Know when to shut your mouth!

Back in the mid 90s, I was running down 75S through Tennessee in the middle of the night. Had 3 trucks chasing me. Came off White Oak Mtn wide open. At the bottom of the hill where the wall ended sat SmokeyBear. Smokey hit the blues and shut them off. I almost had a hear attack! I hit the brakes. Smokey says,"Thats better", and never pulls out of the median. I didnt shout a warning because he would know its me, AND if the drivers were cool, he wasnt going to cite them.

Well, Smokey flashed his lights at the last truck and the driver started to curse Smokey on the radio.

driver: F you Smokey!

Six: Driver dont do that! Stay cool...

Smokey started to move.

driver: These no good cops just after our money instead of fighting a real crime. F you Smokey!!!

And Smokey pulled him.

Saw that driver a bit later...

driver: How come noone told me that Smokey had his ears on?

 

I had a funny one a few years ago. It had snowed and there was about three or four inches on the shoulder and the road had slush and about 1 inch of junk in it. I was in the hammer lane in a unmarked SUV ,with the CB on. I could hear these two drivers yaking back and forth to each other and they sounded like they were getting closer. Well I was southbound at about 40 45 mph, which was plenty fast for the conditions as we were working numerous accidents and vehicles who were running off the roadway. The cb transmission went like this:

Driver1: I have to be in Miami by midnight.

Driver 2: There is no way you are going to make it in this weather.

Driver1: LIke hell there is. These jack a $ $ es get out of my way I be good.

Driver 2: Well good luck to you.

Driver one was then on my rear bumper so close I could not even see the Peterbilt seal on the grill. He then flashed the lights, blew the air horn about 10 times and started to drift over the yellow center line and the white dotted lane dividing line.

I asked the driver. "hey Southbound Pete in the hammer lane."

Driver 1 responds: What?

I ask "you in a hurry?"

Driver 1" hell yeah, soon as this jack _$ $ gets out of my way I'll show you how much of a hurry."

"Well then driver, the truck stop is at the next exit, you need to pull in there"

Driver 1: "What the F_ _ _ for?

"Cause I want to chat with you a while" at the same time I hit my lights.

Funny there was no more comments from Driver 1. Driver 2: "Oh my god. that was pretty stupid."

To say driver 1 had a bad day was a understatement. His truck was out, his trailer was out and his license was suspended.

 

Oh man!!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

 

so you were the bear??? Wow, i don't see why you would pull over a man who is in a hurry when you guys have so many unsolved murders and other #####?!?!

 

I not edumicated enough to solve them there murders. THat's why them there put me on the highways and byways. On a serious note, you would be surprised how many traffic stops lead to bigger and better cases. The Oklahoma Trooper who stopped Timothy McVeigh, simple traffic stop lead to that. Son of Sam, traffic stop. Look at most of your high profile cases the last 40 years or so. The traffic stop is were they got hinked up.

I had a case that started on a simple traffic stop Febuary 6, 2006. From that stop and arrest of that driver it turned into a Federal case. A president and Vice president of a trucking company were indicted of RICO, racketerring charges, $2 million dollars seized from the two in currency, trucks, trailers, houses and cars. 13 drivers arrested for ID theft, 35 other illegals deported, a document vendor, a cold case homicide from 15 years ago was solved, and a IRS fraud scheme. So I guess you could say I did work on those unsolved murders. it was a multi-jurisdiction investigation. There were 4 State Police Agencies, multiple large municipality agencies and four federal agencies involved.

 

Scary part on the Oklahoma bombing, was that if he had not been speeding, they would not have stopped him.

 

So why are you guys so bad on truck speed but I see GA DPS And GHP vehicles haulin ### down I-75 with no lights on, no siren going. Speeding is illegal even for cops unless in an emergency situation.

 

Hey, if they're setting the pace, don't complain man! I say "go smokey go!" and often fall in behind for a great ride. Followed an ambulance once thru town that had the lights on...but I've wondered if that was such a good idea, doing 75 with him. (in my pickup, not large car)

They used to hit speeders in Mo. all the time and find tons of marryjeeuwanna in them cars. Now first off, it's stupid to haul ##### when hauling DOPE, but it seemed so odd that they were pulling several a week that way; same excuse, and I can't believe that all those dopers were speeding. Probably out of state plates and other factors, but I never figured it out.

