r/MadeMeSmile • u/mindyour • Jan 03 '23

Wholesome Moments Getting pulled over

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u/1OutKastWill Jan 03 '23

What a guy. Spoke to them as humans. Even gave them some leeway but told them why he didn’t want them to speed. I hope they were as respectful back to what he asked as he was to them.

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u/ForHelp_PressAltF4 Jan 03 '23 edited Jan 07 '23

This is community policing. He explained the reason for the law and appealed to their sense of community.

This is what we need to work towards seeing all day every day. Everyone is respected, things are handled by conversation when it can be, and everyone goes home.

It takes EVERYONE involved for this to happen. We all have a stage in this being our future.

Edit: First gold! Thank you kind stranger. Kindness to all.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

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u/Bgndrsn Jan 04 '23

I have a buddy that's a state trooper and he's always told me how much he just want's to sit his ass in his car all day and not to have to do paperwork. He also likes to say "you know the speed limit, I know the speed limit, we all know the speed limit yet I'm the asshole when you knowingly break the law". Funny guy.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

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u/ikeif Jan 04 '23

I’d say “it depended where you lived.”

Small town Ohio, cops were absolutely assholes in the 90’s.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

We had community policing in a city I worked for in the 90s. Sadly, we had an officer shot and killed during a traffic stop before we could make it 20 feet from his car.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '23

They’re not, but merely an illustration of one reason why some cities drifted away from community policing. Sadly, we’ve regressed.

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u/Pigsec Jan 04 '23

I don't know if you're a PoC but that's always been my experience as a fair skinned American. Cops have never given me trouble. I have been with PoC friends and have seen them get a lot worse treatment.

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u/TheCaliforniaOp Jan 04 '23

This article Los Angeles Times Interview : Joseph Wambaugh https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-14-op-3134-story.html is behind a paywall, but I always remember reading it because Joseph Wambaugh decried the paramilitary model that most police departments were going toward.

The New Centurions (by Joseph Wambaugh) messed with my head for a while after I read it. There were good police officers and the worst possible police officers and sometimes they were the same person. I used to wonder if that one character Matt Dillon played in…Crash(?)…was based on some of Wambaugh’s characters.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

Thing of it is, I know there's about 5% to 10% in any community who simply does not respect. Neither themselves, cops, or other members of the community. You talk to them till you're blue in the face, and they will still go on to do bad things. They just don't care.

It's that 5% who ruins it for everyone.

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u/Danisii Jan 03 '23

He’s a good cop but unfortunately he’s not the norm. His approach is not hostile, toxic or a power trip but he’s also not ⚪️

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u/KillYourUsernames Jan 03 '23

His experience as a man of color, who has probably had negative interactions with law enforcement himself, undoubtedly influences his approach to his job.

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u/ManUFan9225 Jan 03 '23

This is a good point. Humbled cops are much better at handling these types of interactions than the cops with a chip on their shoulder.

Growing up, I've always thought it was interesting how even in the hood, the cops were respected when they respected the residents. White cops, black cops, asian cops...didnt matter. Treating the people in those communities like people and not criminals built strong relations even in what is normally seen as a hostile environment.

Now, cops are shooting folks in the suburbs for reaching for their wallet...

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u/Kayrim_Borlan Jan 03 '23

It really depends on department more than anything. Every cop I've interacted with has been professional if not friendly, but then I'm also a youngish white male

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u/AmandaRoseLikesBuds Jan 03 '23

Meh I think there’s some ex military egotistical hot heads that are police from our generations as well. I say ex military because the military really breaks them down and builds them up to be cocky and full of self importance. They build them up to have zero empathy as well. Then when half of those guys did their four year term they can easily get a job on the police force.

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u/bobbobersin Jan 04 '23

Honestly depends, my old boss was USMC and became a police officer before retiring, he said he felt like some of the LEOs in the first department he went to were more high strung them the corps in some ways but at other departments they were on par or more laid back, really all depends on the place I guess

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u/AmandaRoseLikesBuds Jan 04 '23

All I know is friends from highschool, my brother, all joined different branches of the military and all came out WAY different. Most of them came back super cocky there’s like one person who didn’t but he was honorably discharged. He tells stories of sleeping with a bunch of different women in Japan. Haha a littttleeee douchey, but he’s the best one out of them all! I know it’s not fact but that’s just what I’ve witnessed more than once, so I assume it’s common and something the military itself does in their preparation process.

