so i just heard a rumor of a constable pulling over a motorist who was on the way to the hospital with his wife who was having a baby. The constable apparently issued a ticket even though he was aware of her going into labor, so is this true?
yes
hahahahahahaha!
that’s so rad, i bet it was that M#$%$s guy. you don’t mess with that guy, giving birth or not, the law is the law!!!
he pulled up to me once, as i had just got in the car, not even turned it on and told me to put my seat belt on. he doesn’t play games
I feel like I should merge this thread with the “no drivers license” thread.
Either we’re minding our own business or we aren’t. Which is it today?
By the way, ThePodunkian has the Daily News story on his site:
Fire him
what Pharmaceuticals are you on Billy wink wink I need some…
Wow, how ridiculous is that.
Poor man missed the birth of his child.
Probably made a honest mistake not using the turning signal, with the excitement of driving his wife to the hospital.
You’d think an officer who is a father himself, having experienced that would have a bit more understanding.
Even though he was trying to do his job, he could have made an exception in that certain situation. Especially if there was no one endangered by the small driving error.
(I see drivers who don’t use their turning signals every day, not to mention some idiot who ran a stop sign right by the RCMP station last week, almost plowing into me with two children in the vehicle…I wonder where the road safety units are sometimes…)
I realize this is dangerous ground, but think about it from this angle:
The officer see’s a traffic infraction and tries to pull the guy over. The driver doesn’t pull over which immediately sends up a red flag for the officer. As it should. When he pursues the driver he see’s a man in an agitated state, yelling at him, who still doesn’t pull over. More red flags go up for the officer. As it should. The officer forces the man to stop and then has to prepare himself to deal with a non-compliant, agitated individual. Any trained officer would enter this situation expecting more trouble.
I think this is a fairly plausible scenario up to this point. The officer has no idea that this situation involves a medical emergency. How could he?
So now the officer exits his car and I’m sure was pretty agressive with the driver. Remember, he’s dealing with a non-compliant individual who is in an agitated state. Being agressive, taking charge of the situation, is an officer safety issue. In the newspaper article the driver says the officer “argued with me for three or four minutes”. I would submit it was probably less than that. The man was panicked due to his wife’s situation and was dealing with the officer. Time kind of get’s skewed. Nevertheless, the officer does escort the two to the hospital.
Now I’m a parent and I almost missed the birth of my son so I’m pretty sympathetic to what this man went through. Missing the birth sucks. I’ll note though that in the article the man states he took his wife into the hospital and then went back to the officer. Clearly even HE didn’t think the birth was so close, or he would have stayed with his wife. It’s not like the officer chased him into Emerg and dragged him out in cuffs.
It was a crappy situation, that in a perfect world shouldn’t have happened. It’s not a perfect world though and although I’m sure I’ll get bashed for daring to defend the police, there is always more than one perspective on things.
I mean after all it’s entirely possible neither the officer or the driver were wrong in their actions, but that it’s just easier to blame the officer instead of the winds of fate.
[quote=“CrazyMike”]
I mean after all it’s entirely possible neither the officer or the driver were wrong in their actions, but that it’s just easier to blame the officer instead of the winds of fate. [/quote]
QFT
As CrazyMike described: from the officer’s perspective, he could do no less than try to stop a “non-compliant” driver. Imagine if this was the unlicensed driver, or the drugged up driver, or the drinking driver - this could have been ** much ** worse.
It is a heartbreaking experience to miss the birth of your child - no question. Sorry to hear the father was not allowed to follow through with the birth before dealing with a ticket that is being forgiven anyway.
I assume that baby and mama are OK? If so, daddy and family have a whole lifetime of memories to build.
Personally, I call this a ** good news ** story.
The good news here is that the officer didn’t use a taser. And I don’t mean that in a snarky or facetious way.
From CrazyMike’s explanation, it would be exactly the kind of situation where tasers would be deployed – non-compliance.
The question that needs to be asked, which I’ve been asking for a couple of years, is why the heck the Prince Rupert RCMP are so crazy insane over writing tickets?
Did he not signal from 11th East onto McBride? Is that the place? In front of McDonalds? If so, that’s the new toll booth, I take it. A questionable ticket at best, but a real cash cow.
[quote=“MiG”]
The good news here is that the officer didn’t use a taser. [/quote]
Whew. Good point!
It is a very good question about why the focus is on traffic violations. Especially when there are drug dealers selling to pre-teen children - right under government agency noses…among other, somewhat more serious and truly criminal, violations.
[quote=“MiG”]
The good news here is that the officer didn’t use a taser. And I don’t mean that in a snarky or facetious way.[/quote]
Not to hijack the thread, but Mig that is an interesting point.
