Posted on 09/09/2011 11:28:52 AM PDT by flintsilver7
OK, so we've had a lot of rain recently in Northern Virginia. Yesterday into today accounted for about 8 inches, with another four inches earlier in the week. There is a small stream down the road which flooded badly, bringing down some trees around the bridge. It's marginally passable if you were to take one car at a time. In any case, the bridge is closed. Fairfax County Police, in their infinite wisdom, chose to block entry to the road at the nearest intersection. What they didn't consider was that they were blocking access to several hundred homes as well.
When I came upon an officer at this intersection, I asked him what I should do because I lived there. His very rude reply was to yell "the road's closed." Thanks, asshole, I can see that, so I replied "Yes, but I live here and I'm returning home." He then yelled, rudely again, "Can't you see the road's closed? Go up the road." I asked him where, saying again that I lived there and you can't just block almost 400 homes off without telling the residents where to go. I suggested a sign that said "local traffic only" or "residents only" and his response was "too bad."
Seriously, why does it seem like the only people who like cops have never had an experience with them? Are they all this obnoxious? (In my experience, yes, but that's another story.)
1) You don’t get to decide if the roadblock had a purpose. That simply isn’t your function.
2) You can’t prove the officer was rude. Considering how you act on this thread, it’s far more likely that you simply took a fit because you felt you were entitled to do as you please, and YOU were the one who was rude to the officer.
3) No one was “arbitrarily preventing people from returning home”. The roadway needed to be closed because of flooding. You don’t own the roadway, and like it or not, the Code of Virginia does give law enforcement officers the right to block such roadways. Moreover, this is something that is in the inherent police powers of a State. I’d try to explain this to you, but you wouldn’t get it.
The reality is, no matter how much you wish otherwise, the police do not answer to you individually. The police are empowered by society as a whole. YOU are not the PEOPLE. Libertines often get this point confused. You can throw a tantrum all you want, and act like a petulant child, but it won’t change the law. Such is the nature of a Republic.
As for your last bit of screed, of course you don’t believe it. Neither does anyone on the thread. If you REALLY thought I was psychotic, you WOULDN’T bother responding. Yet you continue to do so, for the very reason that I am pointing out things to you that you don’t want to here.
You wanted to hear an echo chamber. You got mad when I called you out on your story. Now, you want to throw out a lot of nonsense that even you don’t believe. True psychotics don’t warrant a response. Yet, you keep at it.
We became a new city a couple years ago, and I’m thinking about doing the same thing with our new force. They’ve got a number of opportunities for citizen training / ride alongs / etc.
I am a business professional.
However, I cannot do the following:
1) Make my clients wait for hours for no reason like a doctor.
2) Beat my clients with a night stick and then file bogus charges against them like a cop.
Both professions need an enema from their clients. I have to treat my clients the way they deserve but a doctor can treat them like they are jobless and a cop can treat them like they are worthless?
Hello!
I don’t know if it will ever happen, but it needs to.
You could have been the 100th person to ask him, so of course he was jacked.
And the way you replied to people here tells me maybe you had a bit of a “Tude”.
When dealing with police, its not what you say as much as how you say it.
With your attitude you will one day be ‘that cop’ in a citizens video that will go viral as proof of the lawless violent nature of the criminal enterprise now known as ‘law enforcement’.
When that happens not even the ‘fetid blue line’ will stand behind you.
Your behavior on this thread is why honest law abiding people are correct to fear your ‘gang’.
I have jury duty coming soon. Time for some evening up...
A few months ago, I notice four half grown calves behind my house. They were safe where they were but were likely to get in the road at any minute. I called the sheriffs department and soon a deputy pulls up and steps out of the car. He looked like he had just stepped out of a hair emporium. He smells like cologne. and his hair has gel on it.
He does seem friendly and goes behind my house and they immediately run into the street. He and I try to get them off the road but I notice he had not turned on his warning light.
In a couple of minutes a Florida State Trooper pulls up and immediately turns on his emergency lights, seeing that the deputy goes back and turns his on two. The Highway Patrolman begins calling around the people in the area he knew and finally found the owners of the calves.
The owner then drove them 3 miles back home with the deputy following. After it is all over the deputy stops by and laughs a bit with me. He is an OK guy but not the brightest light on the string.
Uh huh... and DA ILLUMINATIZ ARE IN yoUR BRAINZ!!!
Keep on spouting the “sovereign citizen” nonsense, none of it is true, and you are only deluding yourself, and perhaps a few other moron truck drivers, urban thugs, and doper hillbillies who inhabit these type of threads.
“In that quarter mile, there are housing developments with several hundred homes.”
Would have been fun to see them turn back a school bus full of kids.
The ‘little’ thing you are not grasping here is civility. Giving the respect due any man. And due to the people who we entrust with the power of life & death, the police.
If I had a coworker who was rude or abusive to my customers I would speak to him in private and correct him or remove him if needed. Sooner rather than later.
And when I encounter a customer who believes they have been treated rudely I would do my best to calm the situation. Make the customer feel like they’re business is valuable and you would like them to continue doing business with you.
