Law Enforcement - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.....

[gwelfmike]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I am just thinking, and you maybe able to answer this one,

IF a cop is not suppose to issue a bogus ticket, then why are there so many people who recieve a geniue ticket, want to fight it in court, ( please do not use the arguement it is my right ) , you got a legitmate ticket, you pay the price. Cop pulls you over for doing 22 kms over and you were actually doing 22 kms over and that is what you are written up for.

IF the police are suppose to be held in a high regard, so are the citizens.

If your done debating the merits of the situation, then move along

We all know how you feel about the thread now (and I could care less).

If your argument is still that it is ok for a LEO to knowingly issue bogus citations due to the fact there there are bigger fish to fry then I say that it still a weak argument.

I say that it is highly likely given his training that he knew that this ticket would not stand and chose to write it anyway becasue he knows what a PITA it is (or someone has to fork over $$ for a paralegal) to get it dismissed. To think that this does not happen is naive, and there should be real repurcussions for those that do it.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I am just thinking, and you maybe able to answer this one,

IF a cop is not suppose to issue a bogus ticket, then why are there so many people who recieve a geniue ticket, want to fight it in court, ( please do not use the arguement it is my right ) , you got a legitmate ticket, you pay the price. Cop pulls you over for doing 22 kms over and you were actually doing 22 kms over and that is what you are written up for.

IF the police are suppose to be held in a high regard, so are the citizens.

The balance is not equal, under the law. The accused has a right to face his accusers, in court, and The Crown must prove guilt, not the accused prove his innocence. This is our system and, guilty or not, Canadians have a right to avail themselves of it.

 

[gwelfmike]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

You are using the arguement, it is your right, so what you are saying is that if I had a blood alcohol reading of ,16, ran into your family and killed them, found a technicality and was found not guilty, you do not have a problem with it.

You also have a right to take the consequences of your actions, if you get caught speeding, and you know it, then it is your societial right to suffer the consequences. Not, let see how I can screw around with the system so my stupidity can go on until I kill someone.

The balance is not equal, under the law. The accused has a right to face his accusers, in court, and The Crown must prove guilt, not the accused prove his innocence. This is our system and, guilty or not, Canadians have a right to avail themselves of it.

 

[mxs]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

IF the police are suppose to be held in a high regard, so are the citizens.

Police are the chosen individuals out of many, with special training etc. How can you ever expect that kind of equality? The way it should be is that police are held to a higher standard .... read not necessarily high one, but always higher than the rest of us.

Citizens should be held through a justice system to a law standard.

 

[gwelfmike]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

You are fogetting one thing, Cops are human too.

Police are the chosen individuals out of many, with special training etc. How can you ever expect that kind of equality? The way it should be is that police are held to a higher standard .... read not necessarily high one, but always higher than the rest of us.

Citizens should be held through a justice system to a law standard.

 

[Brian P]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

You are fogetting one thing, Cops are human too.

Yes. Fair enough. And I will admit that I screw up once in a while, too. It happens.

If I become aware that I made a mistake in something that I've done for a customer, I warranty it. The mistake gets corrected and the customer doesn't pay. Been there, done that. They don't have to take me to court for that to happen, either.

And you?

 

[OpenGambit]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

If your done debating the merits of the situation, then move along

We all know how you feel about the thread now (and I could care less).

If your argument is still that it is ok for a LEO to knowingly issue bogus citations due to the fact there there are bigger fish to fry then I say that it still a weak argument.

I say that it is highly likely given his training that he knew that this ticket would not stand and chose to write it anyway becasue he knows what a PITA it is (or someone has to fork over $$ for a paralegal) to get it dismissed. To think that this does not happen is naive, and there should be real repurcussions for those that do it.

Again, easy to argue when you make up the facts. You just like to call it bogus but you have no clue whether it is or not. all you know is that the ticket was issued in a parking lot.
Its all well and good to be a badass on a internet forum but in the real world your attitude isn't going to hurt anyone but youself.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

You are using the arguement, it is your right, so what you are saying is that if I had a blood alcohol reading of ,16, ran into your family and killed them, found a technicality and was found not guilty, you do not have a problem with it.

You also have a right to take the consequences of your actions, if you get caught speeding, and you know it, then it is your societial right to suffer the consequences. Not, let see how I can screw around with the system so my stupidity can go on until I kill someone.

No, I'm saying that's the way that the law works. It's the standard upon which our legal system is founded.

"It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer." - William Blackstone

 

[OpenGambit]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

Yes. Fair enough. And I will admit that I screw up once in a while, too. It happens.

If I become aware that I made a mistake in something that I've done for a customer, I warranty it. The mistake gets corrected and the customer doesn't pay. Been there, done that. They don't have to take me to court for that to happen, either.

And you?

If the ticket was bogus, he goes to the prosecutor, he drops it, one appearance.. That isn't that different from going back to a store for a broken whatever?

