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Thread: Berkeley may become first US city to ban cops from making traffic stops

  1. #51
    Site Supporter Sensei's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by paherne View Post
    Since this is occurring in CA, I will answer...You should write scripts for Hollywood. You have no attachment to reality and your ideas are inventive.
    Thank you for this post. My schedule is such that I rarely get to post here these days. However, posts like this (factual, direct, and experienced) are exactly why I still come here. Thank you again and be safe.
    I like my rifles like my women - short, light, fast, brown, and suppressed.

  2. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sanch View Post
    CRAP...YADDA YADDA YADDA.
    First off, training from early in my career shows that traffic crashes cost roughly ten times the amount of money annually that that property crimes do. But the insurance companies pay that, so it is no big deal. Real people don't pay for it, other than in the form of increased premiums.

    I still hold the record for dope related cash siezures for my agency, despite a unit dedicated to doing just that. That cannot be repeated today, since by state law all siezed funds go into the state general fund, not to the siezing department. So there is little incentive there.

    Next, the officers that admitted to you that they were fishing, weren't very good at fishing. Otherwise you would have received that citation that would count to their standard, and generate some of that revenue. I am familiar with an out of state department that who refused to allow their deputies to write traffic tickets on the basis that those stopped were potential voters. Anyway, what do you think they were fishing for? I was a member of my former agency's Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP). The selective part is where/what gets enforced...Too many injury crashes at a given location? More speed/stop sign enforcement. Citizen complaints in a given neighbohood? More traffic enforcement there (although most ticketed are the residents in the area who are complaining about people committing traffic violations). The big one comes from crime trends of violent crimes and burglaries in a given area...Increased traffic enforcement (speed limits, stop signs, even turn signals and proper turning movements, seat belts, and equipment violations) lead to decreases in the crime density in the area, from direct enforcement (citing/arresting drivers) and indirect enforcement, where the sight of cops stoping every minor traffic violation causes criminals to reassess their chosen prey grounds and go elsewhere, causing crime rates in a given area to go down. Contrary to popular belief, if we were any good as a system at ending crime, there would be little to no crime. Instead we tend to relocate crime....but traffic enforcement is an invaluable tool in getting Constitutionally valid access to people who would otherwise play it cool and legal and get a wave and a nod from Officer Friendly...

    So if those officers were fishing, maybe they were fishing for burglars, or car theives, or violent criminals. You know, the guys that folks want arrested and off the streets. Do you think a burglar/murderer/child molester rolls a stop sign occasionally? Or goes 7 over the speed limit? Or doesn't wear a seat belt? Turns into the wrong lane? Those same career criminals, besides leaving the scene of a crime also lie about who they are, don't have valid licenses or insurance, or vehicle registration; maybe don't know they have a warrant in the system because they left DNA or prints at a scene, or a courageous witness or victim talked to the police. My carreer has allowed me to use traffic enforcement and consentual contacts to take some truly shitty human beings off the streets.

    While I am sure there are SOME agencies who benefit from traffic enforcement, I am also sure that they are not in the VAST majority, particularly in today's political environment. In my experience, traffic enforcement is rarely about revenue generation, and more about "showing the flag" and detecting/reducing crimes in specific areas.

    pat
    Last edited by UNM1136; 07-17-2020 at 04:07 PM.

  3. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by paherne View Post
    Since this is occurring in CA, I will answer. I do not know how policing is done in the rest of the country, but about the SF Bay Area I might even be an SME since I've been doing this since the early 1990s. I do not know a local agency that does not use video of some sort, either dash cam, BWC, or both. All of your ideas about traffic enforcement read like Penthouse Letters. CA has collected data on every reported collision and every injury collision for DECADES. Your statement about 10 over not hurting anyone is factually incorrect. You're just plain wrong. See CHP and the Office of Traffic Safety's data complied through the Statewide Integrated Traffic Reporting System (SWITRS). Primary Collision Factors are responsible for a ridiculous percentage of collisions and excessive speed for conditions is something more than 50% of the PCF in collisions.