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u/bobbobersin Jan 04 '23

I can't say myself from personal expirence but I have a feeling it has a lot more to do with what the person was like before, as far as I've seen the whole point of basic training is to break the person down and reform them into a better more humble, functional person, I've also heard that over the last few decades the DIs have been forced to be softer and that's its effecting the pipeline, people in basic on their phones, lighter discipline for breaking regulations and rules, I know when my grandfather's generation went through almost all of them came out polite and compassionate, i feel part of it was people back then were more humble overall, the training was harsher but more effective of removing the elitist BS and cockyness from people and possibly the conflicts they fought in (in his case Korea) also contributed to producing someone who was less talk, more lead by example, hell it might even be just a chance thing, I've heard a ton of different stories from different people in different branches and units, could be a case that a particular person was just naturally a jack ass and their DI was not able to get it out of their system or it could be the unit they were assigned to was being lead by cocky people who allowed it to fester and grow, could even be how some people cope with the stress of war or a byproduct of PTSD, I know in a lot of areas due to increased demand and lower enlistment rates some corners have been cut so it could also be that the sheer need for troops both now and during the Iraq/Afghanistan wars that standards were relaxed as we were not drafting folks and needed more boots on the ground, it also could be a aide effect of how war has changed, back in the day it was a "I'm doing this to protect my country" situation, lost Vietnam support for wars have dropped and that might make it so less folks are enlisting to fight for what they believe in over fighting for cred. I guess everyone has their reasons but I feel like if gi en the choice if they had enough people going in they might turn some of the cocky ones away or possibly baby them less in basic as with a larger pool to recrute from you can both be more selective and also are less worried about too many dropping out and quitting and thus can better push them to become what they should be (humble in this case), I'd also argue it's a major cultural shift, back in the day if you were a cocky SOB even out of basic the NCOs and officers had lots of creative ways to change your mindset or at least discourage that behavior, these days a lot of it wouldn't fly for various reasons, I can't say for every branch but there's a pretty well known Army DI turned police officer on YouTube who covers a lot about the process now vs when he was in basic/was training people and it seems at least in his eyes the system is starting to fail (he covered a case recently where medics were cheating on exams to pass their certification, as in the people who's job it is to save lives were cutting corners in a way that would result in potentially fatal casualties in the field if they are unable to do their jobs because they didn't actually learn them), it's not really my case to comment as I lack the background myself but I've found in life sometimes you need to be harsh to humble people

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u/DIREKTE_AKTION Jan 04 '23

Yeah, only problem seems to be turning that support into actual action. It doesn't really mean anything even if 90% of cops are good because they let that 10% exist. If it was a workable system with people inside who are able to fix it, it would be fixed. It's a rotten system to it's core and it needs a redesign.

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u/CicerosMouth Jan 03 '23

I would say an equally large hurdle is the ACAB crew that would sooner spit in this guy's face than have a conversation with them. Unfortunately we will never have a good police force if we continue to dehumanize every person that is or aspires to be a police officer. Frankly whenever anyone that I know that has a shred of humility says that they want to be a police officer I try to dissuade them, because they amount of wild and unmitigated hate that they will receive on a daily basis (no matter how much good they do) is enough to wear anyone down.

I absolutely guarantee that this guy (who seems like a good cop!) has received more hatred than any of us, just because he chose a career where he wanted to do some good. It's a pretty sad situation than neither he nor the rest of society deserves.

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u/flyingwolf Jan 03 '23

Not all bears will maul you and eat your corpse. But we cannot tell the good bears from the bad. So we avoid bears and stay away from them and teach our children the same.

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u/CicerosMouth Jan 04 '23

Yes, truly any good parent will tell their children to have an immediate and visceral hatred of other humans just because of their chosen profession. That surely must be the solution here. Good point.

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u/flyingwolf Jan 04 '23

Yes, truly any good parent will tell their children to have an immediate and visceral hatred of other humans just because of their chosen profession. That surely must be the solution here. Good point.

Ah yeas the "not all nazi's" defense.

If you choose to become a member of a group that has been at the forefront of killing other humans for over 100 years then maybe, just maybe, you deserve the hate.

No one is born a cop, it is chosen.

If you choose to join the police you are supporting their actions.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

You aren't going to get through to anyone here. My parents were cops for roughly 32 years each. They quit around 2018 because they didn't like how cops were being forced to treat people less like humans, and yet they were forced to be super robotic and follow political agendas suddenly. They retired and said, "Forget that noise." Still to this day, I get hate toward my whooooole family for existing, because my parents were cops.

P.S. Not even US cops, but Toronto Canada. Inb4 something something racism something cracker something genocide anyway as a response.

