law enforcement officers who run into posers on a daily basis

[wbk9]

i am currently employed by a sheriffs department and was wondering who else might run into posers from all branches just about everyday. i will venture to say that 1 out of 10 arrest made the individual claims to have served and say they should not be treated like a criminal. the classic line i served my country and this is what i get. most you can immediately smell the bull!!!! and i have to restrain myself from knocking their head off their shoulder especially when they claim they were Marines. Good thing the Corps taught me self discipline or i would probably have lost my job at least 20 times. i usually catch them in a lie and tell them to enjoy their stay at the jail so they understand what the few that honorably do serve fight to defend. The rights of law abiding citizens to live on safe streets and not have to deal with their ignorance.:usmc:

[Cpl Heglar]

I fully understand your pain. I run into posers often and have to restrain myself from putting them in their place. If they want to live a lie who am I to tell them different? Next time you bust a poser just let them know that just because they supposedly served their country does not give them the right to break the law. Thanks for enforcing them.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

It has been a constant for me, and I've been in Law Enforcement since 1988. I've ran into posers ever since.

Good book to get: "Stolen Valor" by B. G. Burkett. Consider that a 'manual' for finding and exposing posers.

I've also helped prosecute and investigate some. If you have questions, drop me a PM, I can help.

[Chad Leddy]

How often do you actually give someone a break in a situation like a pull over or something and they actually are former Marines? Just wondering.

[michagnu]

I worked as a bartender for several years and you think law enforcement runs in to posers all the time .........

[michagnu]

I had three "black baggers" each one not more than two bar stools apart on New Years Eve at the turn of the millennium. Shhh! I was sworn to secrecy. There are days when I miss that side of bar though.

[michagnu]

At least none of them wanted to show me their Illuminati tatto.

[michagnu]

Read it from start to finish this afternoon. Agreed.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

How often do you actually give someone a break in a situation like a pull over or something and they actually are former Marines? Just wondering.

As often as I can. Depends on the violation, and the 'customers' attitude at the time of the stop, truth be told.

[wildwoman73]

Not a law enforcement officer, but on numerous ride-alongs I've seen it done a number of times, depending on how serious the violation was or was not.
Hahaha!! Lawyer...going as a ride out. I'm sorry Dave. That just struck my funny bone.

[wildwoman73]

Sadly enough, the only posers I've run into were ones hired and put on my shift for training in the jail division. Three total. Come in all tall and thick chested and talk big talk. I just listened and made sure thier training was priority. After a while when they had the job down...it was time to whoop the dog. Ask questions...watch em crater. There were several that talked of military careers...or service time spent. But the ones that bragged the least actually succeeded the most. The others were basically boot camp drop outs or "I was in the DEP program but my recruiter ****ed me off" kind of deal.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Typical...oh so typical....

[USNAviator]

Hi Taira. I guess I never mentioned it before. 175 ride alongs between 1992 and 2000, plus on in NYPD South BRonx

That South Bronx stuff must have been eye opening?

[Zulu 36]

I ran into a lot of posers and real military people. As Lep said, the real ones got treated according to how they behaved or the offense involved. The posers got no break at all. The Stolen Valor Act wasn't in existence then, but both of our judges had been in the military, so they had no mercy either.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Yup. The posers got locked up for whatever I could think of and most assuredly their lies were included in the statement of charges for all and sundry to see.

[SSgtRSD]

I must say that I have you all beat. I am a cop in Dallas, and roll two man everyday with another Marine on the deep nights shift. On three different occassions now we have found cars parked out on...

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww. <br />
<br />
Hopefully, he is appropriately charged. <br />
<br />
And informed...LOL. Used to LOVE to do that. Of course most of them know already...just pretending. <br />
<br />
Sick puppies...

[SSgtRSD]

Oh we always throw in there at the end "you know that was a dude right????" and we always hear back "we were just talkin....." Yeah I bet you were....

[CrockettJW]

I get a lot of second-hand information from people who are friends and friends of friends. If someone will try to put some BS past someone he knows is/was military, think of what they will tell your girlfriend/sister, etc.

I know everyone here has to have had those experiences where you're at a party or other gathering and someone who knows you are/were in the military will start off with a story about how their friend/relative was the coolest thing since sliced bread and when you correct them on the mistakes in their story, they think you're the one who is full of it.