    Further, in 2015, CA made law a new reporting and tracking system to combat racial profiling because all of the previous data collected in the present showed police do not racially profile in CA. Obviously, we are really good at hiding our racism, so they needed to ferret out the closet racism we are doing, ergo the Racial Identity and Profile Act (RIPA). The act has staged implementation that started with the 8-9 departments with over 1000 officers in the state. This year it will work it's way down to agencies like mine with less than 100 officers. After collecting data for the last 2-3 years on millions of stops, it turns out that CA police are so evil and vile that we have been able to hide our racism, once again, from our dutiful news media and Democrat legislators. EVERY traffic stop and detention that occurs will require collection of data to determine what race the officer perceived the subject of the stop before the stop to be, the reason (PC/RS) for the stop, the number and identifiers of every officer at the stop, whether a search was conducted, results of search, whether a citation or warnings were issued, etc. etc, etc, etc. The format on my CAD screen for entering this, along with a short narrative I must write ON EVERY CONTACT, is four screens/pages worth of data.

    So no, I will not be pulling over some chick I think is cute because WE FIRE PEOPLE that do that and if they use the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to run out their home address, etc. to meet up with them, we PROSECUTE them. There is NO pressure to generate stats. Most agencies count a foot patrol the same as a traffic stop for self initiated activity. Fishing for warrants/parolees is what I use traffic stops for. That's how I catch burglars and keep dirtbags from breaking in to your work truck and stealing your tools you use to feed your family. I am good at it. I am good at criminal profiling. Tough shit if you don't like it. It's my job to hunt criminals that prey on innocent taxpayers. Note: criminal human denotes actions, not any race, color or national origin. I have a rainbow of dirtbags that circulate through my city that rob, steal and thieve. I'm looking at their behavior and actions, not their race, see RIPA data for confirmation.

    So, this is what actually happens. I am sitting in my Watch Commander Office and a resident calls to complain that people are speeding in front of their house, or that motorists chop the stop sign at XYZ intersection and, "If you don't do anything, somebody is going to get killed and I am going to sue the City!" I calm the citizen down, and then the next morning at Briefing, I tell the beat officer about the problem, or the motor officer if one is available, and ask them to work that stop sign or street for PCF violations. I might have the CSO move our radar trailer, which doesn't have photo radar because it's illegal in CA, to the problem area for a few days. A good third of the time, the person who complained gets stopped for speeding or failing to stop at a stop sign. A few days go by and another resident calls about another "Hotspot" where, "People are going to die and it's going to be YOUR fault!" Wash, rinse, repeat.

    The other scenario is that I am on my way to go get a cup of coffee or lunch, stopped at a stop sign or light patiently waiting my turn when some Adam Henry will blow the intersection at 20+ or narrowly miss a pedestrian and everyone with view will look at me and point. And, then I know my lunch is going to get cold, I will flick on the disco parade and initiate a traffic stop. The moron I stop will give a stupid excuse. I will be angry because I have no coffee, nor delicious food, and I probably left my citation computer at the station.

    The final, and most common reason for me and my shift to do traffic, is that we get BOLO flyers of suspect vehicles in commercial, residential and car burglaries, plus robberies. If I see a silver Altima with two subjects on board out of Stockton cruising in my city, you're damn well right I will look for a Vehicle Code violation so that I can initiate a traffic stop to see who is who in the zoo. Whren v. United States is a thing. If they are just honest citizens making their way through the city, they get a verbal warning to fix a tail-light or use their indicator the next time they make a turn. If they are on probation and parole and give two different stories why they are 100 miles from home, yeah, there will be some investigatoring going on.

    You should write scripts for Hollywood. You have no attachment to reality and your ideas are inventive.
    Quoted because I couldn't like it again...

    pat

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