repost: Why cops and motorcycle riders dont get along

from hellforleather.com (great blog if you havent discovered it)
This is why cops and bikers don't get along - Hell For Leather
was going to post in the quid thread, but something we all need to be aware of

 

Wow. I think that the article sums it up nicely in terms of the rider and cop. However, I'm not sure a public officer on a public interstate would or should, expect certain rights to privacy that any offender on a police camera wouldn't be afforded. I also believe that if tickets were being issued that afternoon than the cop should have received a couple of charges himself. Namely road rage and unlawfull use of a firearm. Obviously raiding the offenders home is suspect as well. No doubt that the guy was riding like an idiot, but excessive force, illegal wiretapping, and a raid on his home and family? If wheelies and speeding give sportbikers a bad name and reputation, than what kind of name and reputation should we generally associate with our local police departments after the type of behavior this clown just displayed. Not to mention the subsequent raid of the offenders residence. If that were me, a lawsuit would have been filed yesterday. Feel however you like about the ACLU, but here's to thinking that those boys would have a field day with this one.

 

And cops wonder why public hate them.

Part of the article that is really scary is "This could have so easily ended in the biker being shot or sentenced to death, because he tried to escape/fight what appeared, rightfully so, to be a gun wielding maniac with road rage. Not to justify the biker's driving, but an unmarked police car and a plain clothes officer looks no different than a thug with a gun!"

Could have happened to anyone. Ok, yeah maybe wheelies on highways are not part of the daily riding diet, but high speeds (F YES!!). Don't give the holier than thou BS either. What if the guy did not do wheelies, but was just riding fast? Would the plain clothes cop still pull a gun on him? What if anyone of us were in that position?

 

He was NOT going that fast, the officer is a ass H*le like many are; NO need to pull a gun!!!. I hate those kind of cops! JIM

 

"It's guys like Graber that we have to blame for police aggressively targeting motorcyclists instead of, say, hippies or foreigners."

In all seriousness the Trooper in this situation was way over the top. If it was a feloney stop on a dangerour suspect, sure, But a SQUID on a bike...? Please, Dude, switch to decaf. Road rage and guns are bad. A Trooper should know this. (But for the most part these guys are meter maids or traffic Natzis anyway & need a couple weekss on patrol in the "hood" for some perspective of what Real Law Enforcent does day to day) In this case both guys were wrong as two guys f*cking in the bed of a pick-up truck. The "wire tap" charge, well thats the real deal there. Especially if this Trooper was a U.C. the guy who posted it may be looking at Federal Prision time. It's a weak ass charge, but I seen weaker ones stick. Maybe Marryland Troopers should just be like Oaklahoma and get the 'Busas and them come out and play. Till then, man please just get the plate, call in some marked units and let it go from there. We have a "NO PURSUIT" policy on sport bikes. Just get a description and plate if you can and back off. Otherwise poeple can get hurt or dead.

 

"Give a cop an excuse (any will work, but riding a motorcycle seems to be particularly effective) and he's going to beat you up/pull a gun on you/arrest you on trumped up charges. That's just a fact of life."

REALLY?!!? Not where I live.

I am not trying to stir the pot here, but this doesn't square with my experience. Sure, some people are jerks, so it stands to reason that some LEOs are jerks. But statements like this one are demonstrably false.

 

Well/ I was not going to enter into this Frey but here it goes.

Based only on what I saw in the video,(there was no sound) I did not see anything horribly wrong with the actions of the officer. In hind site, he should have had his badge on display but according to the printed material, he did verbally ID himself. If he was working an operation where he needed to leave his tin and ID at home then why would he be making a traffic stop? And if he was working such an operation, he would have a handler close by at all times. So he is somewhat wrong here. He drew his weapon. This is not uncommon down there in the US. He had it at the ready. He did not point it at the rider. And he holstered it soon as back up arrived and he did a second threat assessment. And obvious to me, the rider had some sort of idea police were behind him. He turned around and looked right at him. Then he started checking his speed and all. Shows up in the bobbing of his helmet cam.

Now all that is reported to have taken place after with the warrants and the such, sounds bad to be sure. I don't know what police don't like to be photographed or videoed. I really cared less when I was still a LEO. As a matter of fact, I encourage all my subordinates to work as if they are being recorded. Tends to keep you on the up and up.

Here in Canada you need one party consent to be electronically sound recorded. Even wiretapping in your private residence is illegal if there is not someone present that consents to being recorded. Says nothing about video. So in this particular case, if it were to happen here, the recording would be legal. I have to assume that the rider wearing the camera was aware of the recording therefore this would be implied consent on his part. The officer is in the public domain and therefore I don't believe should enjoy the expectation of privacy spoken of here.

We are not quick here to draw weapons on a routine traffic stop up here in Canada. It is more frequently done down in the US. But was this routine? By no stretch of the imagination is the full story available to us here.

This is one cop. There are hundreds of thousands in North America. We have bad cops. What about the hundreds of thousands who do things every day that go unnoticed by everyone except the person they are specifically dealing with?

My jury on this one, based solely on what I "saw" in the video is still out. Would I have handled it this way. Probably not, but I am arm chair quarterbacking right now

 

Wow, this was bad form on both parties. Sad, so sad.