I also like it when someone from a different branch tries to tell me something about the Marine Corps.

I had one Army captain at a veterans' function who was convinced that the Marine Corps has neither an officer's sword or an NCO sword.

[Mongoose]

Ive posted this before. This has to be a classic. I heard a group of men talking about Viet Nam one day. So I got close enough to hear everything. This one guy, about my age. Was telling these idiots he was a sgt. in Nam. He said he was a fighter pilot. Said that when they flew missions off the carrier. They had to fly under the radar. He said he flew so low over the China Sea. He would put the canopy back on his aircraft and hang his arm over the side and put his hand in the water.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Mongoose, I would have died laughing at that. Sounds like the guy was watching too many cartoons while he hid out in Canada....

[Meserole08orah]

honestly i had gotten off a plane after my deployment... driving my mom's car. I get a phone call about my grandma and she made a turn for the worst. so i went 60 in a 55.... this cop pulls me over she asked why i was speeding i told her the short version... she told me i was lying about being deployed, made fake orders, and made a fake ID. lol she gave me a hand full of tickets and called for back up. idk wtf goes on in the little town i use to live in but HOLY SH!T!! But I def was ****ed. so i called my command they talked to the police and all this other bull****... i got a "oh my bad here's your speeding ticket" lol. and this 2009 brand new mustang was speeding past us and the one cop said he was too lazy to go back to his car to get him. lol. boyyyy i was ****ed. Should have showed them my illuminati tattoo :)

[CrockettJW]

honestly i had gotten off a plane after my deployment... driving my mom's car. I get a phone call about my grandma and she made a turn for the worst. so i went 60 in a 55.... this cop pulls me over she asked why i was speeding i told her the short version... she told me i was lying about being deployed, made fake orders, and made a fake ID. lol she gave me a hand full of tickets and called for back up. idk wtf goes on in the little town i use to live in but HOLY SH!T!! But I def was ****ed. so i called my command they talked to the police and all this other bull****... i got a "oh my bad here's your speeding ticket" lol. and this 2009 brand new mustang was speeding past us and the one cop said he was too lazy to go back to his car to get him. lol. boyyyy i was ****ed. Should have showed them my illuminati tattoo :)

The only time I ever got that kind of treatment was in those speed trap towns in East Texas along I-59, but that had nothing to do with military service. Usually, I get good treatment from police.

[m14ed]

As often as I can. Depends on the violation, and the 'customers' attitude at the time of the stop, truth be told.



honestly i had gotten off a plane after my deployment... driving my mom's car. I get a phone call about my grandma and she made a turn for the worst. so i went 60 in a 55.... this cop pulls me over she asked why i was speeding i told her the short version... she told me i was lying about being deployed, made fake orders, and made a fake ID. lol she gave me a hand full of tickets and called for back up. idk wtf goes on in the little town i use to live in but HOLY SH!T!! But I def was ****ed. so i called my command they talked to the police and all this other bull****... i got a "oh my bad here's your speeding ticket" lol. and this 2009 brand new mustang was speeding past us and the one cop said he was too lazy to go back to his car to get him. lol. boyyyy i was ****ed. Should have showed them my illuminati tattoo :)

Most times , you stop someone to cite them, you're mind was made up already.
(it aint easy to snow a snowman)
rarely do you go any easier on them from my experience.
"Attitude" like lep said , does make "THE" difference.
"Citizen" comes off like a hard ass - just makes matters worse.

[Meserole08orah]

well it was a female so i think she was mad that i was skinny lol. i dont thin i was rude... more in a panic because of my grandma. by my god... 5 MILES??? she lied and said i was going 74... then claimed i was going 71. lol then said i was going to slow. that was while she was giving me a lecture on my speeding issues. lol she's just jealous ::::flips hair out of face ever so nicely:::: lmao

[Sgt Leprechaun]

She probably just wanted your number LOL.

MOST of the time, yeah, when I decided to stop someone, my mind was already made up.

Esp. if I was working an overtime assignment where I was specifically out there to WRITE cites.

There WERE exceptions, however....

1: If the person had a great story that I hadn't heard before.
2: If the person made me laugh.
3: If the person was sooo cheerful (not drunk/stoned LOL) even after I stopped them.

