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Being a police officer comes with all sorts of hazards – emotional, physical, mental – but listen. I bet in their training sessions, no one really prepares them for how totally inappropriate human beings can get when there is money involved.
And these 16 people took “let’s see if I can get out of this ticket” to the extreme.
16. A little vomit goes a long way.
Because the times have changed so much, this answer might get a few negative comments, but things were dramatically different in Chicago nearly 50 years ago. Please keep the following in mind when you read the answer. Drunk driving arrests were simply a waste of time for officers. Traffic court was completely corrupt. Cases and their paperwork would “disappear”, while the judges and lawyers got rich.
It took up to two hours for the “breathalyzer” officer to come to the station and give the test after the arrest. Not only did this keep us in the station instead of doing our job, but after two hours, the offender was often legally sober. 1.0 was the limit back then.
With this in mind, I stopped a speeder, but when I approached the driver, she lowered her window and proceeded to drunkenly puke all over the side of her car AND herself. (She’d obviously eaten a lot.) That single act got her out of a ticket.
There was no way I was going to get vomit all over me by arresting her. She had a passenger to help her, so I pretended to suddenly get a “hot call”, hopped back in my squad car, turned on the lights and siren and hightailed out of there.
15. He called their parents!
I ran a VASCAR on the force. It is a cheap way to check someone’s speed without using radar or lasers which, in the late ’70s, we did not have. This was in Guam, and there were not many places where one could really cut loose and go fast. Late one afternoon, I clocked a convertible going 75 in a 50 zone and gave chase. They stopped quickly. I could see four young boys in the car and they were doing a lot of moving around and talking to each other as I approached. I noticed that they all were very young — probably high school students out for a joy ride in their parents’ car — perhaps without their permission. I’d estimate them to be about 16 or 17, but they were acting pretty silly and making lots of comments to each other. I noticed it had a military base ID sticker on the windshield so I figured these were the dependants of military parents.
I asked the driver for his papers. Faster than I could react, he pulled a gun out from between his legs and pointed it upward under his chin. He announced he could not get a ticket and if I gave him one, he would shoot himself. At the first sight of the gun, I started to draw my pistol but stopped before I got it out of the holster.
At this point, I was standing within 18 inches from the driver just off his left shoulder. It was a bright sunny day and even with my dark sunglasses on, I could easily see the gun. I could also see that it was clearly a bright red or orange plastic gun that had been poorly spray-painted black. I could see that the plastic hammer, slide, and grip were, in fact, all fused together. This kid was clearly more afraid of his parents than he was of me. The other kids in the car were alternately acting stunned or scared and trying to stifle the laughter of the toy gun threat.
I could easily have grabbed the plastic gun and then spent a long time berating the driver on the dangers of using a plastic weapon around a cop in these circumstances. I could give them a ticket for speeding. I could, but it looked to me like these were the kinds of kids who would take all that as something to brag about in school and to giggle about as they told their peers about how they got away with it or got caught doing something crazy. I was not convinced that either my lecture or a ticket would leave a lasting lesson. I had another idea.
I decided to play along. I raised my hands and told him not to shoot and that we would work something out. He shouted again that he could not get a ticket and got clearly more agitated. I had no fears of him shooting himself but I figured he was capable of trying to drive or run away.
I had to calm him down so I offered him a deal. I promised him he would not get a ticket but I still needed to see his papers and I told him he had to promise not to drive away. He was so focused on not getting a ticket that he agreed. I took his driver’s license but he told me he lost his registration and insurance papers. I said again that he had to promise not to drive away. He promised me he wouldn’t as sincerely as he could but I persisted, saying that if he did, I’d get in a lot of trouble. He assured me again that he wouldn’t … and then he said, ”here, I’ll even give you the keys”. That was what I wanted; I told him I had to go check to see if the car was stolen but I again promised him I would not give him a ticket. I told him it might take a few minutes to run the license plate number and to make sure he was not a fugitive from some previous crime. He swore he wasn’t. I said, “Yeah but I have to check because I already called dispatch saying I was making a stop and if I don’t call them back they will send more police cars.”
