Police Chief

[dan_sayers]

I appreciate the input. It's not that I don't follow the logic. It's not that I don't agree with it. It's that I think when a vehicle rolls by loaded, then again in the other direction unloaded, repeata, it's pretty what IS going on.

[SMMAssociates]

I appreciate the input. It's not that I don't follow the logic. It's not that I don't agree with it. It's that I think when a vehicle rolls by loaded, then again in the other direction unloaded, repeata, it's pretty what IS going on.

Dan:

It's probably reasonably clear as to what's going on.

The problem for LE is who's doing it. Particularly in an area where the Officer probably would know the folks who might be doing it "legally".

You really don't want to have to explain to El Hefe that "yeah, I saw that truck; looked OK" when his brother-in-law's living room furniture comes up missing.

This almost happened when I was an apartment-dweller just before getting married. The PD got called to discuss an apartment that had been cleaned out (across the complex from me). A neighbor had seen the truck, and thought it belonged to somebody who lived there.... (I was at work elsewhere at the time.)

Turned out that it was a domestic situation and the ex had decided to empty the formerly shared apartment. Enough information was put together to locate the goods and settle the issue (I forget if criminal charges were ever filed), but the neighbor ended up feeling a little silly.

We don't really depend on the neighbor to call the PD in situations like this, nor are there any real penalties unless the neighbor has guilty knowledge or helps out, but if an LEO sees this and doesn't "notice", he may have problems.

(In those days catching a couple of kids with an open beer bottle or some such usually resulted in the bottle being spilled on the grass, and whatever other beer in the vehicle going in the trunk of the black & white if the Officer didn't think the kids could be trusted to find a safe place. Today the beer and the kids go in the black & white most of the time. The risks of getting sued if something happens later on are too great to ignore.)

There's a level of escalation here. First off, the LEO probably would try to note the plate, and a description of the car. If possible, he'd try to come up with a description of the driver and others in the vehicle.

Getting a bit more "interested", he'd quite likely "run" that plate if possible, to give a sort of permanent record to the situation. (In my day, you'd wait until you actually stopped the guy - no MDT's, and the computer was at OSP's Warren barracks.) If nothing shows up, fine....

Then we actually get to the stop. On a friendly basis if the MDT check turns up clean. Who are you, what are you doing here, etc. (This is called a "Field Interrogation", and usually ends up with a paper trail.) The Officer's intuition and the right answers generally dictate what happens next - from "have a nice night" to "assume the position"....

The real problem is that some criminals sometimes are kinda blatant. Although you look at something and think: "nobody in their right mind would do that in public", sometimes hiding in plain sight actually works. Nobody notices the Cable TV truck.... So you gotta ask....

(Years ago - I think it was Playboy - I saw a cartoon. Two Officers going past a truck, with their eyes bugged out. One said to the other something like "it had to happen sometime". The truck was rather clearly labeled "Acapulco Gold"....)

Closer to home, and to reality, I once owned a strange little 9mm carbine. Looked like a Thompson, but the magazine was through the rear grip, and stuck out the bottom way too far. Very short barrel (but quite legal) with a conical flash hider. The dealer had a second one on the wall at his store. EVERY time ATF turned up for a visit the agents would insist on taking that gun off the wall and measuring it for legality and other issues. They just had to be sure that a supervisor didn't come in behind them and ask....

(I owned that with a buddy. Every time we tried to clean it, we lost springs & such. Eventually sold it back to the dealer, who got rid of it and the other one. It was kind of fun to shoot....)

Regards,

[mdad]

WOW!!! Talk about blowing a simple post off track