Patrick Bradley shared this post via CopBlock.org’s submit page.
Now this isn’t a beating case or anything like that, but just simple basic rights being violated.
Hudson, New Hampshire Police are notorious for harassing people. From what I understand, it’s called a “training town,” meaning lots of rookies end up there to get street experience and then go elsewhere. I’ve been pulled over many, many times for nothing – things like my car sounded like it has an after market exhaust, speeding 2 to 3 miles over the speed limit on a downhill, etc. You know, things that they could let go, but know they are just targeting me because I’m a young male in some sort of car that draws attention. There aren’t as many minorities for them to harass, so we’re as good as black.
Well, on this night I finally caught them. It was 3 AM and I was driving in my tan 1977 Mercedes 280SE (very old man’s looking car) from the nearest city, Nashua, to my house in Windham. My current girlfriend and I went to Denny’s because we couldn’t sleep. Hudson is in between these towns. I took a legal left turn at a stop light and an approaching vehicle stopped to make a right turn on red. When driving in this particular part of town, I always check the cars to see if they are cops because of the aforementioned behavior and they are always on this stretch of road. Well, lo and behold, it was one of them. I made sure I stayed just under the speed limit and that my driving was tight. I kept my eye on my tripometer because they aren’t allowed to follow you for more than a mile and pull you over. They were doing their patented ‘follow really close to make you react’. Right at the mile mark, the blue lights turned on. When the officer approached, I had all my info ready. I had forgotten my wallet at my girlfriends house, so I didn’t have my ID. When he got to my car, I immediately asked him what I was being pulled over for because I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
This is when it gets good. He immediately copped an attitude with me. “Excuse me, in my 28 years of being a cop I have never not informed somebody why they were being pulled over.” I said, “Okay,” and he responded with “your tail light was out.” Now this was believable since I had a short in my tail light that acted up sometimes. If that happened, that meant a shim I had in there fell out. I responded, “Oh I have a short in the light, I can fix it right now. May I get out and please fix it?” Now this is what I thought was interesting: He told me to stay in the car, then he looked at my info and noticed my inspection was out. I thought I didn’t have to have it inspected yet but had misunderstood the law. He came back and gave me the ‘I cut you a break” deal by not ticketing me on the tail light and not having my ID and giving me just a ticket for my inspection. Well, the ID is just a fix it ticket, I’ve been through that before. I just had to go to the police station within ten days and show them my ID. My car was not inspected in the proper time so that was legitimate in that sense, but for somebody who pulled me over for my tail light, I thought it was weird he wouldn’t have me fix it before I left. Later I checked my tail lights and found they were both working fine. He lied to pull me over in hopes to get me on something better. I’ll be going to court to fight the ticket since he had no legal right to pull me over so he would have never known my inspection was out. I’m sure the cop won’t even show up, but I hope he does so I can take it to trial and really smash it in. Then, I can make a formal complaint on the officer, because if a 28-year veteran will lie about something as small as that, what else would he lie about?
Patrick Bradley
Finally Got Them is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights
