removed

I ran over a license plate today. True story.

Twist3d

That's very interesting.

removed

Yes, breathtaking, isn't it?

inthestars

Weird!

Neil

Is your sister's area like California where unless you are stupid the only time you are lilely to pick up a minor offence ticket is the last few days of the month or the first couple when the quota's are looked at?

FyreFox

sigh.... such myths. No quota's, atleast not here in FL. Although it would look kind of odd if she didn't have any tickets...it would also look odd if they were all in the same week and then none later that month.

If she's in traffic waiting she'll run tags. I can't believe how many people actually steal license plates, lol.

fury

I don't know how it is in other states, but in Minnesota, it is illegal to assign any sort of quota to sworn officers. Surely there are suggestions, but they cannot be assigned a quota. For example, the traffic unit in Minneapolis is required to make contact with 10 people, and most officers ticket everyone they contact, but they cannot have a set quota.

Parking enforcement staff (meter maids) are not sworn officers (in Saint Paul at least), they're just citizens that are paid enforce meters and parking laws, so they can have quotas assigned to them.

removed

Same in Texas.

FredFredrickson

In my state (NH), it's pretty much a police state. You can expect to have an encounter with the police every other week, whether or not you've done something wrong.

I've been pulled over 6 times in the last 5 years, but not once for breaking a law. It's their way of keeping the people in fear, and, heck, it works! I don't speed cause I know I get pulled over anyway.

The last time I got pulled over it was for suspicious driving. No, seriously. I got lost, and ended up making a full loop. A cop was following me, pulled me over and questioned me. I explained that I had gotten lost, but the cop didn't believe me. You know- guilty until proven innocent? I'm not sure what crime I could've been committing, but he was sure I was doing it. Except I was let off- without even a warning- because I still haven't done anything illegal!

Last month neighbors called the police for a noise complaint, because some of my other neighbors had a band outside. Well the police came to the neighborhood, and the band stopped playing, but the cops weren't satisfied, and decided to harrass more people. They stopped in front of my house and just watched through the window- until a few of my friends noticed there were police outside. So of course we all started watching the cops, because, well, why were they watching us? Well that's suspicious behavior I suppose, so they got out of their car. I met them downstairs (I live in a 2 apt house, upstairs unit (mine) and downstairs unit (unoccupied). They insisted I was having a party (I had 3 friends over). They insisted on coming upstairs and taking a look around. Although they wouldn't have found anything illegal going on upstairs (I don't do drugs, and there weren't any dead bodies) I was insulted- it's my privacy they were looking to invade. So I told them I didn't see any reason for them to go upstairs. They insisted that there were illegal activities upstairs- and I insisted that if they truely believed that they could get a warrant.

They hated me for saying that, and spent the next half hour harrassing me in my driveway. Trying to .. trap me.. in some web of lies that they just KNEW I was telling. Except that there were no lies, and I was frankly getting very annoyed. I finally just asked them if I was under arrest or if I could go. They said that I wasn't under arrest but that they had more questions- and started running the plates of every car on the street near my house, asking me questions like- who's car is this? And pointing to random cars in the road. I didn't know who's cars they were- there are a lot of people in my neighborhood.

Finally they let me go and left.

But this is what I deal with on a regular basis. I have a ton of police stories- none of which involve me doing anything illegal, all of which involve the police harrassing me.

And it's not like I dress like a hoodlum- I have nice button-up work shirts that I wear almost every day. It's getting very annoying, and I wish I could do something about it- but it seems it's the police mentality in this state. What do you do? Call the police station and complain? Sue?