According to the use of force model and past practices one might not be surprised to hear that a CEW (conducted energy weapon) was used. He might have also used OC spray or a baton against the driver.
Do we as the public thank the officer for his restraint? Do we appreciate his training? Nope, we blame him.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Make a mistake and someones life could be lost, including their own. This is the situation peace officers find themselves in every day. Day after day. Can the public ever truly appreciate that?
All because they’ve been ordered to write silly little questionable tickets that have little safety value, and a lot of fiscal value.
Tax collection is more important than safety, it seems.
Anyone know if it is the 11th East turn onto McBride that he failed to signal? If so, take a look at the guy in front of you next time you go through there.
Nobody signals it, and it seems the toll booth collectors have discovered this new revenue stream. Maybe someone questioned the 5-second-stop rule in court, so they’ve dropped that.
[quote=“CrazyMike”]
Not to hijack the thread, but Mig that is an interesting point. [/quote]
MiG - that looks like a cue to start a new thread.
I certainly appreciate the responsibility involved in policing a nation that is not willing to be personally accountable for their own actions.
I wonder when seeking conflict replaced avoiding conflict in the RCMP screening and training.
There was a time, when RCMP officers were selected for their ability to defuse situations - now they seem to come in with “gunz-a-blazin”.
Could be just a perception and I would be happy to be wrong.
In my parents generation the police seemed better at diffusing things using less force. An average member of the public though wouldn’t think of openly arguing with a police officer or giving them a hard time. Now it seems like the police are more aggressive and average people don’t think twice about giving an officer a hard time or challenging their authority.
I’m no expert but this could be a chicken and egg kind of thing.
Did the public loose respect for the police and their authority because the police became more aggressive? Or did the police become more aggressive because the people they deal with were showing no respect for their authority and were harder to deal with?
I dont know about others but I sure lost a lot of respect for the police when they became aggressive with me for no reason whatsoever. Then after what happened in houston, the vancouver airport incident, the various drunk driving charges etc I’ve lost all respect for the police.
They need to get their shit together before they expect respect or to be treated like role models.
The father who was driving the vehicle was wrong. He broke traffic laws en route to the hospital and then refused to stop for the traffic cops until the police car blocked his route. Plain and simply…he was wrong.
I sympatize with the parents but all that they had to do was pull over when the RCMP initially activated their emegency lights and sirens, get out and quickly explain to the officer what was happening. I’d bet my left nut that he would have then received an escort and made it to the hospital sooner than he ever could have imagined.
[quote=“MiG”]
The question that needs to be asked, which I’ve been asking for a couple of years, is why the heck the Prince Rupert RCMP are so crazy insane over writing tickets?[/quote]
Prince Rupert is a small city with a fairly new traffic unit. You’ve probably been asking that question since the unit was created. I wouldn’t say that the Prince Rupert RCMP is crazy insane over tickets because most of the members of the Prince Rupert RCMP probably don’t write that many tickets as traffic is not their mandate. It is however the mandate for two or three members.
A drug unit focuses on drugs, a gang unit focuses on gangs and a traffic unit focuses on traffic enforcement. A good drug officer convicts drug dealers, a good traffic officer convicts motorists that commit infractions, even “silly little questionable tickets that have little safety value”. There’s a reason they’re on the books regardless of how popular they are. What would be the point of the city paying for a traffic member that “avoid[ed] conflict” by not stopping anyone or handing out warnings?
If you don’t want to be charged for a traffic offence, don’t commit one. If you feel you’ve been charged when you didn’t do anything wrong (the stop signs) take it to court. When the lights flash, pull over and nobody gets excited.
Too bad he did not stop right away and point out the situation. The cop is still a goof for giving the ticket.
[quote=“mrt”]
What would be the point of the city paying for a traffic member that “avoid[ed] conflict” by not stopping anyone or handing out warnings? [/quote]
And I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.
The ‘value’ of the traffic member is to generate revenue for the city. That’s my beef.
He’s a tax collector, which is a waste of an RCMP officer, in my opinion. He’s not concerned with making the streets safe for drivers, he’s concerned with generating revenue. That’s why he gives these kinds of tickets.
If the point of the traffic officer was to make the city safe for drivers (and pedestrians), he wouldn’t be out there giving these kinds of tickets – he would be chasing down the unlicensed driver mention in the other thread.
The laws are on the books, sure. So is the 1-hour parking downtown. Is he going to enforce those too? That would help the city generate even more revenue.
So ask yourself why the traffic cop doesn’t give parking tickets, and you’ll know why it’s a bad idea to use an expensive well trained cop to give silly traffic tickets.
So the idea of equal application of the law doesn’t really matter, right? Doesn’t matter that if you stop for 2 seconds at a stop sign in Terrace, you don’t get a ticket, but if you stop 2 seconds in Rupert you get a ticket?