Good Cop, Mad Cop
If there is anyone (outside of perhaps, Hunter S. Thompson) more qualified to write about client-customer relations with the police, it might just be me. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but I can say with certainty that most (but not all) of our encounters occurred during my reckless youth that I prefer to think of as “good times gone bad because men with badges showed up.” I’ve never been charged, or cited for anything terrible like assault against another, or even worse, singing along to a love song authored by a nineties teenage boy band. As crazy and out of hand as I’ve let situations become over the years, even I know when to draw the line.
I recently had an encounter with a Policeman in the lovely little hamlet of Framingham, Massachusetts that somehow led me to reminisce about some of the times I’ve had the luck (or lack thereof) to find myself face-to-face with someone well informed on the law and whose job it is to enforce it.
I should mention that I don’t believe there are good Cops and bad Cops. Outside of the few bad apples that we occasionally see in the headlines, I think most all of them are good and I admire what they do. Even in my younger “days-of-bad-decisions,” I never held hate in my heart for the men in blue. I’ll admit; I was always dismayed to see a Cop show up right about when I was hoping he wouldn’t, but I learned something over the years: there are good Cops, and there are mad Cops. The good Cops are not only professionally calm and as polite as you let the situation dictate, they can make a traumatic, fear-inducing event turn into a learning experience. The mad Cops yell and scream (sometimes complete with a red face) and they often leave the person on the receiving end of the all the yelling thinking, “no wonder some people don’t like the Police.”
I’ve met both in the course of my long and storied criminal career, but I always enjoyed the good Cops most, because they taught me something. There was the time in my teens when I learned that being a smart ass whilst being detained isn’t such a great idea; I was once handcuffed in the back of a Pennsylvania State Police car, my friend sitting next to me also in handcuffs. We were going down the road when I somehow managed to wiggle my scrawny little hands to the door handle, which I pulled, causing the door to fling wide open, while we were traveling at highway speed. I proceeded to yell to my captors, “look, I could jump out right now, but I’m not going to, am I?” I not only saw a Police car go from fifty to zero in less than a second, I also saw good Cops turn into mad Cops just as quickly. I also learned that officers of the law do not always enjoy my good sense of humor as much as I do, and I long ago learned to restrain its use when dealing with them.
If I had to choose, I’d much prefer dealing with a good Cop to a mad Cop. I’ve never learned much from a mad Cop, but I’ve learned a lot from the good Cops. Like it’s not a good idea to possess marijuana (or the tools needed to enjoy it) because you could be arrested. Twice.
Somewhere in my mid-teens I managed to get myself the standard issue charge of possession of some pot; it was really no big deal since I was sentenced to probation followed by removal from my record. Actually, it would have been no big deal if I had actually learned my lesson; unfortunately I was still at the age where sometimes I needed to repeat the lesson twice before they sank in to my thick skull. A year or so after that, I found myself in the state of New Jersey; I was lured there by a friend’s mythical promise of “get high in Jersey and later in life you’ll never have to drive a tractor-trailer through it.” Not only did it turn out that he lied to me, but the Cops showed up and found some marijuana on one of my lady friends in the party (literally, it was a party). He was a good Cop and kind enough to strike a deal with us: one of us can claim ownership of the weed or he’ll charge us all. Always the gentleman, and since I thought I knew how this worked (plead guilty, get probation, life goes on) I made one of the worst decisions of my life by saying, “Dude, it’s mine!” I was handcuffed and placed in a Police car and off we went.
A friend of mine came along with me to court over in Jersey for my court appearance (without an attorney) where I would quickly learn that you only get that probation-removal-from-record-deal once. I’ll never, ever, forget how awesome that judge was that evening. He couldn’t believe I didn’t have an attorney present and must have known that the prosecutor wanted me locked away forever. He saved my life with one statement, “do you know that it is likely that you could go to jail tonight? I’ll give you one more chance to plead not guilty and retain an attorney.” Not even a second passed by from the time his lips stopped moving until I yelled out, “not guilty!” Long story short, I had to get an attorney, who would later tell me that the prosecutor was the meanest he had ever seen in his career. He actually said that she would “kick a baby.” In a testament to how lucky a bastard I really am, I walked away from Jersey with my freedom intact and actually scored another stint of probation followed by removal-from-record. (Actually, I’m so unbelievably lucky that I got the probation-removal from record deal not once, not twice, but three times! You’ll have to buy my book if you want to know what happened that third time!) It was a costly night out in Jersey and a lesson that scared me so bad that it eventually caused me to stop smoking pot. I think that was the intended lesson from the good Cops involved, and the judge that saved me from going straight to jail, where I surely would have been cellmates with some huge guy named Billy Bob - followed by being scarred for life for the atrocities that would have surely followed.
