The United States has one of the largest police forces in the world by number. Love them or hate them there are countless stories that people have with the police, and sometimes those stories aren't that great. These stories detail incidents people had with the police that drove them absolutely crazy.
They’re Eye Drops
“I had just smoke some green leaves with my friends outside our dorm building in this field they use for rugby and intramural sports. We saw a flashlight off in the distance and I told my friends to toss the blunt we were smoking (even though one idiot was convinced it was someone walking their dog).
The cop came up to us and asked what we were doing. Me being high as a freaking kite decided to explain that I was showing my friends how to play rugby (I played in high school). This went on for three minutes before he decided to tell me to shut up. He made us empty our pockets and when he saw my eye-drops, he got all angry and asked me if it was acid. He proceeded to harass me about this trying to threaten me with an acid detector kit (not sure if that even is something cops carry). After like three minutes, I convinced him they were just eye drops.
He continued to be a prick for another five minutes before he finally let us go.”
I Just Wanted Directions
“I was pathetically lost in the back woods of West Virginia at 2 am. I saw a police car and tried to get its attention by flashing my lights, honking my horn, etc. They ignored me. So I followed them for two miles, speeding, driving on the center lines, breaking just about every law, trying to get them to stop. They didn’t. Eventually I got them to stop, and they suspected I was hammered or high. I was crying and trying to explain to them that I was horribly lost and scared. They eventually gave me directions, but I was traumatized.”
Such A Prick
“I went on an alternative spring break trip with Habitat for Humanity a couple weeks ago. On the way back, our car got pulled over for going 90 on I-95 in Virginia.
The cop was rude from the start, and proceeded to harass our driver about the fact that the rental car place had crossed our Habitat for Humanity (which is the name that the car was reserved under) and put our driver’s name instead. He spent about two minutes staring the kid down and telling him that our rental agreement was void, despite the fact that the kid hadn’t done anything but signed his name to it. He ended up giving the kid a reckless driving ticket, while telling him about five times that it was punishable by up to one year in prison.
When the kid tried to tell the cop that he didn’t know how he could be going that fast because his cruise control was set to 80, the cop said, ‘Well, that’s your opinion,’ and walked away. Such a prick.”
Sociopath
“I ate firecrackers (crackers with weed peanut butter) with my friend and went onto the roof of this elementary school to smoke more pot. A janitor (in the middle of summer) called the cops on us because he heard a noise on the roof. We were sitting on the roof and from behind we hear, ‘THIS IS A BERETTA. YOU’RE ON POT.’ The freaking sociopath had a beretta trained on two 16-year-olds. There were like six cops total, and I think they brought a dog, but I was a bit high. They were pricks in the station too…took away my iPod while I was waiting to be interviewed.”
Heck Of A Mixup
“When I was living with my brother and his fiancée, we were in an apartment complex. They were getting it on in the shower, and I was in my room surfing the web when we heard a banging (not a knock but a bang) on our door. I checked in my boxers and saw a group of cops at our door.
I cracked it open and talked to them, and come to find out they were responding to a domestic disturbance call. They were very rude and pushy and I understood to some extent why they would be but it was just irritating. Turns out that the adult fun time turned into play times and my brother got soap or something in his mouth and spit it out, causing his fiancée to scream ‘don’t spit on me,’ which apparently sounds like don’t hit me.
My brother and his fiancée had to come out in their robes and try to convince the cops of this for like 15 minutes before they finally left. Felt very invaded by some very rude cops.”
Best And Worst Of Both Worlds
“My worst experience with a cop was with this prick I went to high school with. He was always a bit of a prick and no one was surprised when he decided to become a cop. He pulled me over one night when I was back in town visiting my parents.
He noticed I had my then girlfriend in the car with me and decided to give me a hard time. He said he wanted to search the car, I told him I didn’t consent. He told us to get out of the car and put our hands on the hood. Then he searched me, very gruffly, and found nothing. He then searched my girlfriend and was very inappropriate. I won’t go into details, but it lead to me yelling and him threatening me. I asked ‘Isn’t this illegal? Isn’t a female officer supposed to search women?’ His response was, ‘I never touched her, and my dash cam isn’t working.'”
I Was Doing The Right Thing
“I was driving home from a party at 4 am. I was the designated driver, completely sober, and my husband was in the passenger seat trashed. I was driving on a rural back road, not speeding, doing nothing wrong, and I passed a cop. He started following, driving an inch behind my bumper with his brights on. After about a mile, I got really mad at him and pulled over hoping he would pass me.
As I put on my blinker and moved over, he threw his lights on and played it off like he’s pulling me over. So he came to the window, and asked if I knew why he pulled me over. I was livid at this point, so I told him ‘You didn’t. You were blinding me with your brights, so I pulled over hoping you would pass and you threw your lights on.’ So he more or less started accusing me of some robberies that were happening at a nearby trailer park. I told him, ‘Sir, I am driving a brand new Subaru and I’m dressed quite nicely. Do you really think I’m trying to rob a trailer park right now? I am coming home from a party and trying to get my hammered husband home.’