I went back to my car and called dispatch and had them patch me through to the driver’s parents’ house. The mother answered and while I was explaining the situation, the father came home from work. He got on an extension line and I re-told all the details of the situation. The father was a chief petty officer and interrupted me a few times with cuss words and other comments about his wayward son. I told him I would not write up a ticket but only if he came down and took custody of his son and the car. He said he’d be there in 10 minutes.
I waited in my car and watched the kids in the convertible growing in anxiety over the next 12 minutes until the father arrived — still in his uniform — with the mother in the car also.
He came to talk to me first as I saw all four of the kids slink down in their seats. I told him that the speeding ticket was one thing but that bit with the plastic gun almost got his son shot. I impressed upon him that his son needs to understand how dangerous his actions were. I gave the father the keys and told him, next time, I’ll give his son a ticket and if he pulls some stunt like this again, he’ll go to jail.
The chief assured me that the guns will be destroyed and his son won’t be able to sit down for a week and will be put on restriction, “so bad, he will think he is in Alcatraz.” That’s what I wanted to hear.
He shook my hand and then walked toward the convertible. As I drove away, I heard his voice shouting at the kids for quite some distance.
14. You’d think she’d quit trying.
Routine Traffic stop for speeding, cute little red mustang stopped; When I got to the car window her top was down and her skirt hiked up and she was busy – She looks at me and says, “Officer I need help”.
I had to walk away, I was with a partner and he said lets call for a lady officer. Which is what we did, Yes the driver was really cute, but we waited in our car and once the other officer arrived she told her to get dressed and decent and she stayed around to make sure the driver didn’t pull another stunt like this and we made sure she got her ticket.
This was back before car cams and body cams so we needed to have an extra set of eyes/witnesses in case she made a complaint.
Funniest thing was that at shift end when we went back to the squad room the Sgt. who must have heard the call we made said, “ So I see you met ……. she has tried that drop your drawers trick with us before, good thing you rookies did not fall for it.”
13. He didn’t want to take the chance.
I can only tell you about my experience regarding your question. I stopped a young man (early 20s) for speeding one night. His passenger was an attractive young lady whom I would guess at about the same age as the driver. Thinking I had caught a whiff of alcohol as he asked why I had stopped him and he seemed more nervous that what I would call normal, I ask him to please exit his vehicle and told his passenger to remain seated in the vehicle.
When the driver and I walked to the rear of his car I went through the normal traffic stop routine:”Sir, may I see your driver’s license, where are you coming from and going to, have you been drinking tonight, do you know what the speed limit might be on Olsen Road? Blah, blah blah. “
Then I must have hit the correct button when I asked him, “Sir, before I run a check on your license, do you have any outstanding wants or warrants for your arrest?” I actually thought he was about to start crying or going to have a litter of kittens right there on the side of the road, because he started saying, “please officer don’t write me a ticket, please I beg you officer.” Before I could advise him to calm down, he blurted out, “Officer I can not get another ticket this year or I will lose my license. If you will not write me a ticket I will let you___ my girlfriend.”
I must have now looked like the one going to have a litter of kittens because before I could form a reply, he said: “She is good officer, I promise she is.” The first thought that popped into my mind was this had to be a setup, and I started looking around for the Internal Affairs unit that I figured must be parked in the area. Not seeing anything that looked out of place, I thought to myself this guy is serious, and he must have thought from the way I looked at him that I was gay or something because he then said, “Or I can give you a bj”.
In my years on the street, I have been offered money, tickets to an NFL game, free merchandise at a local department store, but never anything remotely like this before. I just kept looking at the kid with a stunned look on my face and finally got my voice back, handed him his driver’s license back and told him to slow down, drive carefully and to have a good night.
I spend a number of years in the police department after that night and never had anyone else try to get out of a citation by offering what he did. After he drove away and I sat in my unit, I thought I could have arrested him for trying to bribe a peace officer. But then I thought if he chose to contest the bribery charge, what jury would believe me?
12. What a story.
A police constable of my acquaintance was patrolling the MI in England back in the seventies and he stopped a car going (quite) a bit too fast. He recognised the driver as Tommy Cooper. For the uninitiated, Tommy Cooper was one of the absolutely top comedians in the UK and his shtick was based around his persona as an incompetent magician.