After my two transgressions put the fear into me, I found it hard to enjoy smoking the pot and soon quit. Oh, I tried it a few times afterwards but always ended up sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth in sheer paranoia while wishing that I hadn’t. Even the munchies couldn’t be enjoyed, I was certain that on my way from point A to point fridge, I’d be arrested and thrown in jail by the policemen who surely lurked in the shadows. My distaste for marijuana is so strong that even if I was unfortunate enough to be stricken with a disease where medical marijuana might be beneficial, I wouldn’t be able to partake. I can imagine sitting in a room with the Police urging me on, “go ahead Jason, look, we left our guns in the car!” I’d be quick to reply, “No thanks, I see you still carry badges and I’ve read about that three strikes law!” The good Cops taught me a valuable lesson (even though it took two stints in handcuffs to learn it) and saved me from the life of a stoner, which comes in real handy now that I possess a CDL license. Drugs and tractor-trailers are never a good mix.
Enough with all this pot-talk. I’m growing paranoid just writing about it. Time to move on.
I grew up in a tiny hamlet on the outskirts of Emmaus, Pennsylvania. Thinking back again to my younger days, I guess I really became a household name within the Emmaus Police Department once I got my driver’s license and began to roam around freely. It’s my belief that the good men in blue often spent an ungodly amount of their time just looking for yours truly. Case in point: My sister and I shared an old beat up 1970 Volvo that we were blessed enough to receive from our parents. One night she and her cohorts were visiting a park in Emmaus, very late at night. The Cops showed up and noticed the car and automatically assumed they had me on an out-too-late-on-a-junior-license charge. My sister and her friends were in the nearby woods when they heard the shouts of the Police: “Jason Harry, come out, we know you’re in there!” Unfortunately for them, they would soon become embarrassed Cops when they learned I wasn’t nearby, probably because I was home in the confines of my bedroom, perhaps reading the bible or some other best-selling book about self-improvement.
It was with wheels, where I first saw good Cops and mad Cops. My first experience with a mad Cop was in my 1970 Mustang. Actually, that car seemed to create an unusually high introduction rate to the mad Cops, but one case in particular sticks out in my mind. My friend and I were just released from a day in prison (oops, I mean High School) on a fabulously warm spring afternoon. We hopped in my Mustang, rolled down the windows, cranked up the radio and zoomed out of the parking lot. (On a side note, I only used the radio in that car as girl bait; when I was by myself, the exhaust notes of that car were the only music I needed!) Anyway, I pulled out of the parking lot and let all 351 cubic inches of engine loose, complete with screeching (and smoking) tires. A quarter mile later, I turned left at a stop sign and did it again, only that time I managed to repeat the screech-smoke process in second gear. One half mile later, I made a right turn towards home and did it again. About a mile and half later, we arrived at a red light and I screamed over the music to my passenger friend, “Do you hear something strange?” As soon as I asked that question I looked in the rearview mirror and was horrified to see a police car containing the reddest, maddest faced Policeman, gesturing for me to pull the car over. Apparently, he was extra mad because he was trying to pull me over since he saw me rip of the high school parking lot several miles beforehand. Whoops. He was one mad Cop and he gave me a reckless driving ticket as a reward for my shenanigans. If I only possessed the mirror scanning tactics that I possess as a truck driver today, I could avoided turning him into a mad Cop and perhaps managed to meet him as a good Cop by pulling over immediately, but oh well, I was still learning things (as I am to this very day). That day was my first introduction to the “mad Cop.” Unfortunately, there would be others.
As for the good Cops, the best example happened once I bought my first new car back in 1998. I bought a brand new 1997 VW Jetta and spent an unnecessary amount of money accessorizing the car. One of those accessories was a custom exhaust that sounded obnoxiously good. Shortly after it was installed, another friend and I drove it to Pottstown Pa, to reminisce about the times we used to cruise the circuit there. We were dismayed to see that it was nothing as we remembered it (probably because the Cops put an end to the cruising after my friends and I tore up the town back in the day). As we headed back towards home that fateful evening, I decided to put my new Volkswagen through the paces. We were somewhere north of a hundred miles an hour when I noticed a Police car on the shoulder. He already had somebody pulled over so I didn’t panic. I didn’t even hit the brakes, just kind of let off the accelerator and cruised on by. It wasn’t but three or four miles later when I noticed Police lights coming up on us at a high rate of speed. Uh-oh. The officer was an older gentleman who quite calmly informed me that he got me on radar going 91 miles an hour in a 50 mile an hour zone. Uh-oh again. He asked why I was going that fast and I answered that I was trying out my new exhaust. He asked “what if a deer jumped out in front you at that speed?” I answered, “I’d politely ask him to move.” We shared a laugh and then he wrote me a ticket that was so damaging that I had to hire an attorney (again) to hold on to my license. He was a good enough Cop to let my attorney talk him into lowering the ticket from 91 in a 55 to 70 in a 55. It saved my license and had he not been such a good Cop, I could have ended up hitchhiking for quite some time!
As I grew older and somehow gained enough maturity to become a commercial truck driver, I still have had my share of introductions to some fine (and not so fine) Officers of the Law. That cannot be helped, since there are things such as weigh stations and DOT Officers who can randomly pull you over for no reason other than that they can. I have no problem with either of these and welcome the opportunities to prove myself a safe and legal driver. All my encounters with these ladies and gentlemen have been pleasurable experiences with the exception of my latest encounter, but we’ll get to him in a minute- it’s a pure save-the-best-for-last kind of story.
My second-to-latest encounter with the law was by a good Cop who I managed to meet on my way to a rest area in Smyrna, Delaware. It was nearing the end of my day, after 9 at night, and darkness had set in. I just went through the second high-speed EZ Pass lanes south of Dover when I noticed flashing Police lights behind me. I was not concerned at all as my truck only goes sixty-six miles an hour at the top of the cruise control setting, and I was in the right lane giving him room to pass off my left. But he didn’t pass. He came up on my tail and stayed there. “Darn fans,” I thought, “he probably wants an autograph” and I quickly made my way onto the shoulder. Turns out he was a State Trooper, and a very polite and pleasant one at that. I was informed that he was out doing random truck checks and I happened to be the “next truck that passed.” When he found out where I was from he replied that he grew up in the nearby area and still has family that lives there. We chatted about that fact for a while before he checked my logs and the basic functions of my truck. He was perhaps the most pleasant and polite Officer I had ever had the pleasure of meeting in all my days as a commercial driver. After fifteen minutes (and many compliments on my truck and logbook neatness) he set me free.
I wish every Officer were as polite and professional as that Delaware State Trooper is, but sadly, they are not. Take for instance my next encounter with the grumpiest, meanest police officer in perhaps all of Massachusetts (if not the entire Northeast!)
On a Thursday back in September, I was working out of our covert operations center located in Massachusetts. I was dispatched on a seven stop load for that Friday, the first stop of which I had not ever been to in Framingham, Massachusetts. I consulted with my friend and local driver expert, Gary, about what the stop in question entailed. His first response upon hearing the name was “oh boy.” I’ve learned a lot from Gary over the years and one of the biggest things I learned is that when I ask Gary about a stop, he either says “oh, that’s an easy one,” (which I am always happy to hear) or he says the dreaded, “oh boy.” He said there were a couple ways to get there and asked if I liked extremely tight “get all the way in the left lane” right turns. Nobody likes them, but as a skilled driver I can handle them. Still, I had just come off a terrible adventure in the vicinity of Pittsburgh that left me scouting out the area on foot because of what someone else termed a “tight turn.” That turn was not only tight, it was impossible, and to avoid any more traumatic situations, I made the mistake of coming up with my own plan instead of taking my friend’s good advice.
When looking at my mapping program on my laptop, I noticed that if I went one more exit past where Gary said to exit, I could simply go south, bang a right turn, bang another right turn, and then finally bang an easy left turn (where Gary wanted me to make the tight right turn) and I’d be there! I was once again thankful for my trip planning skills and hit the sack convinced there would be no more trauma this week. Unfortunately what looks good on paper (or in my case, a computer screen) doesn’t always pan out so well in real life.
I took my route and everything was going perfect. I made my final right turn and was quickly approaching the street where I needed to make my final left turn. To my absolute horror, I saw not one, but two portable type signs in the middle of the road that were clearly marked “NO LEFT TURN!” I was stopped at the intersection, blinker on: it was time to think fast.
Every so often, I come upon a situation like this. On one hand, I can see the customer’s unloading area; on the other hand, I see two signs that clearly say I am not allowed to enter from this direction. I do the standard trucker assessment of the situation that includes (but is not limited to) questions like, could I make the turn without putting others or myself in danger? Sure could. Could I make the turn without doing damage to my equipment or personal property of others? Without a doubt. What lies ahead for me if I don’t turn now and instead continue straight into the unknown? I DON’T KNOW, I’M SCARED AND I WANT TO GO HOME! Every trucker eventually comes upon this kind of situation and if one should tell you that he (or she) doesn’t, they’re lying. Some truckers would even agree with what I did. I made the left turn (without incident) made a quick right turn and parked the truck where the customer was waiting for me. End-of-story. Not.
I walked back to the customer, a rather nice fellow, who informed me that he would back his little box truck to my trailer, and we’d unload right there. I went to open the doors and noticed I had to back up about two inches so the trailer door would clear a parked car. I jumped in the truck, backed up two inches and set the brakes. It was at this moment that I saw a Police car pull up and park on the opposite shoulder. I didn’t notice any lights and I tried not to look at him, the injustice I had just pulled off still fresh in my mind.
I exited the truck and saw an officer get out of the car; I gave him a nod and started to walk back to the trailer when I hear “GIVE ME YOUR PAPERS!” I looked around, saw no one else and had no choice to assume he was talking to me, but I still didn’t want to believe it. I also assumed it was my turn to talk.
“Excuse me?”
Let me pause this story for a moment and allow me to explain what was transpiring in my head. First of all, I never saw a Police officer around when I made that turn so I had no reason believe he saw me do it. But I also know that in the past, the Cops have seen me do lots of stuff I thought they didn’t, but they clearly did. Never have I been greeted by such a demand. I mean really, “give me your papers?” What kind of way is that to greet a customer? And what does it even mean? I thought about all the papers I had in my truck. There’s a stack of local newspapers that I buy in different towns and then keep to clean the windows. Not a ton, I try to throw some away so I don’t end up on that new TV show “Hoarders: Trucker Edition.” I also had some stories that I have previously written that I printed out, on paper. I considered grabbing one of those, signing it in his presence, handing it to him and then just walking away- could you imagine what might have been my fate had I done that? But alas, I had other papers like shipping papers, and other trucker credentials. Still, I couldn’t be sure what papers he was looking for with that kind of greeting, so I asked a simple question, in the best “I’m not a smart-ass” way I could muster.
“What Papers?”
“THE PAPERS I NEED SO I CAN WRITE YOU A TICKET FOR MAKING THAT LEFT TURN BACK THERE!”
Now that things were clear, I knew I had been had, so I admitted my transgression and offered an apology.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve never been here before and made the mistake of panicking and making that turn because I wasn’t sure….”
He cut me off by saying (no, actually yelling) “WHAT STATE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN TO IS IT OKAY TO MAKE A LEFT TURN WHERE A SIGN SAYS NO LEFT TURN?”
The Smart-Ass part of brain (that is alive and well) wanted to reply, “Well, there’s a place in Baltimore where we have to go down to a one way street to the dock, and another in New York that blah blah blah….” Even though I could recite half a dozen real life scenarios, my gut instincts were to keep my mouth shut.
“Look officer, I said I was sorry, I’m admitting…”
Again, I was cut off.
“JUST GIVE ME YOUR PAPERS, LICENSE, MEDICAL CARD, LOG BOOK. IF I HAVE TO GET A D.O.T. GUY DOWN HERE I WILL!”
I was completely taken aback by his lack of professionalism and wondered where all his anger was coming from. There were pedestrians on the sidewalk: to them, it must have looked like he had just caught me exposing myself to a bunch of schoolchildren on a school bus, that’s how mad this guy was. I gave him what he asked for and then went and sat in the driver’s seat of my truck. I was mad at myself for doing what I did for about a second or two before my thoughts turned back to the Officer in the car who was surely writing me the biggest ticket the world ever did see.
Why is he so angry? Does he have any idea I’m a human being that made a mistake? Does he know my heart is still a little heavy because I talked to my three year old Son this morning and he told me in the sweetest little guy voice how much he misses me and wants me to come home? Does he know that tomorrow at this time, I hope to be airborne in a little airplane with my Dad, en route to a classic airplane fly-in? Does this guy have kids? He seems old enough to have Grandkids; I sure hope he treats them with a little decency if he is blessed enough to have any. If there were a video of camera of him in action just now, would his family be proud of him as an Officer of the Law? Do these jeans make me look fat?
After what seemed like an eternity, but was more like ten minutes, Mister Meanie exited his police car, walked to my window and without a word, handed me a ticket and walked away. Our parting, to me, was just as rude as his greeting. Nonetheless, I kept my mouth shut and looked at the ticket. Fifty bucks for failing to obey a sign. I somehow felt lucky, that he did me a favor for not making my morning worse.
Even with all my experience with Officers of the law, this guy was, perhaps, the maddest cop I have ever seen in my life, and trust me, I have done things where the anger was much more deserving. Further more, I learned nothing. Had he been a good cop, he might have taken the time to explain to me that next time I come to that customer, all I have to do is continue north two or three blocks and then turn left. I had to find that out by myself because two weeks later, I was sent to the same customer. I didn’t feel comfortable the entire time I again visited that town because even though I didn’t see him, I knew my Police Sergeant friend was watching me, and I really didn’t desire another meeting with him.
Even though he was a mad Cop, I can’t hold it against him. He took what I did personally, but he’s paid to protect and serve the town of Framingham, so he’s entitled to take it personally if he so desires. I’m also inclined to know that he’s a human and prone to having a bad day, so that may his explain his mood on that fateful day. Even though I wasn’t happy with the treatment, I did make a mistake and I was raised to respect my elders, including ones that are mean to me and hold a badge. Heck, he gave me an idea for this story (as if I don’t have enough to write about). If you’re in Framingham, be careful. If you’re anywhere else and see a ‘no left turn’ sign, think twice before you go for it!
I guess I have learned a lot from my experiences with the fine Officers of the law, but I still think I learned more from the good Cops versus the mad Cops. I’ve learned that possessing marijuana is a bad idea, going a hundred miles an hour is not only dangerous to your life and the lives of others, but also to your license, and that mutual respect during an encounter with the law makes the experience more pleasant for all the parties involved.
The only thing I know for sure is that as a human, I’m prone to making the occasional mistake and as such, I’ll probably catch the eye of the law again one day. I can only hope that it is a good Cop over a mad one. Perhaps I’ll print out a few copies of this story and keep a few in the glove box of my car and some in my truck.
If you happen to be an Officer of the law who is reading this after an encounter with yours truly, I sure hope it wasn’t for anything serious. I’ve always had respect for the job you do and have spent years perfecting myself to become an upstanding citizen of not just my community, but also every community I travel through.
If you are a good Cop, thanks for that, and hopefully I learned something through our meeting.
If you are a mad Cop, I’m sorry about that. Save your anger for the real criminals of the world and of course, those who sing along to love songs authored by a nineties teenage boy band.
I recently had an encounter with a Policeman in the lovely little hamlet of Framingham, Massachusetts that somehow led me to reminisce about some of the times I’ve had the luck (or lack thereof) to find myself face-to-face with someone well informed on the law and whose job it is to enforce it.
I should mention that I don’t believe there are good Cops and bad Cops. Outside of the few bad apples that we occasionally see in the headlines, I think most all of them are good and I admire what they do. Even in my younger “days-of-bad-decisions,” I never held hate in my heart for the men in blue. I’ll admit; I was always dismayed to see a Cop show up right about when I was hoping he wouldn’t, but I learned something over the years: there are good Cops, and there are mad Cops. The good Cops are not only professionally calm and as polite as you let the situation dictate, they can make a traumatic, fear-inducing event turn into a learning experience. The mad Cops yell and scream (sometimes complete with a red face) and they often leave the person on the receiving end of the all the yelling thinking, “no wonder some people don’t like the Police.”
I’ve met both in the course of my long and storied criminal career, but I always enjoyed the good Cops most, because they taught me something. There was the time in my teens when I learned that being a smart ass whilst being detained isn’t such a great idea; I was once handcuffed in the back of a Pennsylvania State Police car, my friend sitting next to me also in handcuffs. We were going down the road when I somehow managed to wiggle my scrawny little hands to the door handle, which I pulled, causing the door to fling wide open, while we were traveling at highway speed. I proceeded to yell to my captors, “look, I could jump out right now, but I’m not going to, am I?” I not only saw a Police car go from fifty to zero in less than a second, I also saw good Cops turn into mad Cops just as quickly. I also learned that officers of the law do not always enjoy my good sense of humor as much as I do, and I long ago learned to restrain its use when dealing with them.
If I had to choose, I’d much prefer dealing with a good Cop to a mad Cop. I’ve never learned much from a mad Cop, but I’ve learned a lot from the good Cops. Like it’s not a good idea to possess marijuana (or the tools needed to enjoy it) because you could be arrested. Twice.
Somewhere in my mid-teens I managed to get myself the standard issue charge of possession of some pot; it was really no big deal since I was sentenced to probation followed by removal from my record. Actually, it would have been no big deal if I had actually learned my lesson; unfortunately I was still at the age where sometimes I needed to repeat the lesson twice before they sank in to my thick skull. A year or so after that, I found myself in the state of New Jersey; I was lured there by a friend’s mythical promise of “get high in Jersey and later in life you’ll never have to drive a tractor-trailer through it.” Not only did it turn out that he lied to me, but the Cops showed up and found some marijuana on one of my lady friends in the party (literally, it was a party). He was a good Cop and kind enough to strike a deal with us: one of us can claim ownership of the weed or he’ll charge us all. Always the gentleman, and since I thought I knew how this worked (plead guilty, get probation, life goes on) I made one of the worst decisions of my life by saying, “Dude, it’s mine!” I was handcuffed and placed in a Police car and off we went.
A friend of mine came along with me to court over in Jersey for my court appearance (without an attorney) where I would quickly learn that you only get that probation-removal-from-record-deal once. I’ll never, ever, forget how awesome that judge was that evening. He couldn’t believe I didn’t have an attorney present and must have known that the prosecutor wanted me locked away forever. He saved my life with one statement, “do you know that it is likely that you could go to jail tonight? I’ll give you one more chance to plead not guilty and retain an attorney.” Not even a second passed by from the time his lips stopped moving until I yelled out, “not guilty!” Long story short, I had to get an attorney, who would later tell me that the prosecutor was the meanest he had ever seen in his career. He actually said that she would “kick a baby.” In a testament to how lucky a bastard I really am, I walked away from Jersey with my freedom intact and actually scored another stint of probation followed by removal-from-record. (Actually, I’m so unbelievably lucky that I got the probation-removal from record deal not once, not twice, but three times! You’ll have to buy my book if you want to know what happened that third time!) It was a costly night out in Jersey and a lesson that scared me so bad that it eventually caused me to stop smoking pot. I think that was the intended lesson from the good Cops involved, and the judge that saved me from going straight to jail, where I surely would have been cellmates with some huge guy named Billy Bob - followed by being scarred for life for the atrocities that would have surely followed.
After my two transgressions put the fear into me, I found it hard to enjoy smoking the pot and soon quit. Oh, I tried it a few times afterwards but always ended up sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth in sheer paranoia while wishing that I hadn’t. Even the munchies couldn’t be enjoyed, I was certain that on my way from point A to point fridge, I’d be arrested and thrown in jail by the policemen who surely lurked in the shadows. My distaste for marijuana is so strong that even if I was unfortunate enough to be stricken with a disease where medical marijuana might be beneficial, I wouldn’t be able to partake. I can imagine sitting in a room with the Police urging me on, “go ahead Jason, look, we left our guns in the car!” I’d be quick to reply, “No thanks, I see you still carry badges and I’ve read about that three strikes law!” The good Cops taught me a valuable lesson (even though it took two stints in handcuffs to learn it) and saved me from the life of a stoner, which comes in real handy now that I possess a CDL license. Drugs and tractor-trailers are never a good mix.
Enough with all this pot-talk. I’m growing paranoid just writing about it. Time to move on.
I grew up in a tiny hamlet on the outskirts of Emmaus, Pennsylvania. Thinking back again to my younger days, I guess I really became a household name within the Emmaus Police Department once I got my driver’s license and began to roam around freely. It’s my belief that the good men in blue often spent an ungodly amount of their time just looking for yours truly. Case in point: My sister and I shared an old beat up 1970 Volvo that we were blessed enough to receive from our parents. One night she and her cohorts were visiting a park in Emmaus, very late at night. The Cops showed up and noticed the car and automatically assumed they had me on an out-too-late-on-a-junior-license charge. My sister and her friends were in the nearby woods when they heard the shouts of the Police: “Jason Harry, come out, we know you’re in there!” Unfortunately for them, they would soon become embarrassed Cops when they learned I wasn’t nearby, probably because I was home in the confines of my bedroom, perhaps reading the bible or some other best-selling book about self-improvement.
It was with wheels, where I first saw good Cops and mad Cops. My first experience with a mad Cop was in my 1970 Mustang. Actually, that car seemed to create an unusually high introduction rate to the mad Cops, but one case in particular sticks out in my mind. My friend and I were just released from a day in prison (oops, I mean High School) on a fabulously warm spring afternoon. We hopped in my Mustang, rolled down the windows, cranked up the radio and zoomed out of the parking lot. (On a side note, I only used the radio in that car as girl bait; when I was by myself, the exhaust notes of that car were the only music I needed!) Anyway, I pulled out of the parking lot and let all 351 cubic inches of engine loose, complete with screeching (and smoking) tires. A quarter mile later, I turned left at a stop sign and did it again, only that time I managed to repeat the screech-smoke process in second gear. One half mile later, I made a right turn towards home and did it again. About a mile and half later, we arrived at a red light and I screamed over the music to my passenger friend, “Do you hear something strange?” As soon as I asked that question I looked in the rearview mirror and was horrified to see a police car containing the reddest, maddest faced Policeman, gesturing for me to pull the car over. Apparently, he was extra mad because he was trying to pull me over since he saw me rip of the high school parking lot several miles beforehand. Whoops. He was one mad Cop and he gave me a reckless driving ticket as a reward for my shenanigans. If I only possessed the mirror scanning tactics that I possess as a truck driver today, I could avoided turning him into a mad Cop and perhaps managed to meet him as a good Cop by pulling over immediately, but oh well, I was still learning things (as I am to this very day). That day was my first introduction to the “mad Cop.” Unfortunately, there would be others.
As for the good Cops, the best example happened once I bought my first new car back in 1998. I bought a brand new 1997 VW Jetta and spent an unnecessary amount of money accessorizing the car. One of those accessories was a custom exhaust that sounded obnoxiously good. Shortly after it was installed, another friend and I drove it to Pottstown Pa, to reminisce about the times we used to cruise the circuit there. We were dismayed to see that it was nothing as we remembered it (probably because the Cops put an end to the cruising after my friends and I tore up the town back in the day). As we headed back towards home that fateful evening, I decided to put my new Volkswagen through the paces. We were somewhere north of a hundred miles an hour when I noticed a Police car on the shoulder. He already had somebody pulled over so I didn’t panic. I didn’t even hit the brakes, just kind of let off the accelerator and cruised on by. It wasn’t but three or four miles later when I noticed Police lights coming up on us at a high rate of speed. Uh-oh. The officer was an older gentleman who quite calmly informed me that he got me on radar going 91 miles an hour in a 50 mile an hour zone. Uh-oh again. He asked why I was going that fast and I answered that I was trying out my new exhaust. He asked “what if a deer jumped out in front you at that speed?” I answered, “I’d politely ask him to move.” We shared a laugh and then he wrote me a ticket that was so damaging that I had to hire an attorney (again) to hold on to my license. He was a good enough Cop to let my attorney talk him into lowering the ticket from 91 in a 55 to 70 in a 55. It saved my license and had he not been such a good Cop, I could have ended up hitchhiking for quite some time!
As I grew older and somehow gained enough maturity to become a commercial truck driver, I still have had my share of introductions to some fine (and not so fine) Officers of the Law. That cannot be helped, since there are things such as weigh stations and DOT Officers who can randomly pull you over for no reason other than that they can. I have no problem with either of these and welcome the opportunities to prove myself a safe and legal driver. All my encounters with these ladies and gentlemen have been pleasurable experiences with the exception of my latest encounter, but we’ll get to him in a minute- it’s a pure save-the-best-for-last kind of story.
My second-to-latest encounter with the law was by a good Cop who I managed to meet on my way to a rest area in Smyrna, Delaware. It was nearing the end of my day, after 9 at night, and darkness had set in. I just went through the second high-speed EZ Pass lanes south of Dover when I noticed flashing Police lights behind me. I was not concerned at all as my truck only goes sixty-six miles an hour at the top of the cruise control setting, and I was in the right lane giving him room to pass off my left. But he didn’t pass. He came up on my tail and stayed there. “Darn fans,” I thought, “he probably wants an autograph” and I quickly made my way onto the shoulder. Turns out he was a State Trooper, and a very polite and pleasant one at that. I was informed that he was out doing random truck checks and I happened to be the “next truck that passed.” When he found out where I was from he replied that he grew up in the nearby area and still has family that lives there. We chatted about that fact for a while before he checked my logs and the basic functions of my truck. He was perhaps the most pleasant and polite Officer I had ever had the pleasure of meeting in all my days as a commercial driver. After fifteen minutes (and many compliments on my truck and logbook neatness) he set me free.
I wish every Officer were as polite and professional as that Delaware State Trooper is, but sadly, they are not. Take for instance my next encounter with the grumpiest, meanest police officer in perhaps all of Massachusetts (if not the entire Northeast!)
On a Thursday back in September, I was working out of our covert operations center located in Massachusetts. I was dispatched on a seven stop load for that Friday, the first stop of which I had not ever been to in Framingham, Massachusetts. I consulted with my friend and local driver expert, Gary, about what the stop in question entailed. His first response upon hearing the name was “oh boy.” I’ve learned a lot from Gary over the years and one of the biggest things I learned is that when I ask Gary about a stop, he either says “oh, that’s an easy one,” (which I am always happy to hear) or he says the dreaded, “oh boy.” He said there were a couple ways to get there and asked if I liked extremely tight “get all the way in the left lane” right turns. Nobody likes them, but as a skilled driver I can handle them. Still, I had just come off a terrible adventure in the vicinity of Pittsburgh that left me scouting out the area on foot because of what someone else termed a “tight turn.” That turn was not only tight, it was impossible, and to avoid any more traumatic situations, I made the mistake of coming up with my own plan instead of taking my friend’s good advice.
When looking at my mapping program on my laptop, I noticed that if I went one more exit past where Gary said to exit, I could simply go south, bang a right turn, bang another right turn, and then finally bang an easy left turn (where Gary wanted me to make the tight right turn) and I’d be there! I was once again thankful for my trip planning skills and hit the sack convinced there would be no more trauma this week. Unfortunately what looks good on paper (or in my case, a computer screen) doesn’t always pan out so well in real life.
I took my route and everything was going perfect. I made my final right turn and was quickly approaching the street where I needed to make my final left turn. To my absolute horror, I saw not one, but two portable type signs in the middle of the road that were clearly marked “NO LEFT TURN!” I was stopped at the intersection, blinker on: it was time to think fast.
Every so often, I come upon a situation like this. On one hand, I can see the customer’s unloading area; on the other hand, I see two signs that clearly say I am not allowed to enter from this direction. I do the standard trucker assessment of the situation that includes (but is not limited to) questions like, could I make the turn without putting others or myself in danger? Sure could. Could I make the turn without doing damage to my equipment or personal property of others? Without a doubt. What lies ahead for me if I don’t turn now and instead continue straight into the unknown? I DON’T KNOW, I’M SCARED AND I WANT TO GO HOME! Every trucker eventually comes upon this kind of situation and if one should tell you that he (or she) doesn’t, they’re lying. Some truckers would even agree with what I did. I made the left turn (without incident) made a quick right turn and parked the truck where the customer was waiting for me. End-of-story. Not.
I walked back to the customer, a rather nice fellow, who informed me that he would back his little box truck to my trailer, and we’d unload right there. I went to open the doors and noticed I had to back up about two inches so the trailer door would clear a parked car. I jumped in the truck, backed up two inches and set the brakes. It was at this moment that I saw a Police car pull up and park on the opposite shoulder. I didn’t notice any lights and I tried not to look at him, the injustice I had just pulled off still fresh in my mind.
I exited the truck and saw an officer get out of the car; I gave him a nod and started to walk back to the trailer when I hear “GIVE ME YOUR PAPERS!” I looked around, saw no one else and had no choice to assume he was talking to me, but I still didn’t want to believe it. I also assumed it was my turn to talk.
“Excuse me?”
Let me pause this story for a moment and allow me to explain what was transpiring in my head. First of all, I never saw a Police officer around when I made that turn so I had no reason believe he saw me do it. But I also know that in the past, the Cops have seen me do lots of stuff I thought they didn’t, but they clearly did. Never have I been greeted by such a demand. I mean really, “give me your papers?” What kind of way is that to greet a customer? And what does it even mean? I thought about all the papers I had in my truck. There’s a stack of local newspapers that I buy in different towns and then keep to clean the windows. Not a ton, I try to throw some away so I don’t end up on that new TV show “Hoarders: Trucker Edition.” I also had some stories that I have previously written that I printed out, on paper. I considered grabbing one of those, signing it in his presence, handing it to him and then just walking away- could you imagine what might have been my fate had I done that? But alas, I had other papers like shipping papers, and other trucker credentials. Still, I couldn’t be sure what papers he was looking for with that kind of greeting, so I asked a simple question, in the best “I’m not a smart-ass” way I could muster.
“What Papers?”
“THE PAPERS I NEED SO I CAN WRITE YOU A TICKET FOR MAKING THAT LEFT TURN BACK THERE!”
Now that things were clear, I knew I had been had, so I admitted my transgression and offered an apology.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve never been here before and made the mistake of panicking and making that turn because I wasn’t sure….”
He cut me off by saying (no, actually yelling) “WHAT STATE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN TO IS IT OKAY TO MAKE A LEFT TURN WHERE A SIGN SAYS NO LEFT TURN?”
The Smart-Ass part of brain (that is alive and well) wanted to reply, “Well, there’s a place in Baltimore where we have to go down to a one way street to the dock, and another in New York that blah blah blah….” Even though I could recite half a dozen real life scenarios, my gut instincts were to keep my mouth shut.
“Look officer, I said I was sorry, I’m admitting…”
Again, I was cut off.
“JUST GIVE ME YOUR PAPERS, LICENSE, MEDICAL CARD, LOG BOOK. IF I HAVE TO GET A D.O.T. GUY DOWN HERE I WILL!”
I was completely taken aback by his lack of professionalism and wondered where all his anger was coming from. There were pedestrians on the sidewalk: to them, it must have looked like he had just caught me exposing myself to a bunch of schoolchildren on a school bus, that’s how mad this guy was. I gave him what he asked for and then went and sat in the driver’s seat of my truck. I was mad at myself for doing what I did for about a second or two before my thoughts turned back to the Officer in the car who was surely writing me the biggest ticket the world ever did see.
Why is he so angry? Does he have any idea I’m a human being that made a mistake? Does he know my heart is still a little heavy because I talked to my three year old Son this morning and he told me in the sweetest little guy voice how much he misses me and wants me to come home? Does he know that tomorrow at this time, I hope to be airborne in a little airplane with my Dad, en route to a classic airplane fly-in? Does this guy have kids? He seems old enough to have Grandkids; I sure hope he treats them with a little decency if he is blessed enough to have any. If there were a video of camera of him in action just now, would his family be proud of him as an Officer of the Law? Do these jeans make me look fat?
After what seemed like an eternity, but was more like ten minutes, Mister Meanie exited his police car, walked to my window and without a word, handed me a ticket and walked away. Our parting, to me, was just as rude as his greeting. Nonetheless, I kept my mouth shut and looked at the ticket. Fifty bucks for failing to obey a sign. I somehow felt lucky, that he did me a favor for not making my morning worse.
Even with all my experience with Officers of the law, this guy was, perhaps, the maddest cop I have ever seen in my life, and trust me, I have done things where the anger was much more deserving. Further more, I learned nothing. Had he been a good cop, he might have taken the time to explain to me that next time I come to that customer, all I have to do is continue north two or three blocks and then turn left. I had to find that out by myself because two weeks later, I was sent to the same customer. I didn’t feel comfortable the entire time I again visited that town because even though I didn’t see him, I knew my Police Sergeant friend was watching me, and I really didn’t desire another meeting with him.
Even though he was a mad Cop, I can’t hold it against him. He took what I did personally, but he’s paid to protect and serve the town of Framingham, so he’s entitled to take it personally if he so desires. I’m also inclined to know that he’s a human and prone to having a bad day, so that may his explain his mood on that fateful day. Even though I wasn’t happy with the treatment, I did make a mistake and I was raised to respect my elders, including ones that are mean to me and hold a badge. Heck, he gave me an idea for this story (as if I don’t have enough to write about). If you’re in Framingham, be careful. If you’re anywhere else and see a ‘no left turn’ sign, think twice before you go for it!
I guess I have learned a lot from my experiences with the fine Officers of the law, but I still think I learned more from the good Cops versus the mad Cops. I’ve learned that possessing marijuana is a bad idea, going a hundred miles an hour is not only dangerous to your life and the lives of others, but also to your license, and that mutual respect during an encounter with the law makes the experience more pleasant for all the parties involved.
The only thing I know for sure is that as a human, I’m prone to making the occasional mistake and as such, I’ll probably catch the eye of the law again one day. I can only hope that it is a good Cop over a mad one. Perhaps I’ll print out a few copies of this story and keep a few in the glove box of my car and some in my truck.
If you happen to be an Officer of the law who is reading this after an encounter with yours truly, I sure hope it wasn’t for anything serious. I’ve always had respect for the job you do and have spent years perfecting myself to become an upstanding citizen of not just my community, but also every community I travel through.
If you are a good Cop, thanks for that, and hopefully I learned something through our meeting.
If you are a mad Cop, I’m sorry about that. Save your anger for the real criminals of the world and of course, those who sing along to love songs authored by a nineties teenage boy band.
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Karl
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