He asked me how much I’ve had to drink tonight. ‘Nothing. I’m the DD. I am doing nothing wrong. Can you please just let me go home?’ I kid you not, he then said how I was getting unnecessarily agitated with him, and he had reason to believe I was hammered. ‘Sir, I am getting agitated because you are wasting my time, and your time as well. It is 4 o’clock in the morning. I want to go home and go to bed.’
He then decided he had nothing on me and let me leave.”
Light On Crime
“I was in ninth grade, and it was Halloween. I was with a few of my friends, and my buddy’s older brother told us that if you kick a street lamp hard enough, the light would go out. Sure enough, we decided to test this theory that night, and it worked. Of course, we ran when we nailed the first one, and caught up as we were in the excitement of the night, we hit another. Then I got a call from one of my other friends: ‘Someone called the cops on you guys!’
We ran into my friend’s house after scampering through backyards to escape and waited, but not for long enough, because when we came outside, there was a fat old police man waiting. He intimidated us and threatened us with property damage and other crimes, then he took down our information and called our parents. It was awful.”
Silly Thing To Go To Court Over
“Me and my sister are on the way home. I do a rolling stop (apparently on offense) on a completely empty road coming off of my exit. The cops stops me and takes my license, telling me I ran a stop sign (which I did), then telling me I could have caused an accident (I could have … if there were cars on the road to hit).
Anyway, he asks me my name and apparently there is a guy in Georgia (I’m from Florida) who was arrested for fighting at a club. Obviously, it’s not me, but whatever. He gives me a ticket and I’m off. I’m pretty mad, but I go to traffic court, plead not guilty and wait for the date to get the verdict from the traffic judge. The day comes, and I am nervous as every one goes to the front to get their decisions. The judge hears my offense, and simply asks, ‘Did you cause an accident?’
I tell him no, and he says to be more careful on the road and the fees are waived.”
She Just Wanted To Take Care Of The Problem
“When I lived in Tampa, I was getting on the freeway, civilian Crown Vic behind me. A couple times in a row, we both change lanes into the same gap at the same time. Naturally, I thought nothing of it. Maybe 15 seconds later, the guy pulls up next to me honking his horn and waving his badge out the window motioning me to pull over. So I pull over, and this guy leaps out of his car and starts bloating about how he’s a cop and I was cutting him off on purpose, and he could take me to jail for ‘playing freaking games with me’ and so on and so on. So I, being 24 and fearless, start yelling back at him telling him that I wasn’t doing anything wrong intentionally and to go ahead and take me to jail. He oinked back at me something about me being lucky he had somewhere to be, got back in his car, and left.”
Run Away! Run Away!
“I was hammered out of my mind trying to be a good guy and not drink and drive, so I’m walking but obviously stumbling a little bit. Cop comes up on me like he’s going to arrest me, asking me for ID and all this other nonsense. I tell him I’m hammered and I’m trying to get to the bus stop. I don’t know what prompted him, but he then reached out and tried to put my hands behind my back, I just sprint forward because there’s no way this guy is bringing me in for that.
I end up clearing about two blocks before looking back and I can tell he’s quite a bit behind me (dat blitzed sprint speed). I can tell he’s radioing someone, so I end up ducking off into an alley after one more block. I double back to my car and drove home since that experience was enough to sober me up.”
Is This Really Worth The Cost?
“This is located at the Coney Island station. My friend and I were being accused of going through a turnstile at the subway station with a friend. They thought we both came in with a single swipe as opposed to paying individually.
They asked us if we came in together implying if we went through the turnstile in one swipe, but my friend misinterpreted and thought he meant if we were going somewhere as a group, so he replied yes.
They took us downstairs to the station booth where they proceeded to call in another squad car or write us tickets when I suddenly had the brilliant idea of telling him to swipe our metro cards at the card reader which will tell you when the last time the card was used. He had no choice but to let us go.
To date, I haven’t seen a more disappointed look on a cop’s face. I still remember his name, Amir.”
Kick A Man While He’s Down
“I was out running and came up to an intersection where I had the walk sign, so I started to cross. I didn’t notice the cop coming up to the intersection looking to his left to see if he could make a right turn safely, and he never looked right for a pedestrian. Luckily I was not hurt too badly since he was not going that fast, but I was knocked down and had some bruises/scrapes.
Then things started going crazy as he got out of his cruiser and began yelling at me. He was mainly going on that I did not have the light and that jaywalking was a serious problem. The woman in the car behind him got out and joined me in saying that I had the light. The cop threatened to arrest the woman for interfering in a police investigation and began writing me a jaywalking ticket.
Luckily for me, the woman got on her cell phone and called for both the EMT and the police to deal with the guy. When the EMT arrived, the cop tried to prevent them from getting to me by saying that not only had he ticketed me he was going to arrest me, though he was not specific about the reason. A cop car arrive a minute later and he and the first cop were arguing pretty quickly over me, the witness, the EMT, pretty much everything. The second cop then walks back to his cruiser and gets on the radio and about three minutes later two more cop cars including the shift supervisor are on scene. The Sargent takes control, gets the EMTs to look at me, has a witness statement from the witness, and tells the cop that hit me to sit down and shut up if he wanted any chance of remaining a cop. When the EMTs are done the Sargent comes over to me, rips up the ticket and has a long talk, the main gist of which was whether I wanted to pursue action against the cop. I said I would be happy if he just got a ticket for an unsafe turn (something the Sargent suggested), which since he was in his police cruiser would essentially put him on a form of probation for a while. The Sargent also had him write a letter of apology to me for his actions which I got a while later.”