Cooper said he was on his way to a gig and was running late. He fast-talked his way out of a ticket as only he could and, as the cop let him go, he shook him by the hand saying ‘Thank you, officer, Thank you, thank you. Have a drink on me,” and pressed some paper into the policeman’s hand.
The policeman waved him off and looked at what Cooper had given him.
It was a teabag.
11. I bet the cop still tells this story, too.
I’m not and never have been in law enforcement. However, this instance happened when I was about 23.
I was driving home from my sisters place on the NY thruway and had a date coming over about the time I’d get home. So, I had done my hair and my makeup prior to leaving.
Unfortunately, I was running out of gas. I checked my ticket and realized I couldn’t make it to the nearest rest area. I also realized that I could make it quite easily to the rest stop in the opposite direction. So, as I drove along, I saw a “No U turn” sign right next to a paved lane that went from my side of the thruway to the other side. I looked in front and in the rear and saw no cars at all so I made a U-turn on that paved lane.
Just as I was up to full speed, I heard the siren behind me. I pulled over and the good looking highway patrolman came up to my car. He explained that he had seen me make a U turn and asked if I knew it was illegal to make a U-turn on the thruway. I explained that I did know it was illegal because I found the place to make the turn by the No U-turn sign. The officer asked why I had made the U-turn and I explained about running out of gas.i
The officer is now shaking his head and almost laughing at the ditzy woman he was talking to. He obviously could not believe that i was being so honest and thinking I was definitely weird. He now asks me if I’m in a hurry. I replied that I was because had a date back in Syracuse and didn’t want to be late.
Now he’s totally flummoxed. He explains that the ticket i had just earned would cost a lot of money and that it was dangerous doing what I had just done. I said I understood and apologized. He then told me if I promised never to do that again, he’d just give me a warning and let me go home to my date. I promised never to do that again and he said god bye and I hope this date was worth it.
I am now 73 and have never again make a U-turn on an interstate/ thruway. I don’t remember if the date was worth it.
10. This was much more innocent than it might have been.
When I was 19, I ran my car through a red light. I didn’t realise there was a police car not far behind, but when they put on their siren, I pulled over.
I was aware that I was very attractive to men, (only because I got whistled at wherever I went and was constantly being asked on dates – even by random strangers, and because guys I did know were regularly telling me they thought they were in love with me. I was also earning a lot of money as a model, but I was a university student and hated the whole modelling industry – I only did it for the money).
When the two police offers pulled me over and one said something like “You do realise you just went straight through a red light, I batted my eyelids and said “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. I genuinely didn’t realise: (or something very similar). They both looked at each other. One said something like “Shall we give her a ticket” and the other one said something like “No – I don’t think so”.
I didn’t feel great about it, because I realised that I had just been manipulative. And I know a lot of men would say that this is an unfair advantage women have over them. But I was studying a lot about the lack of power women had suffered from over the centuries, and figured we should be able to use what little power we had.
They told me to be careful that I didn’t do it again, and I said something like “Oh, I promise I will be very careful. “ So, I didn’t get a ticket. Regardless, it did make me much more careful as a driver.
9. Why does this read like a Penthouse letter?
I stopped a car for speeding one sunny afternoon on a major 4-lane divided highway that had 3 teenaged young ladies in the front seat who were coming from a local swimming pool and were in the briefest bikinis. They were beautiful young ladies by any scale possible. I explained the purpose of the stop, after I had obtained the driver’s driver license and car registration and returned to my cruiser to issue a ticket. As always, while writing the ticket I held it high on the steering wheel so I could also carefully observe the occupants of the stopped vehicle and noticed the driver and center passenger doing something involving the driver.
When I had completed the ticket and had returned to the stopped vehicle’s door, I began to explain the cost of the ticket, the points that would be assessed to the driver’s driving record and the right to appear for trial in court to contest the ticket. Because of my observation, I was a bit more alert than normal as I was doing this and prepared for any possibility. I was in mid sentence of my explanation when the driver sort of moved her upper body and both tops of her bikini fell down complete exposing her entire chest area. She could have been a Playboy centerfold! But without changing the cadence of my sentence, voice volume, tone of voice or any change in my facial expression and body language I said, “This ticket may be paid by check mailed to the address indicated here (pointing to it), and young lady your bikini top has fallen and you might wish to fix it, and the ticket cost $30 and is a one-point violation.” I continued on with my “spiel” as she quickly “fixed” her apparel failure while her face, and those of her friends, became so red with embarrassment they would have been used as the red light on the front of a fire engine en route to a fire! The ticket was paid!
For a couple of years afterward, as this young lady matured, each time she saw me, off duty or on duty, she would blush and quickly turn away. She was married and had two beautiful daughters. I was in a local grocery store when I heard an, “Excuse me Mr. Wright” and turned to find her standing there with her 2 young daughters. She introduced them to me explaining that officers were their friends. It was one of those moments that are golden in the memories of old officers after retirement!
I will admit that at the moment it occurred, it took all my years of Marine-instilled self control not to react to the apparel malfunction!
8. You gotta appreciate a good punchline.
There was a club where the male patrons were known to use meth. The only women there were entertainment girls. We were driving down the street and saw a car pull out of the parking lot and roll through the stop. We did a traffic stop. I walked up on the driver’s side and as I was approaching, I saw it was one of the entertainment girls, so I was just going to give her a warning and head back to my car.
But as I was walking up she was kind of wriggling around in her seat, which made me a little cautious, so I slowed down. When I reached her window, she smiled up at me and said, “Hi deputy.” and then she looked down at her crotch. She had hiked up her short skirt and pulled her panties to the side.
I told my partner he should check out the VIN and walked back to our car. He raised an eyebrow, walked over to look at the VIN. He saw what I saw, came back to the car and said,
“Unusual place for a VIN”
7. It would be funny if it wasn’t terrifying.
Not sure if the guy in question actually tried to get out of a ticket, but at one time back in the day some colleagues & I were trading “war stories” in the break room at our office. One mentioned a fraternity brother when they were both pre-law at the U. of I. (name withheld to protect the clueless) who was pulled over one night in the wee hours on a stretch of I-57 near Champaign-Urbana. The kid had apparently dropped some “windowpane” acid and was on the verge of suddenly going from Wonderland to a potentially very bad trip.
The state trooper walked over to the driver, examined his license and registration, noticed the guy was both terrified and spaced out, and gently asked, “son, do you have any idea how fast you were going?” Now, the speed limit was still 55 back then but the kid was freaking out over the possible consequences of confessing to his actual speed and gulped, “uh, sir… 75?” The trooper leaned in further and said, “son, here…on the freeway…in a 55 MPH zone…you were doing…twelve miles an hour!”
My friend was called, picked up his slow-tripper roomie, took him back to the frat house and sat with him till he “came down.” The trooper was laughing so hard (and had the keys anyway till my friend arrived) that there wasn’t even a written warning!
6. I don’t know what to say about any of this.
Well, this story will certainly qualify as inappropriate. On night, around 2 AM, I just completed assisting a motorist with a flat tire on H-1 Frwy west bound, when a white Ford Mustang blew by me at a high rate of speed. I chased the car with lights and siren on, clocking it at 120 mph. As I caught up, the car slowed and pulled over. The vehicle belonged to an Army officer and had one occupant, a young lady in her 20’s.
After receiving her drivers license and other documents, she was apparently the spouse of the vehicle’s owner. I asked her why she was traveling at such a dangerously rate of speed. She said something like Oh, officer, I just started my period and I didn’t want to stain my shorts! (the shorts were white) She spread her legs wide as she could while she was talking!
I looked down and pointed my flashlight in the area of emphasis. I replied, well, miss, you are too late for that! Since there was no evidence of Driving While Intoxicated, I wrote her a ticket. She was lucky, I could have arrested her for reckless operation of a motor vehicle. Anyway, that for me, ranks as the most inappropriate action by a motorist on a traffic stop.
