going to kick you fucking ass!” He had yelled at Mr. Street Lawyer so bad that he had walked backwards into the roadway and looked as though he was going to break into tears.
I got out of my car just in time to see my sergeant pointing at me and saying, “Get the keys for this thing will ya!” I walked over to the driver’s side door where Mr. DWS and her dumb ass son were standing. Playing up the good cop type attitude, I said, “I need to get the ignition key from you ma’am.” He son stepped between us and said, “You not getting the fucking keys!” I said, “Great, the towing company will just charge you double then.” “You can’t do that!” He blurted out. He kind of started squaring off with me. I turned to Ms. DWS and said, “Ma’am you should probably get your son under control before I find a reason to take him to jail.” She quickly told him to shut up. In the end we impounded the car and they all walked home.
Tonight, I just watched as they finished up at the Chevron then headed down the street to their residence. I noticed that Mr. Street Lawyer was driving the douche-mobile and I know that he was clear valid. The Focus was still following behind. I thought, “Aww screw it, we already towed them, we’ve already won, there’s no reason to bother them anymore.” I went back to my conversation with my buddy who was now running down a suspicious vehicle with a headlight out. I could hear the engine of his patrol car accelerating loudly in the back ground. He said, “I’ll call you back.” Then the line went dead.
I just sat there contemplating whether I was going to just call it a night or stay out a little while longer. A few minutes later the Focus pulled out from the “project family’s” street and then stopped at the stop sign directly in front of me. I could see two white male adults inside. Mr. Street Lawyer was in the passenger seat and there was some other fat guy sitting in the driver’s seat. They turned and started to drive out of view. I sat there for minute staring rear of the Focus without the license plate light. Suddenly I started getting that internal douche bag radar feeling. You know what I mean. That feeling that says, “Come on dude, you know they need to be talked to. There’s something not right about that car.” I pulled out and got in behind the focus. I ran the plate and the registered owner, a female, came back clear and valid. I said, “What the hell!” out loud then switched the lights on. They pulled into another nearby gas station just outside the city.
As I approached on the driver’s side, I noticed that the steering column was totally dismantled. I gave driver the normal, “Hi I’m Officer Smith yada yada yada.” I asked for his driver’s license and insurance card. He told me that he didn’t have his license on him because he left his whole wallet at home. With an understanding voice I said, “Oh, I hate when I do that. You have a valid license right?” The driver looked at me with an astonished look and said, “Well yeah.” He gave his license number from memory. I ran it and low and behold he was suspended too. It was funny we just happened to be right next to the house that we towed Ms. DWS from last night. I asked why the steering column was all torn apart. The driver told me that he had been having some problems with the ignition system. I said, “Those problems wouldn’t happen to be because the car isn’t yours would they?” The man laughed and told me that it’s he and his wife’s car. I checked into it he was right.
I ordered up a tow and decided that since the driver is being pretty cool and Mr. Street Lawyer was keeping his mouth shut, that I would cut him a break on the defective lighting about a $125.00 ticket in our jurisdiction. I cited him for driving while suspended which is a violation in Oregon. I told him to go ahead and gather up everything that he thinks he needs to take with him. He just grabbed a sweat shirt from the rear passenger seat (After I checked it, of course). Mr. Street Lawyer got out of the passenger side and gave me the million mile stare. I love when guys do that. All it does is make me glad that I am inconveniencing them.
I asked the driver for his ignition key. He explained to me that he had to punch the ignition to make the cylinder turn. He went all into graphic detail about how I need to turn a key and then insert a screw driver into the other side and all kinds of crap. Half way through, I stopped listening and just said, “Okay, we’ll take care of it.” He handed me the key then started to walk away. As he walked away I heard the car’s electric locks click down and the alarm system indication lights flashed. I told him that we will need the alarm system to be disarmed. That’s when he started being a dick. He started in with me about how he has the right to do this and the right to do that. I said, “No problem dummy, I’m not the one paying your towing bill!” Soon after that the car miraculously disarmed itself.
The driver and Mr. Street Lawyer walked over to the gas station entrance and stared at me together. I went back to my car and started filling out my tow sheet. While I was sitting in my car the driver walked back over with his camera phone. He tapped on the license plate light until it came back on. He then started yelling at me that the light was really on and that I didn’t have the right to stop him. I said, “Well sir take me to court, I’ll bring my facts and you can bring yours.” He snapped a picture of the license plate with his phone and then smiled at me as he walked away. I remember thinking, “Okay stupid take all the pictures you want. The fact is I will be at home in my nice warm bed while you’re still walking your fat ass home.”
So he and Mr. Street Lawyer were back over at the gas station with a couple of gas gimps just like the ones I told you about earlier. The tow truck arrived soon after. The tow truck driver and I are a first name basis since he seems to tow at least one car a night for me. I explained to him that the ignition is all screwed up and he might have some trouble getting it to start. I went back to my patrol car. I watched as the tow truck driver messed with the ignition for about 15 minutes. Then he just got out and started hooking up the car. I thought, “Huh must have had a little trouble getting it out of park.” Well, it turns out he did. A few minutes later I heard of the waste of sperm gas attendants say, “Now that’s just bull shit!” I looked up to see the tow truck driver winching the Focus up onto the back of the truck with the transmission still in park. The Focus hopped up and down as it lurched forward.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the driver running at the tow truck driver. I jumped out of the car and intervened. The driver, “Said, you can’t fuck’n do that you mother fuckers!” I said, “Get back! You will not approach my tow truck driver while he is impounding a vehicle.” The driver squared off with me and took up a little bit of a fight type stance. I said, “Are we gonna have a problem?” By now the tow truck driver was working franticly to just get the car and get the hell out of there. I was still locked in a Mexican standoff with the driver. He said, “You can’t do shit!” Squaring off with the driver and planning to bash his face into the pavement I said, “Test me.” This got Mr. Street Lawyer to come over and tell his friend to back away. The driver managed to mutter out, “Someone’s getting sued over this, starting with you!” then pointed in my direction. I said, “Good luck with that dummy!”
All in all I got his car and there was no force used. Now I will never ever cut anyone a break on citing for my probable cause for the stop. If you are suspended or no op. you can expect to get cited for everything I can think of. It seems like every time I try to be a little lenient it backfires in my face. Not anymore, everyone pays now!