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

If the ticket was bogus, he goes to the prosecutor, he drops it, one appearance.. That isn't that different from going back to a store for a broken whatever?

Replacing the broken thingy rarely costs you a day's pay.

 

[OpenGambit]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

Replacing the broken thingy rarely costs you a day's pay.

I don't know where you guys to for first appearances but I am always done by 10:30 in the morning.

And gwelf has a point, if everyone was responsible and didnt' dispute everything just for the heck of it, the system wouldn't be so clogged up.

I have yet to read a ticket on this forum where I thought, damn that guy didn't deserve it... have you?

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I don't know where you guys to for first appearances but I am always done by 10:30 in the morning.

So maybe a half day's pay then.

Actually I haven't had to in many years but these days, if I had to, it would be in Brampton when I work in Toronto, or in Toronto when I live in Brampton.

 

[gwelfmike]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

Yes. Fair enough. And I will admit that I screw up once in a while, too. It happens.

If I become aware that I made a mistake in something that I've done for a customer, I warranty it. The mistake gets corrected and the customer doesn't pay. Been there, done that. They don't have to take me to court for that to happen, either.

And you?

Exactly, the courts are there if there is a scew up by the enforcement agency, but what if the cop is just doing his/her job, sitting at the side of the road, gets you for speeding, you admit to speeding, but you want to play the system to get off and then start bemohning that he cop was this, the cop was that, I don t deserve this ticket, even though I was guilty.


How do you feel if the customer brings something back that was not defective or you did not make a mistake.

 

[eastcoast_gsx]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

Again, easy to argue when you make up the facts. You just like to call it bogus but you have no clue whether it is or not. all you know is that the ticket was issued in a parking lot.
Its all well and good to be a badass on a internet forum but in the real world your attitude isn't going to hurt anyone but youself.

I said this was all "as it was presented", do you suffer from comprehension issues? It seems you have no problem creating facts for your side lol.

Badass?? Who?

 

[OpenGambit]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I said this was all "as it was presented", do you suffer from comprehension issues? It seems you have no problem creating facts for your side lol.

Badass?? Who?

There is no reason for me to accept your premise when it could so easily be false.
Not accepting a fact thats not proven isn't the same as creating facts.

 

[Brian P]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I hear what you are saying about people taking things to court when they don't really have a case, but it's a different situation when you are dealing with something that can have years of insurance consequences afterwards. If it weren't for that, I would never take anything to court, either.

There is no effective mechanism nor recourse against any public servant who doesn't do their job properly (either by neglecting things that they shouldn't, or going way overboard with crazy interpretations of how certain regulations are applied). This isn't just about police, by the way - the same is true of practically every other government department. The mechanisms that are in place (SIU, courts, various appeals processes) are generally unwieldy, time-consuming, EXPENSIVE, frustrating, complex, and relatively ineffective, to the extent that it usually just isn't worth pursuing. It doesn't help that regulations are often written in a way that lends itself to prosecuting people but doesn't lend itself to guiding people towards how to comply with them. Let's not even get into the regulations that are unrealistically stringent in some way or another.

Try building a house without exposing a worker to a hazardous moving part of a machine ... like, say, a blade of a circular saw.

I don't know how to build a table saw in which it is impossible to cut someone's finger off. But that's what the regulations say you have to achieve. And I've had a customer who was in trouble because of this. (By the way, there actually IS a device for detecting if a saw blade contacts human skin ... but it is a one-time-use device which destroys itself in the process! You can't test its operation without destroying it ... and guess what, there's another requirement that you have to meet ...)

I suspect that if you dig for the root causes of why people distrust LEO's (or for that matter, government in general), the overbearing nature of the regulatory burden is going to be one of them.

 

[Griffin]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

Without the knowledge of applicable case law, I think its a reasonable interpretation.

And an interpretation is reasonable based on the logic of it, just because someone is posting on a internet forum doesn't make the point any less valid. Rob and Brian aren't lawyers, I still respect their positions.

While on the other hand, I see this thread as crying wolf.

I'm not often writing in support of police enforcement of traffic regs (I see it as all about income and almiost nothing about safety) but, I have some sympathy for police not knowing ALL legislation. An example: I was ticketed once by a Tactical Unit cop that happened to be on scene at a collision I was involved in. The guy was full of attitude and didn't know the HTA as well as he should have BUT, enforcing the HTA wasn't his routine job. Same with detectives or whatever. IF the cop is assigned to Traffic there is no reason that they should not be familiar with the HTA AND case law that applies to common application matters.

If your done debating the merits of the situation, then move along

We all know how you feel about the thread now (and I could care less). (It's COULD NOT care less - think about it)

If your argument is still that it is ok for a LEO to knowingly issue bogus citations due to the fact there there are bigger fish to fry then I say that it still a weak argument.

I say that it is highly likely given his training that he knew that this ticket would not stand and chose to write it anyway becasue he knows what a PITA it is (or someone has to fork over $$ for a paralegal) to get it dismissed. To think that this does not happen is naive, and there should be real repurcussions for those that do it.

I have experience of cops being malicious in issuing tickets. However, nothing in this scenario really suggests that. It may be either the cop made a mistake (and I agree that they should know better, assuming they're traffic cops - if the guy was assigned to major crimes or something and was just ****** that the guy in front of him was on the phone and so ticketed him I think that's just bad judgment) or that the circumstances aren't clear to us readers of the story. But to ascribe a malicious intent to the cop in this example is reaching, I think.

 

[OpenGambit]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I hear what you are saying about people taking things to court when they don't really have a case, but it's a different situation when you are dealing with something that can have years of insurance consequences afterwards. If it weren't for that, I would never take anything to court, either.

There is no effective mechanism nor recourse against any public servant who doesn't do their job properly (either by neglecting things that they shouldn't, or going way overboard with crazy interpretations of how certain regulations are applied). This isn't just about police, by the way - the same is true of practically every other government department. The mechanisms that are in place (SIU, courts, various appeals processes) are generally unwieldy, time-consuming, EXPENSIVE, frustrating, complex, and relatively ineffective, to the extent that it usually just isn't worth pursuing. It doesn't help that regulations are often written in a way that lends itself to prosecuting people but doesn't lend itself to guiding people towards how to comply with them. Let's not even get into the regulations that are unrealistically stringent in some way or another.

Try building a house without exposing a worker to a hazardous moving part of a machine ... like, say, a blade of a circular saw.

I don't know how to build a table saw in which it is impossible to cut someone's finger off. But that's what the regulations say you have to achieve. And I've had a customer who was in trouble because of this. (By the way, there actually IS a device for detecting if a saw blade contacts human skin ... but it is a one-time-use device which destroys itself in the process! You can't test its operation without destroying it ... and guess what, there's another requirement that you have to meet ...)

I suspect that if you dig for the root causes of why people distrust LEO's (or for that matter, government in general), the overbearing nature of the regulatory burden is going to be one of them.

Are we talking about the general populace or this board as a segment of the population. Because I think its different.

Being a cop or a crown is a thankless job. Well then again so is mine but at least I get paid well for it.

 

[eastcoast_gsx]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

If it was a traffic cop, he should have know better.

If it was another type of officer, he should have erred on the side of caution or found out what is proper.

If the dude was on the phone in the street, he deserved it.

If he called in the lot (or drive-thru) he didn't deserve it.

I didn't pretend to know it all, I was merely taking the article at face value.

I did offer a plausable scenario based on my opinion of the situation. Where it is true or not is irrelevant to the debate as I see it.

 

[Griffin]

Re: Wonder why some folks distrust LEO's?

I hear what you are saying about people taking things to court when they don't really have a case, but it's a different situation when you are dealing with something that can have years of insurance consequences afterwards. If it weren't for that, I would never take anything to court, either.

There is no effective mechanism nor recourse against any public servant who doesn't do their job properly (either by neglecting things that they shouldn't, or going way overboard with crazy interpretations of how certain regulations are applied). This isn't just about police, by the way - the same is true of practically every other government department. The mechanisms that are in place (SIU, courts, various appeals processes) are generally unwieldy, time-consuming, EXPENSIVE, frustrating, complex, and relatively ineffective, to the extent that it usually just isn't worth pursuing. It doesn't help that regulations are often written in a way that lends itself to prosecuting people but doesn't lend itself to guiding people towards how to comply with them. Let's not even get into the regulations that are unrealistically stringent in some way or another.

Try building a house without exposing a worker to a hazardous moving part of a machine ... like, say, a blade of a circular saw.

I don't know how to build a table saw in which it is impossible to cut someone's finger off. But that's what the regulations say you have to achieve. And I've had a customer who was in trouble because of this. (By the way, there actually IS a device for detecting if a saw blade contacts human skin ... but it is a one-time-use device which destroys itself in the process! You can't test its operation without destroying it ... and guess what, there's another requirement that you have to meet ...)

I suspect that if you dig for the root causes of why people distrust LEO's (or for that matter, government in general), the overbearing nature of the regulatory burden is going to be one of them.

I agree with what you've written here.

I find that our society creates needlessly complex regulations that were not well thought through and then add them to an already incredibly complex set of regulations that are in effect. I've been involved in the process of creating some of these regulations and sometimes feel that I'm the only one trying to exercise a practical approach. I don't really see any probable improvement though. Every time someone is injured or killed we create new laws to prevent it in future - nevermind that there are already good laws in place or that compliance with the new law is physically impossible (see HTA 172 as an example).

You cannot live your life without braking laws in our society. I'd be willing to bet that anyone that claims they are living without braking laws will take me about 5 minutes to identify some that they are in fact braking on a daily basis.

And the whole "justice" system is so badly flawed that I'm discouraged of any potential for improvement. A 10 second occurence will lead to years of litigation without satisfactory results. That sucks for all parties involved (other than the lawyers and even they get frustrated).