5. One lucky moment.
I guess this was kind of inappropriate. I was patrolling around about 3 in the morning and noticed a car parked in the middle of the road with it’s lights off in a residential neighborhood. I kind of figured whoever was in the car was probably passed out drunk so I went to check before I got up to the door of the car this female opens the door rushes out and pulls off I think it’s called a tank top. She was waving it around and I notice another car stop.
The person in the other car asked if he could be of help and I just asked him to stand there as a witness while I tried to get her shirt back on her because I could see you where this was going. He stood there and watched and I got his information when it was all over and had her locked up in the car and asked him if he would be a witness if necessary and he said of course. I could see that she was probably going to say that I took her shirt off and to this day I thank God this guy came by.
When I went to a deposition later on of course that’s exactly what she said. The witness who had stopped in the car to render help just happened to be the state’s attorney. When her lawyer saw who the witness was he immediately moved to settle the case. By the way she received two years in State prison for obstructing an officer and lying under oath. how lucky I was to have this man driving by at the same time this was going on
4. Seems a bit extreme.
I stopped a drunk on a 4 lane highway late at night. The driver was a drunk woman. A man was with her. After I dealt with her I had her stand at the back of her car and I was talking to the man who was still in the car. I looked back at the woman and she was standing in the middle of the left lane.
Traffic was coming and I rushed over and drug her to the median then she went limp and just sat on the ground. When I tried to get her up her limp arms just flopped up over her head so I got a good grip on her and started picking her up and her arms flopped up again and I pulled her shirt off.
It was up on her arms then I pulled it back down over her. I guess she was willing to commit suicide to get out of a DUI ticket. That’s a drunk for ya.
3. People really are something.
Now I wasn’t giving out tickets for much of my service and my specialty was never giving out tickets, but the most inappropriate thing people regularly did was to nominate someone as a great mate who who get them out of the ticket and make my life hell, if I didn’t withdraw the ticket immediately.
These proclamations usually went something like this: Chap:”I know so-an-so and once he finds out what you’ve done your life will be hell unless you take this ticket back.” Me:”Yeah, I known so-and-so for 5 years (followed sotto voce) and I in all of my dealings with him I’ve only ever thought of him as an utter arsehole. (normal voice) Here’ your penalty notice sir (explain how to pay).”
Afterwards I usually speak to the officer whose good standing is being abused.
Once, though, one chap said, “I know Sergeant Savage and once he finds out what you’ve done he’ll make your life hell unless you take this ticket back.” Me:”Yeah, I known Savage for ages and my life is pretty much hell anyway. Do your best sir, here’ your penalty notice (explain how to pay the penalty notice:”
I mean?!? how dumb was this dude!?!? I was wearing a badge with my name printed on it. I’d never see the driver before or since.
2. Not if you ask her, though.
I stopped a woman with three kids in the back one Sunday morning on her way to church, or so she said. I asked for her license and registration and proof of insurance and she said it was in her purse in the backseat.
OK, now she had on a pretty short skirt to begin with so instead of just reaching back and getting her purse, which she easily could have reached, or having one of the kids hand it to her, she unbuckles her seat belt, turns around in the seat, and bends over the back of the seat. Now everything was on full display and she knew exactly what she was doing and so did I.
She got the ticket and I got the show. A win/win if you ask me.
1. Life isn’t like porn, I guess.
I pulled over a speeder in a Convertible BMW. As I approached the vehicle, a female driver seemed to be squirming in her seat. When I got to her driver side window, I realized that she had removed her underwear and was sitting there with her skirt pulled all the way up exposing herself.
I retreated to my car and requested a cover car and waited to approach again until I had a cover unit. At that time, she threw her underwear at me and asked if she could do anything for us to get out of the ticket. (Nudity in Hawaii is not a criminal charge if only the officers see it-and cannot be the “offended party”).
I informed her that she needed to produce her documentation and I issued the summons after running her for warrants. She was not happy about the 3 citations she received but paid the tickets and I never had to appear in court to explain her actions to the judge.
I am just sitting here with my jaw dropped; what is wrong with y’all?!
If you’ve got a story to rival these, please do drop it in the comments!
