Arrest-Proof Yourself (47 page)

The woman might attack and injure you.

You might argue with or injure the woman.

This sounds harsh, but it’s not. Women can recruit the power of the state to take their side in disputes with men, with disastrous consequences. I myself can testify to the soundness of this advice. One of my ex-wives chased me around the kitchen, knife in hand, shouting. She was easily disarmed. I was not injured. Had the police been called, had she been the least bit injured, without question I would have gone to jail. Luckily, I was teaching about domestic violence at the police academy when this happened. I knew what to do and I did it. I walked out the door, filed for divorce, and have not laid eyes on her since. I abandoned thousands of dollars in new appliances at a time when my wallet was flat as a flounder. Fortunately, I remained free and saved my legal career, which a felony conviction would have ruined.

PART III

ARREST PROOFING IN YOUR CAR

23

CITIZEN INSPECTION? REVENUE COLLECTION? OR DRIVER PROTECTION?

T
o the esteemed governor of your state, to the estimable men and women of your legislature, to the honorable mayor of your fair city, to his honor the police chief of your personal metropolis, and to the immaculately uniformed Officer Friendlies on the boob tube and in the classroom, the primary and sacred purpose of traffic enforcement is citizen safety. We’ve all seen the message: a concerned, paternal police officer who, after giving a driver a ticket, touches his hat and says, “Drive safely, ma’am.”

To the guys in blue driving cruisers, the priorities are different. To cops, the most important part of traffic enforcement is an opportunity to
reach out and arrest someone
. This sounds cynical, but am I ever cynical? Me, a former police officer, now an attorney oozing empathy at every pore and wielding a honeyed tongue in the courtroom for the benefit of learned judges and distinguished juries of your peers? Banish the thought!

Let’s be practical. Cops spend months and years in training. Most of this training is devoted to the following subjects:

how to find bad guys

how to fight bad guys

how to shoot bad guys

how to arrest bad guys

how to convict bad guys

Do you think police officers work and train like crazy to maintain careful, uneventful driving by law-abiding citizens in perfectly maintained automobiles on pristine highways? Heck no! Cops are hunters. They live to arrest bad guys. To cops, citizen safety is not the
goal
of making traffic stops, merely the
by-product
. For cops, the best way to keep the citizens safe is to arrest the maximum number of evil gorks and get them tossed into the jug for the maximum number of years. This will get cops the maximum promotions, the maximum raises, the maximum “attaboys” in the locker room, and the maximum conversations with fascinated and often beautiful women. Remember that top-secret monthly police tally sheet shown earlier in the book? Did you see a score column for “keeping traffic flowing smoothly and safely”? Of course not.

Cops score few points for traffic citations, but citations are crucial to making big arrests. The reason is simple. Serious crimes always require the use of cars. Cars
carry
things—like drugs, guns, money, stolen property, tightly wrapped corpses, and fugitives from justice. Yip, yip, yahoo! When police officers make a street stop, they generally net only a boring misdemeanor arrest. With traffic stops, they make more felony busts. They could even hit the jackpot. I mentioned earlier that some of the worst criminals in American history were apprehended due to traffic stops for routine violations. The law enforcement officers who bagged these monsters are heroes.

DOLLARS FOR CITIES AND ROACH SPRAY FOR CROOKS

All that money from traffic tickets isn’t bad, either. In most states there is a revenue split between the state and the municipality where the ticket was issued. For some small towns, traffic tickets are an important source of revenue, and city commissioners constantly remind cops to lay out those tickets early and often. Enough towns have become speed traps that the American Automobile Association tracks and rates them.

Small-town officials are pleasantly aware of another benefit of tough traffic enforcement—it’s roach spray for bad guys. The reason is simple. Bad guys are all-around scofflaws. Someone who is prepared to commit armed robbery rarely cares about keeping license plates current. Iron-fisted traffic enforcement can reduce the crime rate in a small, easily patrolled town to an astounding degree.

Let me give you an example. Miami Springs, a small town located in the center of Florida’s Miami-Dade County, is famous for some of the toughest traffic enforcement in America. Even
imagining
the speedometer moving over the limit gets you a ticket. And at those stop signs? Full stop and look both ways—or else! Cars with smoking exhaust pipes or broken taillights rarely go more than a few blocks before they’re stopped. If four males are in a car and wearing anything other than business suits and ties, they get busted automatically. Miami Springs is so safe it’s eerie. It’s like Smallville. You expect Superboy to fly overhead and say, “Have a nice day!” Meanwhile, just blocks away in Miami and Hialeah, murder, mayhem, robbery, and rape are the order of the day. Those are Batman towns.

YOUR CAR AS A FREAKING EASTER EGG

When a cop sees a car speeding or weaving between lanes, he doesn’t say to himself, “Aha! There goes an errant vehicle operator in need of firm but oh-so-gentle correction.” What he actually says is, “I wonder if there’s somebody in that heap I can arrest?” Stopping cars is exciting because, as a cop, you never know what you’re going to find. Dead bodies? Duffle bags of pharmaceutically pure cocaine? Shrink-wrapped, neatly bar-coded blocks of hundred-dollar bills? Machine guns? Plastic explosives? One of the Al-Qaeda Top Ten? Anything is possible, and the ordinary patrol cop knows that a traffic stop is the most likely way to make the once-in-a-lifetime arrest. The more traffic tickets you write, the more felony arrests you make. Quantity has a quality all its own—for cops.

So to a cop, your vehicle may
look
like a car or truck, but it
feels
like a big, brightly colored plastic Easter egg, the kind with a prize in the middle.

Traffic stops are fun for other reasons. As a cop, every now and then you flush a rabbit and start a chase that can go all across town, even to other counties and states. Frequently the fugitives toss dope and guns out the windows, which makes evidence gathering easy. When the bad guys freak out or burn their brakes, they bail, so you get an exciting foot chase down alleys and across backyards. (Watch out for those aluminum clothes lines!) This is often followed by a good, old-fashioned street scuffle, with lots of punching, kicking, gouging, and yelling. A quick blast of Mace to the face of an oversized offender can equal the odds, and a Taser jolt will leave the thug vibrating like a marionette on a string. What a way to begin the day—felony and misdemeanor charges; drugs, guns, and money recovered; traffic citations up the wazoo; and a full tally sheet for the sergeant!
Bing, bing, bing!
—points and more points. If the bad guys land a few blows during the scuffle, you get to go to the hospital and have the rest of the day off. This is traffic enforcement from the cops’ point of view. Remember, police
enjoy
chasing people and making arrests.