Abuse of Power

I have about a 25 mile round trip to work and back each day. I COULD get on Central Expressway and increase that to 30 miles round trip and MAYBE go above 30 miles an hour, but I choose to go the back roads, rarely getting about 40 mph. That is ok with me, I enjoy the 30 minutes or so in a relatively stress-free drive, listening to 100.7 Christian talk radio. The drive is normally uneventful, but twice I have had the opportunity to assist during an auto accident (calling 911, making sure the victims are OK, etc). I feel that I am doing my duty as a citizen.

I see a lot of police cars on my drive. I think that is good...some of Texas' finest are patrolling our streets, looking to "protect and serve" the citizens of the Plano/Allen/Richardson area. Several times over the past few weeks I have witnessed what I believe to be an abuse of power. A police officer will come towards and intersection and instead of stopping, they will flash the lights and hit the siren and drive through,without stopping. then they turn off the lights and keep driving. I have witnessed this many times. Why? Were they responding to a call? I doubt it, since they were driving near the speed limit and we all know police officers rarely drive at the posted speed. Are they lazy? It seems to me it would be more trouble to hit the lights and siren and then look around the intersection than it would to just stop and resume when they are legally able. No I think it is the "because I can" mentality. I have been around several police officers and to be honest, I have less respect for them the older I get. It seems to me that they are only hiding out looking for speeders and stop sign runners...two items that they can use to generate revenue. I would like to think that my town is so light on crime the police do not have to worry about solving crimes like we see in Dallas, but to be honest, we cannot get our local PD to respond to legitimate complaints. My son was once attacked by several youths and being the law abiding citizens we are, took him to the PD to file a complaint. My son knew the perp so finding him should be easy. Effectively the police did nothing. They never arrested him. However, they can drive into my neighborhood and spot a car pointing south (when it should have been facing north) and write a ticket for it. I understood the reason (after someone explained it to me, although I still think it is like splitting hairs) for the ticket, but could not understand how a crime of violence took the back seat to a parking violation. Answer? The parking violation MAKES the city money. Chasing down a punk COSTS the city money.

Another example of why I have limited respect for our local law enforcement. When we moved to this town, the house had an alarm system and we were told that we could get 20% off of our home owners insurance if we had it approved by the city PD. So we call the PD and ask to get someone to look at our home. Well the officer walk the house and gives us a VERBAL list of what needs done. We ask him if he can give us a punch list so we can make sure we get it all and he says, "sure" and leaves. He says he will mail it to us. We never get it. So we call and he will not take our calls. We ask another officer and he says, "it is being worked on" and drops it. 4 years later and we still have not gotten our cert from the PD. Not that we need it. The cert was needed by Farm Bureau Insurance (I do not recommend them at all) but is not needed by Allstate Insurance.

There is an "urban legend" that police officers have a "quota" of tickets they need to write every month. Now officially there is not any such beast, but I have know police officers from 3 states and they all say the same thing. If you do not write a certain amount (the amount varies depending on time of year and the officer) of citations, your Captain will give you a hard time until you write more. Oddly enough, the city of Dallas is officially considering the use of quotas for its officers.

Abuse of power. Anyone want to go Dutch on a small island? The more people we get, the smaller the payment will be!