That Has To Be Illegal
“Backstory to my backstory: I’ve received only one ticket since I started driving. $253 for going 5 over the limit at 1:30 at night in a town that’s scary as heck and, surprise! A speed trap. –fast forward– A few nights before all of the following happens, my car got towed for a stupid reason.
My friend came to visit my town and we went to dinner. Afterwards I was dropping her off at a club to meet her friend. While we’re downtown and I’m looking for somewhere to drop her, cop car pulls up behind us, lights flashing. Two cops are in this car. Middle aged donut-eater cop is at my window, young clearly wet-behind-the-ears newbie cop is at my friends. They tell me my headlight is out, I apologize and explain it was towed and the towers must have bonked it and I didn’t notice because this was the first night I’d been driving since. Then Newbie cop runs my license, and the next thing I know, Donutcop drags me out of my car and puts handcuffs on me. My friend is, to say the least, a bit distressed.
Turns out that my license is suspended. I couldn’t pay the $253 speed trap ticket in fall, so my father graciously paid it for me. When he did, he signed me up for traffic school but forgot to tell me. My address on my license wasn’t the one I was living at, so I never got the suspension notice. I explain this entire story to the cops, I know it’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. Donut throws me in the back of the cop car, where I’d BARELY fit WITHOUT having my hands cuffed behind me, and they go to question my friend, who is still sitting in my car. If you’ve never been in the back of a squad car, it’s clearly constructed for dwarves with two footlong legs. My legs are 36″, so imagine a baby giraffe shoved into the back of a very small car. It’s a wonder I didn’t cut myself on the handcuffs.
Donut comes back, takes me out of the car, and then a lady cop comes over with gloves and searches me. A THIRD random cop wanders over to see whats going on, possibly because I’m 110 lbs of girl and I’m in handcuffs, so clearly I must’ve pulled some crazy nonsene. He and donut are chit chatting while I get searched. I overhear them discussing tasters.
Donuts: ‘…If they struggle just tase them’
Rando: ‘No man, we don’t use tasers for something like that’
Donuts: ‘I DO.’
Rando: ‘What? Seriously’
Donuts: ‘Sure! I go through more taser parts than anybody’
What the heck?
Anyways, I’m not hiding anything since my Glock doesn’t fit in my daisy dukes, so he sticks me back in the car. Now newbie and Donuts are over by my car arguing. For a solid ten to twelve minutes. When they finally take me out again, newbie starts writing my tickets. Donuts tells me ‘if it was up to me, you’d be spending the night in jail. My partner here is a sucker for a pretty face, so he said no.’ He goes on to explain my tickets, $104 for driving while suspended, the headlight one doesn’t actually cost me any, and I have to do the traffic school and go to court. Then he says to me ‘Did I just ruin your night?’
While I’m always very VERY polite, I’m not a good bullshitter. I can’t lie to cops, I can’t cry to cops. I don’t like being insincere. I can’t help it, I say to him ‘Well….I mean, yeah of course, but it wasn’t with the tickets.’ Then he says ‘I didn’t ruin your night, YOU ruined your night. All you needed was a nine dollar headlight and none of this would’ve happened’ Stupid response. I’d still be driving suspended and never have found out about and then where would I be? He couldn’t get my handcuffs off because something was wrong with the lock. I politely slipped them off my hands, showing I really only kept them on because I’m a good sport and didn’t want anymore trouble.
Newbie cop gives me my tickets and is very sympathetic, he says he knows the speed trap where I got my first ticket, and he thinks it’s a ridiculous place. He says have a good night.
In the car my friend tells me about when they questioned her, asked her how long she’d known me and if I was doing narcotics (‘Nearly ten years, and no. She works hard at two jobs and is a National Merit scholar/honors student. She doesn’t have time for stupid garbage like narcotics’), and how she heard them arguing about me going to jail. Newbie cop basically said ‘No. She didn’t do anything that warrants cuffing her and taking her to jail overnight, I’m not doing it.’ Donuts was not happy.
The worst part is that a friend of mine got nearly the EXACT same ticket a few months ago; the only difference was that it was his brake light that was out. He didn’t even get out of his car. Two tickets and sent on his way home to take car of them. I’d never had an experience with the police in my college-town where they weren’t charming and concerned about my safety. I think maybe I got profiled because my hair was funky neon colors and I looked way ‘badder’ than I actually am.”
They Didn’t Have To Be Rude
“High out of my mind sitting in a parking lot at the beach talking to a girl, cops pull up and proceed to give us grief for almost an hour while they tried to find something to ticket/arrest us for. My friend had been to a costume party and was dressed as a lady of the night, which made it look all the worse. They searched us, my car, yelled and swore at us after they realized they had nothing on us, and left. They were pricks”