You chose to disparage & accuse the OP without any body of ‘evidence’ at all.
There is/will always be a price paid for incivility.
You would have been miles ahead if your tone/replies went more like...”The poor cop prolly got sent there with the wrong info about where to place the roadblock and the neighbors were most likely hasseleing the guy for hours. I would bet money he had a call in to the Sargent to fix the placement of the roadblock and was pissed at the ‘suits’for not getting back to him sooner so the residents would stop abusing him. This is a tough job and sometime you run out of fuse”. Its not right to treat people like crap anytime, but hey were all human”.
Notice I did not use the word “Lier” or “Yelled” any where in my comments, as there was no proof of that one way or another.
Enjoy your Karma.
1) Of course. Us rubes cannot possibly determine why a roadblock is present. We should just accept it and shut the hell up because the good ol’ boys in blue know what’s best. Oh, just for clarity, are we ignoring the fact that the dispatcher confirmed the purpose of the roadblock? It was obvious anyway, but I do in fact have confirmation that the roadblock was in place to prevent people from even approaching the *actual* roadblock at the bridge.
2) No, I can’t, because I don’t have video or audio evidence. However, anybody objectively witnessing the event would have agreed that the officer was a complete cock and I was simply asking a polite question.
3) Yes, the roadblock was arbitrarily preventing me from returning home. You are missing the point, either deliberately or unintentionally. There *is* a roadblock at the bridge, and it’s located at the nearest intersection. Turnaround space is ample. This isn’t what I’m talking about. Where I encountered the officer was at a second completely needless roadblock a quarter-mile down the road that only served to block off my housing development and one other. (The police obviously think if one roadblock is good, then two is better.) If the police have the legal authority to close any length of road for any reason, then people better wake the hell up. If what occurred today was legal (and I do doubt it), then it is nothing more than an abuse of power. Virginia code is available online, so if you want to show me where this is located, I’ll be waiting.
I very sincerely hope you aren’t an LEO because you’re a huge asshole with an insecurity complex. Then again, since you’re a huge asshole with an insecurity complex, you were practically born to be an LEO. It’s really frustrating. The exact types of people who want to be politicians or cops are the absolute last people in the world who should be politicians or cops. Those who seek power should be kept far, far, far away from it.
By the way, you sound like a broken record. You keep saying I’m throwing a tantrum, I’m acting like a petulant child, I’m acting entitled, I’m devoid of morals, and so on. The fact is I asked an officer a simple question and I was met with aggression. I didn’t question his authority to place a roadblock or the sense of putting a second redundant roadblock where he decided to place it. I simply told him that I lived there and asked where to go. He snapped.
Law enforcement officers do not have unlimited power, but they think they do. I’ve long known that the “good guys” in this country are represented by the people and the military. The cops, by and large, are not on the side of the people.
They would have if the schools weren’t closed because of yesterday’s flooding.
1) So by your own admission, there WAS a purpose for the roadblock.
2) Uh huh... anyone who “objectively witnessed the event” right? Yet here, you are the one who comes off like the rude jerk.
3) It’s not my job to show you anything. You look through the code and find the appropriate section. In the meantime, here are some cases for your education:
“Emergencies or exigent circumstances may justify establishing a roadblock without prior authorization from a higher authority.” Simmons v. Com., 238 Va. 200, 204, 380 S.E.2d 656, 659 (1989).
While your at it, take a look at Zimmerman v. Town of Bedford, 134 Va. 787, 115 S.E. 362, 366 (1922); Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 S. Ct. 2481, 2486, 110 L. Ed. 2d 412 (1990); and People v. Lidster, 202 Ill. 2d 1, 269 Ill. Dec. 1, 779 N.E.2d 855 (2002), rev’d, 540 U.S. 419, 124 S. Ct. 885, 157 L. Ed. 2d 843 (2004).
As for the rest of your nonsense, do you know how many LEOs are former and current military? It’s absolutely laughable for you to make the contention that you do, when the very people who are serving in uniform as police officers often served or also serve in the uniform of the armed forces.
No, as I said before, you feel a sense of entitlement and think the world revolves around your whims.
Very likely, you weren’t the first person to inquire as to how to get to your residence.
However, part of professionalism is answering even repeated questions with a smile
Something to the effect of: “Sir, if you’ll just go down the road, you’ll see the detour on Imladris Drive; you can then take Imladris Drive back to Gondor Circle; you’ll be able to access all the streets in the neighborhood from there.” would have been wiser.
As you’ve seen, there are people who will justify unprofessionalism and rudeness in cops, simply because they are cops.
There has been a disturbing and alarming trend away from Robert Peel’s principles and toward increased worship of The State.
One would assume that, on a residential street, instructions for ensuring that the residents could access their homes would be included in the commander’s directives.
How is it the original poster’s fault for the failure of the Agent of the State to provide that reasonable information?
Give it up, he inhabits his own privately created reality.
Fairfax County cops have been out of control for 40 years. I see that they actually fired one for shooting an autistic guy in the back, so maybe with Horan retired, there’s hope.
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