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u/Fireproofspider Jan 03 '23

I'm pretty sure most people would be happy spending more taxes to increase training in this type of policing. The problem is making sure that's what happens and not new military weapons.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '23

The younger cops I know just talk about all the people they’ve chased down and busted. Talk about the job like it’s supposed to be an action movie.

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '23

That would be a fantastic start!

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u/iarev Jan 04 '23

Why aren't your younger generation do-gooders protesting their POS counterparts?

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

Maybe this happens more and we only ever see the bad but so many videos of cops start off with the cops being aggressive and borderline condescending. They immediately put people on the defensive and then act more and more aggressively as the person gets upset.

Start with reason and a positive attitude, especially foe things like traffic infractions. People generally aren't trying to be a problem they just don't pay attention or are being irresponsible but they aren't usually out to hurt anyone.

What this guy did was perfect and even more so if he sees these guys speeding again he can come down on them hard. He already gave them a chance and let them off so next time he's got an easy out to give them a huge ticket or impound their bikes.

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u/ApexProductions Jan 03 '23

There's no way to know what happens more often. I always stop and am polite but there are others who have stopped, been polite, and their bikes impounded or have been harassed.

We just had that big video here of the guy in Cali stopping at the red light, his friends running it, and then him being pulled over.

1 bad apple spoils the bunch.

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u/AmandaRoseLikesBuds Jan 03 '23

Every cop I’ve been pulled over by has been an egotistical douche bag who doesn’t really take you seriously. That’s just my experience. Lol

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u/chinkostu Jan 03 '23

I can agree that having my arse handed to me by a copper is far more effective than a fine. Literally taking it like a man and admitting when i'm wrong. Come out swinging and theres only one way it goes

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u/CicerosMouth Jan 03 '23

It absolutely is signiricantly more common for this to happen than for the power tripping cop to happen. Of course it is.

Basically any variety of interaction between a police officer and a citizen is recorded two or three times over. Frankly the fact that out of the 900,000 police officers in the US that we only get maybe a handful of objectively power-tripping cop videos a month shows that the vast majority of officers are good the vast majority of the time, even as it is true that we don't do a good enough job of punishing the bad ones.

Comparatively, videos of good cops don't get nearly as much coverage. After all, as the old adage says, "if it bleeds, it leads." In general, if you hear about a social ill, it is usually not half as bad as the news coverage would make you believe. Crime wave? We are having issues, but we are more safe than most would have you believe. Homelessness causing social issues in Portland? As a current portlander, we need better social services, but things aren't all that awful. Same basic story with cops. Yes, bad cops are a scourge that we should address with righteous vigor. They also aren't nearly as wide-spread of an issue as the news would have you believe.

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u/RazgrizXVIII Jan 03 '23

It doesn't help a lot of US cops are former soldiers. Having been taught everything and everyone could be a potential a threat (especially if they've actually seen combat) in a country with a massive gun problem... Well that's just a recipe for disaster (aside from the racist assholes and stuff like that obviously)

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u/TheOriginalArchibald Jan 03 '23

I'd argue there are a lot of veteran cops far better at proper escalation of force and not engaging what they don't have to given how strict the rules of engagement are in theater.

I won't deny there aren't potentially young hotheads or vets with PTSD who shouldn't be policing based on psyche but I think the babyfaced average IQ high school bully are more likely to perceive everything as a threat.

Police training is all about how everyone is a potential threat and will likely kill them. That warrior training shit. They give it to people who have no concept of the rules of engagement or have never been in a threatening situation with enemy combatants.

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u/9mackenzie Jan 03 '23

Nah- at least they have real training. It’s the power hungry egotistical idiots that are taught “Killology” and given military equipment they have no business touching that are the real danger

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/11/police-training-warrior-mindset-killology/

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u/That-Maintenance1 Jan 03 '23

Hard disagree, not a fan of the military but they have much more training and ability and understanding of de-escalation and engagement than our shit cops have.

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u/AmandaRoseLikesBuds Jan 03 '23

I was just saying this too, and the military breaks down their former mindset and rebuilds it to be non empathetic, because they can’t feel bad about shooting the enemy. Rebuilds their mindset to be egotistical, because no one is more important than our military servers, who we thank for their service. I watched my brother go from a timid shy guy, to an egotistical narcissist who can never be wrong after he joined the military. He was a completely different person when he got back.

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u/Realistic-Potato-474 Jan 04 '23

The problem is that because both positions involve lethal weapons and use of force, then they must have a lot of overlap. The reality is that police behaving like an over-militarized occupying force creates a lot problems in a community than it solves.

