Saw something interesting last night

[Huzer]

Driving home from Shadow's last night, there was a slow driver in the left lane. There was a Douglas County Sheriff right behind him. The cop blipped his lights, and the car didn't move. He flipped them on a second time for a little longer. Car still doesn't move. He does it a third time, and pulls onto the shoulder next to the idiot. The car pulls into the middle lane, the cop turns their lights off, and the car then pulls back into the left lane directly in front of the cop at the same slow speed. At that point, after 3 warnings, the cop finally just pulled them over.

[Shadowden]

That is odd. Suprised he didn't pull them over off the bat and hit them with a sobriety check. Surely they got a sobriety check at that point.

[RX-7 Chris]

that is really odd.

I had told shadow when I got to his house, at plum creek and I25 a car ran a red really light and nearly hit the car in front of me with a cop stopped at the light. They did get pulled over for that one.

[roninsoldier83]

That is odd. Suprised he didn't pull them over off the bat and hit them with a sobriety check. Surely they got a sobriety check at that point.

You might be shocked at some of the odd things people do when you're in a marked patrol car. Sometimes they're intoxicated.... sometimes, there are other factors that most people don't consider. Common examples: elderly drivers (confused), very young/inexperienced drivers, foreign drivers- many of them drive recklessly and with disregard for others while stone sober! Sometimes people just go into extreme panic mode and start doing silly things when they see a patrol car. Its really hard to tell.

There are also several possible reasons the officer didn't pull them immediately. This is the most common reason:

-They were en route to another call; its bad etiquette to leave another officer alone when you're supposed to be going to cover them. Generally, if you're headed to another call, you're not going to make a traffic stop unless its pretty imperative that you do... and even then its frowned upon, as calls for service take priority over traffic. Most officers don't run "hot" (i.e. lights & sirens) to the majority of their calls as the risk to public safety isn't worth saving the extra ~1 minute worth of commuting. Most of the time an officer is only going to run code if its a high priority call- i.e. generally a felony crime that is currently in progress- homicide, robbery, burglary, felony menacing, 1st degree assault, ect. As such, its almost impossible to tell when they're headed to a call or not. So, if you see a blatant traffic infraction occur right in front of a cop, there's a good chance this is the reason they're not stopping them: they're on their way to something else that takes priority over most traffic infractions.

-Also, going under the speed limit isn't necessarily probable cause to make a stop. Its perfectly legal to drive under the speed limit. If you make a stop for that person ONLY driving slowly in the left lane, you could be lacking the probable cause needed, which could lead to quite a few issues down the road- especially when some crafty defense attorney gets a DUI thrown out at a motions hearing. It sounds like there was probably a reasonable suspicion present initially, but there's a difference between RS and PC. Now, at that point, if there was enough traffic for an officer to articulate it, you could argue that the party was impeding the flow of traffic, which is a valid violation (albeit difficult to prove in court). Or after he signaled him to move over with his overheads, at that point, he could articulate that the car failed to yield to an emergency vehicle- another valid violation. But prior to that, there's nothing in CRS title 42 (Colorado model traffic code) stating that a person can't drive significantly slower than the speed limit, as long as they're not impeding others. Once he started flashing his overheads, different story, but even then, it can be more difficult to articulate than the average person might think, as the average citizen doesn't spend a whole lot of time in pre-trials, motions hearings and jury trials.

DUI's are the most contested crime in the U.S. by a long shot. And if you use your overheads to move someone over, its going to come up in court: "officer, why were you using your overhead lights to move my client in the first place?" And if you respond that you were responding to another call, you're going to be asked what the priority of the call was, and if it was high, its not going to look very "important" per se, if you were willing to preempt off of it in order to pull traffic. Some might then conclude that you had no reason to move the vehicle in the first place and you created your own PC. If a judge is swayed by this type of argument, he might allow an acquittal in motions before it ever even goes to trial; even if the suspect was drunk and there was plenty of evidence- failed roadsides, self admissions, liquor bottles all over the car, failed intox/breath/blood test, ect. To say our legal system is frustrating sometimes is an understatement.

Other things that some might claim as an affirmative defense: "I was trying to stop for him, but he kept turning his lights off and I was confused". Most reasonable people know to pull over to the right.... there is a shockingly large part of our population that does not understand this concept.... they will stop in the left or center lanes.... some will slam on their brakes immediately in a panic stop, while others will coast to a stop a 1/2 mile away, even while sober. People do weird things man....

Obviously I wasn't there, I didn't see the incident and all I'm doing is speculating... but sometimes, there's more going on than the average citizen might think. I find that its usually pretty eye opening when people go on a ride along, as they get to see a much greater part of the picture than they're ever going to see on TV. Regardless, there might have been more than meets the eye and more on the officer's mind than many might realize.

Just my $.02

[Shadowden]

I did a ride a long with CSP. Would love to do a ride along with another agency, but gave up on it once I realized that maybe I didn't want to change professions. Still want to do a ride along with DPD or another PD though.

[Huzer]

To give slightly more info, I'd imagine if they were on their way to another call, they would've gone around the left lane cruiser. The highway was wide open and very few vehicles on the stretch at that time. I was more appalled at the idiot, and whatever their condition was, that was ignoring the lights. Even more so when they signaled and changed lanes to get back in FRONT of the police car!