[Wyoming]

Correct me if I am wrong, LEO's, but I believe you have a right to see the radar gun readout.

I have asked on occasion and have never been refused. Generally the officer would apologize, saying the gun had been reset/turned off. 'Hmmm, seems it would be bit of me vs you', and we would part company.

One other thing, an LEO friend advised, never give your speed as OVER the speed limit, when asked, 'just how fast do you think you were going'.

Having Marine stickers on my Jeep never hurt a thing either.

[CrockettJW]

Correct me if I am wrong, LEO's, but I believe you have a right to see the radar gun readout.

I have asked on occasion and have never been refused. Generally the officer would apologize, saying the gun had been reset/turned off. 'Hmmm, seems it would be bit of me vs you', and we would part company.

One other thing, an LEO friend advised, never give your speed as OVER the speed limit, when asked, 'just how fast do you think you were going'.

Having Marine stickers on my Jeep never hurt a thing either.

I've never thought to ask to see the radar gun. When I'm pulled over, I was usually speeding and the few tickets I do get, I consider that a tax for driving as fast as I do.

[Zulu 36]

Correct me if I am wrong, LEO's, but I believe you have a right to see the radar gun readout.

I have asked on occasion and have never been refused. Generally the officer would apologize, saying the gun had been reset/turned off. 'Hmmm, seems it would be bit of me vs you', and we would part company.

One other thing, an LEO friend advised, never give your speed as OVER the speed limit, when asked, 'just how fast do you think you were going'.

Having Marine stickers on my Jeep never hurt a thing either.


Seeing the radar is determined by law in each state. Most do not allow citizens to see the radar simply because most radars are manufactured to no longer lock.

In Michigan this is so. Not only wouldn't you see your speed, but officers also don't have to let you even see the radar unit due to roadside hazards. Most people don't know what they're looking at and see the speed number of a passing car and assume that was their "real" speed and are being screwed over. Also, locking radars are illegal for PDs to use in Michigan and have been for over 30-years that I'm aware of.

Why no speed locks? It keeps lazy police officers (in the days when you had to show the radar if requested) from locking one car then using that speed for all of the rest of their stops. Or, having a speed lock in and not have visually observed the violation (i.e., they stop the wrong car as a result).

Most states require officers to visually observe a speeding violation and only use the radar to confirm it. Additionally, traffic radar units have an audio function that allows the officer to actually hear the Doppler return to the radar unit. In other words, I can also hear you speeding too.

A well experienced traffic radar operator can visually estimate your speed to the exact mile per hour most of the time before even looking at the speed display. I could do this, no problem.

So, seeing the radar unit does you no good since none of your data will be there anyway.

Also, a lot of people complain that an officer running radar on one side of a divided highway can't stop them for speeding on the other side because of the large angle difference. True, there is an angle difference and in traffic radar it is know as the "cosine error." Yes, it does cause an error in the speed display - in the violator's favor. The error will show you going slower than you actually were.

However, the actual error is small and may not even cause a one MPH shift. B*tching in court about the "error" proving radars are per se defective does you no good because traffic judges know how traffic radars work.

Not admitting your speed is always a good idea. Not that it will help then on the street, but it darned sure won't hurt later in court.

[Zulu 36]

LIDAR is used here in Florida, and so is RADAR. Michigan as well.

Like any mature electronic device, 99% of the problems will stem from operator error. Proper training takes care of most of those.

So many people think that judges can't smell a rat if an officer keeps having identical shaky cases come to court. Despite all of the dumb lawyer jokes, I know most lawyers are not stupid. Azzholes maybe, but not stupid. :D Sooner or later, those funny cases have a way of falling like a bomb on that officer. I just never saw the need to write bogus or even shaky tickets. Wait a few minutes and a rock solid one would come along. We didn't have quotas anyway. The chief let us write as many as we wanted to.

In Michigan, officers do not have to write skids for the exact speed they stopped the car for. Most of the time, I wrote only for five over. But there was a block on the ticket where you wrote the actual radar speed (plus in your written comments). The judges used that info too when it came to "giving a break."

Over the years I've learned that way too many Americans really do not know the extent of their rights, or the extent of law enforcement authority (vague Constitutional arguments aside, I'm talking reality). It can be an awfully hard brick wall, that reality thing.

Did you know it is a false arrest if you don't read the arrested person their Miranda Rights? That one always tickled me.