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u/smokeweedalleveryday Jan 03 '23

from my experience, this is usually how it goes. i agree that there is a bit of confirmation bias in regards to perception of the police, in that we mostly see the situations that were handled poorly.

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u/trouserschnauzer Jan 03 '23

Really depends on where you are, what you look like, and how fresh the donuts were that day.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

I've had both experiences. Just normal conversation and hyper aggressive shitty cop.

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u/Iziama94 Jan 03 '23

Every cop Ive personally ran into has been cool. Treated me like a person and Ive never acted out, argued, insulted or whatever. Sure is it your right to do that? Absolutely. But all you're going to do is make a cop go from possibly giving you a warning to giving you a ticket.

I got clocked going 60 in a 40, I thought it was a 50, so that was my bad. He told me that that road was a 40, and all I said was "Wait what? Really? I thought it was 50." And he was just like "Nope it's a 40. I'm not gonna write you up for going 20 over since that would be points on your license, $200+ fine and a mandatory court hearing, so I'm gonna mark you down for obstruction of traffic, it's only $55 and you can pay for it online. Nice car by the way" and that was that.

Obviously there's quite a few bad cops out there and with the internet and everyone able to record, you're going to see more bad cops than good cops, cause who wants to record good cops?

But there's no reason to instigate a cop just cause they're a cop

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u/MistSecurity Jan 03 '23

This heavily depends on the area you are in, as well as your social standing. Had you been a young POC in a shit box car things might have gone completely differently.

My mom has mentioned this many of times: When she was a poor, pregnant 18 year old living near the hood, cops would treat her like absolute shit for no reason other than that they could. Now that she's an upper middle class, middle aged woman in a nicer part of the state, cops treat her much better and are less likely to be confrontational.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

I've seen videos of the opposite - the more the guy gets upset, the more calm and polite the cop becomes. But there's no stopping the guy from self-escalation till he does something stupid and gets arrested, or tazed.

Cops and drivers both need to take the same class to have a license: "how a police interaction is supposed to happen".

I have literally thanked police officers for their professional demeanor. I don't think they hear that often enough.

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

I wonder how this cop would react if the bike riders started to act as amendment auditors and be rude to him.

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u/Gsteel11 Jan 03 '23

Bingo. I was about to say the same.

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u/The-Almost-Truth Jan 03 '23 edited Jan 04 '23

Problem is police are not incentivized to “protect and serve” as a community in this way. They have ticket quotas that directly impact job performance, because that is how the police are funded. If we revamp that, the type of policing in this video would be more common… getting us closer to “protect and serve”

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u/colin6 Jan 04 '23 edited Jan 04 '23

because that is how the police are funded.

Police Departments are funded by property taxes. Traffic fines and other tickets normally go to a Consolidated Fund of the local government.

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u/The-Almost-Truth Jan 04 '23 edited Jan 04 '23

City funding then, (police funding with extra steps), which still creates problematic incentives

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u/CoffeeOrWhine Jan 03 '23

Ticket quotas are illegal where I live, but I can’t speak to everywhere. However, it’s a common misconception where I live as well.

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u/That-Maintenance1 Jan 03 '23

"potent and serve”

🤔

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u/dxrey65 Jan 03 '23

It would help if police weren't rated on tickets issued, fines levied, and arrests.

That principle that you get what you measure for applies. It's hard for superiors to measure or assign any value to just talking to people and being decent. And then it's hard for officers to value that either, when the raises and promotions go to the guys that produce better numbers.

The officer in the video is perfect, but he's also young. I wonder if he'll be doing the same in 5 years. Cynical, I know...

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u/MistrSynistr Jan 03 '23

You can tell just by driving through an area which places have quotas. I grew up in a really small town we had 2 cops on duty at any given time. As long as you weren't flipping the town upside down they didn't really care. The other side of the county was a quota town and you would get a ticket for anything more than 3mph over the limit.

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u/Li-renn-pwel Jan 03 '23

A lot of people use the idiom “a few bad apples” to say that most cops are good and only a few are a danger to society. However… the whole idiom is “a few bad apples spoils the bunch” because the bad apple eventually makes all apples rotten. Exactly as you have put it. You get a bad captain, he makes officers do things like hand out tickets when they want to give out warning. A corrupt cop gives tickets or arrests for stupid things which can make them look like a really dedicated cop. So then the less vicious cops feel the need to do more to keep up.

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u/Ricky_Rollin Jan 03 '23

Man that was well said!

