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Recently, the Tampa Police Department ran an e-mail forum with the local community (a Q&A exchange) with the topic being, ”Community Policing.”
One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question: ”I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people, and get away with it.”
Tampa PD Sgt. Bennett, obviously a cop with a sense of humor, replied:
”First of all, let me tell you this .. it’s not easy.
In Tampa, we average one cop for every 600 people.
Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as ”patrol”) where we do most of our harassing - the rest are in non-harassing departments which do not allow them contact with the day-to- day innocents.
At any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty, and available for harassing people, while the rest are off-duty.
So, roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents.
When you toss in the commercial businesses, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.
Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long.
This gives a cop one second to harass a person and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut before finding a new person to harass.
This is not an easy task - to be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out, it is just too tiring.
What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass.
The tools available to us are as follows:
PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment.
”My neighbor is beating his wife” is a code phrase used often.
This means we’ll come out and give somebody some special harassment..
Another popular one: ”There’s a guy breaking into a house.”
The harassment team is then put into action.
CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive.
They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no registration or no driver’s license and the like.
It’s lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light.
Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk or have an outstanding warrant.
RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer.
Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a cat on the scent of a mouse.
When you catch them you can harass them for hours, to determine why they didn’t want to talk to us.
LAWS: When we don’t have PHONES or CARS or RUNNERS, and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks.
They are called ”Laws”; Criminal Codes, Motor Vehicle Laws, etc …They spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people.
After you read the laws, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them.
Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car.
Well, there’s this book we have that says that’s not allowed.
That meant I was allowed to harass this guy.
It’s a really cool system that we’ve set up, and it works pretty well.
We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass and we get away with it.
Why ?
For the good of the Tampa citizens who pay the bill.
We try to keep the streets safe for them and they pay us to ”harass” some people.
Hopefully sir, this has clarified to you a little bit better how we harass the good citizens of Tampa.
.
An LEO With Humor
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- AJMD429
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Re: An LEO With Humor
I like that answer.
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws
"first do no harm" - gun control LAWS lead to far more deaths than 'easy access' ever could.
Want REAL change? . . . . . "Boortz/Nugent in 2012 . . . ! "
"first do no harm" - gun control LAWS lead to far more deaths than 'easy access' ever could.
Want REAL change? . . . . . "Boortz/Nugent in 2012 . . . ! "
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- Advanced Levergunner
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Re: An LEO With Humor
I do like that, it should be every front page printed.
JerryB II Corinthians 3:17, Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
JOSHUA 24:15
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Re: An LEO With Humor
That was as well thought out an answer as I have heard in a long time. I would bet that he is a good officer.
D. Brian Casady
Quid Llatine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur.
Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire---Bill Jeans
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up---Robert Frost
Quid Llatine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur.
Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire---Bill Jeans
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up---Robert Frost
Re: An LEO With Humor
Code-4 ... :)
- Griff
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Re: An LEO With Humor
I like it! Along with the well-used phrase, "Nothing to see here, move along folks..."
Griff,
SASS/CMSA #93
NRA Patron
GUSA #93
There is a fine line between hobby & obsession!
AND... I'm over it!!
No I ain't ready, but let's do it anyway!
SASS/CMSA #93
NRA Patron
GUSA #93
There is a fine line between hobby & obsession!
AND... I'm over it!!
No I ain't ready, but let's do it anyway!
Re: An LEO With Humor
Those of us who are not in Law Enforcement will some day have an encounter with an officer on duty. It may be good, or it may be aggravating. The thing to remember is that if you remain calm and polite and follow instructions, then you can file an official complaint later should you deem it necessary. I have had more encounters than I would prefer, and only 3 were bad. All 3 were from officers who were later fired due to an overabundance of official complaints. I have received a couple of speeding tickets from officers who were totally polite, and who couldn't have been any more professional. Seriously, you know most of the time when you see the posted limits and you are above the limit. There are speed traps, such as the small town West of Ft. Worth which gives out on average of 4 times the total population of the town in tickets per year AND 95% of the tickets are listed as speeding in a school zone. The school zone ends a block from the highway. Because they are written for school zone violations, you cannot appeal the ticket by state law. This example is just to show the few who are bad and should be fired.
One Cedar Hill, TX officer stopped me for 45 in a 30 zone and let me off with a verbal warning because a tree branch was blocking the sign for the 30 zone. A week later, I had to go through the same area and the branch had been cut off and the sign was visible. That was what I consider a positive encounter. The officer was polite and professional. He could have given me a ticket, but he chose to give a warming due to the tree limb covering the sign, and he had the limb removed soon after that. Good officers can make it better for all.
One Cedar Hill, TX officer stopped me for 45 in a 30 zone and let me off with a verbal warning because a tree branch was blocking the sign for the 30 zone. A week later, I had to go through the same area and the branch had been cut off and the sign was visible. That was what I consider a positive encounter. The officer was polite and professional. He could have given me a ticket, but he chose to give a warming due to the tree limb covering the sign, and he had the limb removed soon after that. Good officers can make it better for all.
D. Brian Casady
Quid Llatine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur.
Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire---Bill Jeans
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up---Robert Frost
Quid Llatine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur.
Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire---Bill Jeans
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up---Robert Frost
- Ysabel Kid
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