KC-10 FE out...
lane: :usa2:

 

This is in my neck o da woods, I'll have to be on the look out for Officer Uhler, and his big bad county issue side arm. I'll tell ya right now, I've been cut off by dumbass' in traffic like that before, I go around them and leave the situation as soon as possible so they don't have a chance to wreck me, my bike, or my day anymore. This being said, I probably would have gotten shot by Capitan Trigger Happy here. Now, as there was no sound and I can't read lips so well through a bobbling fisheye helmet cam, I have no idea what the LEO said when he jumped outta his car, but it SHOULD have been "POLICE, shut off the motorcycle NOW!" Which would have made much more sense than hey look at my gun I'm gonna grab your windscreen now cause that's gonna help somehow. He passed the unmarked first I'm betting, cause I saw the Trooper in the median right before he exited. The marked STATE TROOPER car should have been the one to make the pull over with lights flashing and so on to avoid confusion. Furthermore, whenever I'M pulled over, I'm being recorded. I'm SURE the marked car had a camera rolling inside the windshield. They harrassed the hell outta this poor feller for a little haul ass and a wheelie or two, absolute bullshit.

No, I'm not at all condoning what Graber did as legal or completely safe, and I'm definately not saying I couldn't be accused of the same, but Officer Uhler was lookin for a fight that day.

 

I'm from around there and commute on 695 and 95 sometimes. It sucks to sit in traffic, as the VFR is toasting my ankles, knowing that I could easily ride between the cars or escape on the shoulder, provided the cars didn’t make any erratic movements. After sitting in traffic long enough, all I can think about is opening up the bike and letting it breath.

I live close to 29, one exit up from a service road where cops are always waiting for someone who is speeding. I see them lurching forward at the sight of motorcycles, to them we must be that big fish they can’t never seem to catch. After the service road, 29N opens up, and during those warm summer nights I can hear all the riders open the throttle and take it past 10k rpm from my window. Those sound barrier walls don’t do anything to keep out the sound of bikes. I bet Uhler was fed up with all the motorcycles that drive recklessly and slip by.

 

Let's see.. Dude does 140 and wheelies on Interstate, gets busted, then whines. There's a twit for ya'll.

http://www.fanboy.com/archive-images/giant-squid-doll.jpg

 

I cannot side with the cop AT ALL. Yes there are good cops and bad cops and this one is bad.

It's the gun.

 

I'm surprised he hasn't pulled the vids yet.
Here's the end of the vid with sound, the rider posted both on youtube.

YouTube - Motorcycle traffic violation - Cop pulls out gun

He didn't identify himself until 6 seconds after getting out of the car and his weapon was holstered as soon as the rider shut off the bike by 11 or 12 seconds in.

 

A squid to be sure, but despite our seemingly worldwide reputations as trigger happy Americans, it is not common or acceptable to have a gun drawn during a routine traffic violation. Especially from a plain clothed officer. Some Americans are actually a little paranoid and so will carry a permit and a firearm with them at all times. What if that cop had pulled one of those types over and that guy easily mistakes the situation for an armed road rager? Someone is going to die over a wheelie, because the cop also happens to be one of those types? Best not to have an aggressive dick like him running around with a badge, no matter what the rider was doing. Case in point: the detective was was so outraged that the video and proof of his outraged irrationality was made public, that he had the squids house raided and followed that up with felony wiretapping charges. Seems to me that excessive/obsessive outlashing is nothing new for this ass.

 

I have completely changed my mind on this one. If the dude hadn't punked out at a chickenshit 140 and done a stoppie too, the cop would have known he was dealing with a really experienced dude and not just some psycho on an Interstate. The cop is probably a fag. As a matter of fact, IMO all cops are fags who are placed on Earth to take away our God given rights to do shit on any fucking Interstate we want to.

Amen

 

That is correct. Todays gold star has your name on it!

 

cop was in the wrong! i cant say what i would HAVE done because it wasnt me but someone comes out of there car with a GUN and grabbs my bike drop the clutch and let that mother fucker hang on for the ride!

 

I’m about tired of the constant cop bashing on this site. All you do with your small minded thinking is perpetuate the stereotype of sport bike riders.

You like to take the actions of .1% of the cops out there and make us all out to be the same.

So based on that, I guess you’re all spoiled mama’s boys racing around recklessly with your half naked girlfriend on the back while smoking pot, and I know this because you ride a bike.

But we know that’s not true, don’t we?

Any idea how many threads I see on the cop sites I visit about bikers and picking on sport bike riders? None…. Sorry, you’re not really that important.

I haven’t even watched the video, it wouldn’t matter if I did. Even if that cop was wrong, he’s not me nor 99% of the other cops out there.

So all I have to say is grow up.

 

OK ,,,I just call it the way I see it. No Bias just what I think. I say that behavior is indefesible; period.

 

The rider was the idiot here who brought it all on himself. If it wasn't for his jackazz style of riding he never would have met that cop and none of this would have happened. Not defending the cop here, just stating it as it is. That idiot of a rider is the reason why the public has no respect for sportbike riders and in turn spend less time and energy trying to keep them and us safe. Get over the cop and think about the real issue here. Were the ones who are going to suffer here, not because were gonna be looking at a gun but because there are jackazz's all over the place ruining our credibility and respect that we deserve. Just drives me nuts that people can't see that and go off on tangents that mean nothing. Also keep in mind that if it wasn't for the 50 jackazz's before this jackazz that cop probably would have been a calm little puddy tat.

:gun3: :vtr2: = :crutch: