I live in a bedroom community of 20,000 about 7 miles N. of the Seattle city limits. Last week my dog, Ozzy a 100lb pit was sleeping on the front stoop with the front door open behind him. I heard him "huff" a couple of times so I went to the door. One of our local minions of the law was standing in my driveway from where he told me Ozzy needed to be on a chain and muzzled. Since I'd never heard about that ordinance , I asked him for chapter and verse. I was told in no uncertain terms that it was his discretion and if I didn't have a muzzle or a chain on my dog, he could shoot him. I got the moron's name and badge number, put Ozzy inside and walked down to talk to the C.O.P., who lives four doors down the street to have a chat. I was so mad I was shaking. I told him what I just told you. Just after I went home, Officer Moron pulled his patrol car into the Chief's driveway. Ten minutes later he left. Just this morning the Chief stopped by to pet Ozzy and to tell me that Officer Moron had been terminated for cause because that was his third verifiable complaint of "Field Legislation". Or as the Chief called it, "Pulling ordinances out of his ass".
He also told me he was going to have a long talk with all of our uniformed officers about this sort of BS and how it was going to stop dead in its tracks. He also has little to no use for swat teams and tactical uniforms with face masks and full auto weapons. I told him it might be good for the officers to get out of their cars once in a while and simply take a walk through the neighborhoods to meet people as that might ameliorate the adversarial mindset some officers seem to be developing.
One other thing. A few years ago Police Officers out of the blue started issuing written warnings about picayune land use violations. Garbage containers too close to the street, lawns not neatly mowed, and RV's with one wheel on the grass in my and other's yards, that sort of thing. 20 or 25 of us went to the next city council meeting and told the city council, the Mayor and the City Manager ,whose idea this all was, that if things were so under control that the Police were being assigned "Hall Monitor" duties, perhaps we should cut the Police budget by 25 or 50 percent, and let some officers go. The city manager told us we were all a bunch of displaced rednecks and if we wanted to live like "White Trash" it was all right with her. Two months later we got a shiny new city manager with some sense. This place ain't Beverly Hills, ya know.
It's nice when you have A: a COP with a working brain and B: a city council who apparently realizes who both votes and pays the bills.
4 comments:
Damn, and this was in Washington State? Miracles never cease, do they?
Nope. You find good ones in places you wouldn't expect.
In the backwoods of the Empire state, a preacher friend of mine had a pool installed and was using the pile of topsoil removed as a neat and functional backstop for pistol practice in his rural back yard, when officer friendly drove up and informed him that he had to be 400 feet from any occupied dwellings, my friend inffformed the young officer that the law included the additional wording "unless you have the written permission of the owner of the dwelling" for which the officer then demanded to see the written permision and my friend informed the officer he was the owner, the officer responded "you have been warned"
Idiot police officers need to be removed from the force, in force and by force if necessary.
In very rural Upstate New York, you are allowed to shoot your guns anywhere around your own house provided the necessary safety measures have been taken and you are 500 feet from someone else's house.
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