[EGA1957]

Seems as if, with today's technology, a radar gun would NOT have a speed/date/time hard-copy stamp built in for Court purposes.

[Zulu 36]

Seems as if, with today's technology, a radar gun would NOT have a speed/date/time hard-copy stamp built in for Court purposes.

Some do. Some scout car video camera systems (now that they record on hard drives, or removable storage, and not VHS tape), will show the radar unit readouts on the screen, often including the scout car's speed too. Most traffic radar is vehicle mounted now and radar guns are not common anymore.

However, the problem with Radar is the transmitted beam. LIDAR, using a focused light beam, can pick out a single target (after all the LIDAR gun is aimed like a firearm). A radar beam is not nearly as focused, nor can it be. It sends out energy on a "to whom it may concern" basis.

The radar antenna actually sends out three beams, the center beam is the most powerful and accurate and is called the main lobe. But the antenna also transmits two side lobes, which can and do pick up their own returns. Modern traffic radar units have computer algorithms that eliminate most side lobe interference or cosine errors. Still, the main lobe is wide and can pick up a lot of stuff.

Traffic radar has a priority of signals it processes from targets downrange to show a speed. Nearest, largest, fastest target. Note the "fastest" comes last on the scale. This is where the major arguments about the fairness of unmanned radar/photo units comes from. Still, this is also why most states require a traffic radar operator to visually observe the speeding violation (thus picking out the correct vehicle first using the good old Mk1 Eyeball).

As I said in a previous post, an experienced traffic radar operator can judge the speed off a violator to the mile just by eye. This can be done at night too, judging off headlamps. When we worked two-man cars, we often had contests as to who was the most accurate, most often, judging by eye. After-work beers were at risk here, so it was taken seriously. You got good or you went broke.

On my department, we had a old timer traffic man who had used traffic radars for a long, long time. I used to tease him that his original traffic radar was a big WWII Navy-surplus rotating antenna thing on the roof of his scout car. Every now and again, he wrote a ticket based strictly on his visual estimation of speed because his car was not positioned to pickup the speed on radar. The judges always accepted his visual estimate, he was that good. He was also the only officer who the robes would allow to do that.

[m14ed]

Three ways to cite for speeding in Massachusetts.
1 following a target for a given distance
2 radar/laser
3 Estimated

It wasnt much of a problem to get convictions on any of them .

When i was going into the MarineCorps,,
Delaware had a unit/system they called "VASCAR"

Visual Average Speed Calculator And Recorder.
the system was AWSOME ~~!!!!!!!!

[Sgt Leprechaun]

At one time, I, too, could write speeding tickets with NO radar, and was certified to do so. In SC, where I started, to pass the radar class (40 hours back in '88) you had to be able to judge 10 cars, while you were stationary, how fast they were going, within 3 MPH of their actual speed. You could only 'miss' one and pass. Then you did the same thing while moving. Once you passed, (and believe me, it's both harder...and easier...than it sounds, once you've seen a couple thousand cars) you were 'radar certified'.

And I only had a few folks ever ask to see my speeds. Always told them, 'sure'...

[kenrobg30]

I Drove trucks, and some times Taxis for a living. I was never a LEO, but I got to know a lot of them I didn't start wearingshirts or hats that IDed me as a veteran, until after i retired. The Leos I met were as far as I could tell, nice enough guys in a tough line of work. I played Softball in a pappies league for years, and the State Police in our area had a team in it. They were always coming up short of a full roster, so my teams captain loaned ne to them, as a pitcher. One afternoon, we were sitting around visiting, and I was asked if I had been in the service. I confessed, ofcourse, and found out there were four troopers on the team, who were Korea vets. One was a Marine. We all told stories about the posers we ran into. These guys were not forgiving of the phonies, and they made it a point to ask. :marine: S/F!! Ken

[cowstep2]

My most used line was when the ******* started his whinning I asked if he was in the military service. When he advised yes I asked what outfit. Usually it was something other than the good old Marine Corps at which time I stated I thought he was said he was in the military and so informed him there was only on military and that was the Marine Corps and then told him to get out of the car *******. If the answer was USMC I informed the violator he ought to know better and to get out of the car Marine.
If said Marine was acting like a Marine I usually took him home if he was drunk.