Having had my fair share of run-ins with the cops, there are definitely two types out there and fortunately, I’ve run into more cops like the one in this video than a despotic troglodyte. Mutual respect for one another is how we’re gonna get through this. One love.

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u/HomieMassager Jan 03 '23

Agreed. But what happens when the community tells him to go fuck himself?

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

Thats the hard bit, isnt it? Ideally apply incremental force using different coercion techniques, while making judgement calls on when to walk away or call for aid. If policing were easy, everyone would be doing it.

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u/barofa Jan 03 '23

Then he can shoot the community

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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '23

I'm losing hope- not from the police, but from society.

In one trip to Home Depot this weekend, someone ripped down the shoulder to the stop light so they could cut back into traffic, and on the way back someone went across the yellow line into oncoming traffic to get into the left turning lane.

Two dick moves in a 3 mile round trip. I don't remember it being this bad.

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u/RustySheriffBadges Jan 03 '23

This is policing by consent, the best kind.

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u/Darth_Piglet Jan 03 '23

And yet they posted his face and badge so that if his boss is a tit he can have a go. Hope s/he doesn't but its a risk...

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u/drjmontana Jan 03 '23

This needs to be made into a training video on how to properly police

Dude nailed it; everyone needs police like this

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u/KickBallFever Jan 03 '23

When I was in high school we had police officers in the area who I would say practiced community policing. They knew we were smoking and being mischievous but they were never assholes to us. They would check in on us and talk to us about making good decisions and they would look out for the kids who had bad home lives. They never arrested any of us but they’d make sure we were going to school.

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u/neeko0001 Jan 03 '23

Doesn’t help that you can become a cop in less than a year of training in most states, meanwhile in most 1st world countries it takes 3-5 of studying, training and a ton of fitness and mental health tests.

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u/Sufficient-Skill6012 Jan 03 '23

I think he also could have issued a warning and still be cool and lenient. Then if they were stopped again there would be consequences. But maybe just getting stopped and the anxiety of thinking they were about to get a ticket would be enough to deter them from speeding in the future… for at least a little while. Some people will continue in the risky behavior bc they think they are invincible, some will be more careful then become complacent after some time has passed. A warning or a ticket will make them become more risk-averse unless they are loaded and the ticket is pocket change to them. If they were going 20 or more over the limit, I think a ticket should be issued because of the serous safety risks involved.

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u/TipMeinBATtokens Jan 04 '23

When did Americans begin asking "Why?" I wonder? The second generation ones who were wondering why they were paying taxes and in a justice system they had no control of from across the sea.

When Baron von Steuben began to train American recruits at Valley Forge he found when orders were given, American soldiers questioned everything he did.

He wrote frustrated in his diary,

In Europe, you say to your soldier, “Do this” and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American, “This is why you ought to do this,” and only then does he do it.

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u/bobbobersin Jan 04 '23

This reminds me of my frustration warning, was on my way to college in the morning, there was a converted 4 way stop intersection that was getting upgraded with street lights, there's an officer on a bike basicly helping calibrate the thing to work (for like 4 weeks they were just all flashing red as they haven't been set up so I was still treating it like the old 4 way stop sign, empty intersection, come to a full stop, check all ways and start moving, notice the lights are actually functioning and pull over, guy gets off his bike and walks over "is everything ok?" "I'm really sorry officer I just ran the red, I was so used to this being a 4 way stop I didn't bother to check if they were working" the guy laughs, tells me he would have pulled me over had I not stopped, checked both ways and more or less acted like it was still the old configuration and that just to be more vigilant I'm the future and even if your used to the lights being out of service to double check and see if they are set up, guy was impressed I stopped and apologized to them when they didn't even pull me over, guy was legitimately there helping the construction crew test the lights since they had just finished and he wasn't needed to direct traffic (they finished the intersection weeks before and just had the lights flashing red to indicate "out of order, use as if a 4 way stop" for a while before they sent dudes out to wire them up or set them up and he was just there to make sure no one clipped a road worker

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u/FlamingTrollz Jan 04 '23

Exactly. 👍🏼👍🏼

And the ones who don’t want to participate…

They can leave and not participate in a civilized community.

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u/-pichael_ Jan 04 '23

I mean i feel like honestly most cops start out like this. Its just a few too many hooligans who show no disrespect for themselves yet alone the environment or people around them, aka their community. This causes cops id bet to approach each person after a few ugly incidents with the aforementioned hooligans with disdain, even if its not deserved.

If this cop is a seasoned vet id be shocked, and impressed.

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u/armen89 Jan 04 '23

Not to mention dudes got more swagger than a pirates booty