 

LB,

You got some good troops down there, I know quite a few personally. The problem is this, and it's this way all over the country. There are numerous calls we respond to without lights and siren. For instance for my agency we have 3 response codes. Code 1, Code 2 and code 3. two Codes are without lights and siren, only to facilitate your movement through traffic to get to your destination. Lights and siren, that is picking em up and putting em down, like B & E in progress, domestic assaults with active assault in progress, traffic collisions with injuries, shootings, anything that is life threatning. you idea of haulin tail is probably different than my opinion of hauling tail. The general public for the most part has probably never driver over say 85 mph or so. The general public sees one of us running 80 or so think we are getting it. Yes we are responsible for what happens. If we screw up and hit someone and injure or god forbid kill them, there is a possibility of going to jail for manslaughter. It has happended more than once the last few years all over the country If we are doing something that is deemed reckless with total disregard for anyone it is almost certain to get you indicted for manslaughter. You have to take a series of factors into consideration at all times when operating a police car and responding to calls. When I am running Code, I am constantly scanning my field of vision and playing what if? What if this guy does this or that? What if this car pulls here or there? Which way am I going to go.


Let me ask you a question? I take it you have a little bit of expierence. I'm sure at some point you have driven 75-85 mph. in your truck, fully loaded. How fast can you get stopped. I could figure it out rather easily with a reconstruction formula, but to keep it simple, I can get a car at 3500 lbs stopped faster than 4 times the distance than you could get the 80,000 truck stopped, and that's with the air brakes adjusted and working properly. I do stop trucks for speeding and I stop cars for speeding. I stop them for other reasons as well. Most people think the only reason we stop someone is for speeding.


I guess the point I'm trying to make is the general public sees us moving up and down the road but has no idea what we are responding to. Have you ever called the police for them to respond to your house for anything or for an accident? I can guarentee when you called you wanted us there, now. If they showed up an hour late, i bet you were saying "What the hell took so long." The Georgia Troops I know don't work a midnight shift, they get called at home and make a response. That was what they were doing a few years ago, I haven't asked them in a while if that has changed. But whatever happens I am responsible, because I made the decision to respond Code.

LB be careful over there and thank you for what you do.

 

It wasn't speeding, it was no tags displayed. McVeigh and his group parked that car in a parking garage a day or two prior to the attack. They took the tags off so no one could record the tag for being there over night. That morning, in a hurry he forgot to throw the tag on it.

Here's a story from the Trooper, Charlie Hanger, that stopped him.

SHAWNEE, Okla. —
Charlie Hanger, the retired trooper who arrested Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on a traffic stop in 1995, spoke of that experience Monday night in Shawnee and talked about the “divine intervention” that occurred.
Hanger, now in his second term as Noble County sheriff, spoke at the Shawnee Police Foundation banquet. Before sharing his story, he asked everyone to think about the necessity of traffic stops, divine intervention and citizen involvement.
Wednesday, April 19, 1995, was a cool spring morning. He woke up as usual, put on his state trooper uniform and went to work at 7 a.m. to patrol the rural roads of Noble County. He ended up stopping at turnpike headquarters and learned the Oklahoma Highway Patrol was sending units to Oklahoma City. Then he saw the TV and noticed that one-third of the Murrah building was gone, calling it a “terrible sight.”
“Not once did I think it was a terrorist attack — not in the heartland,” he said.
Hanger was asked to respond, so with lights and sirens, he drove south on Interstate 35. Not too far from Perry, he was told to stay in his area. He turned around and went northbound on I-35 and stopped to assist two women who had car trouble on the highway. One of them was married to an Oklahoma City firefighter and was worried about him helping victims in Oklahoma City. Hanger called a wrecker for them and proceeded northbound on I-35.
“Little did I know then that an old yellow Mercury passed by me being driven by Tim McVeigh,” he said. As he drove northbound, he passed that car near Perry and noticed it didn’t have a tag. He slowed down, changed lanes and got behind it “to start what I thought was a routine traffic stop.”
The driver, later determined to be McVeigh, pulled over. Hanger didn’t approach the car.
“I stood behind my door for cover as I was trained,” Hanger said, and ordered the driver out of the car.
McVeigh sat sideways on the edge of the seat with his feet on the ground for a few seconds and walked towards Hanger. The trooper saw his hands were clear of any weapons, so they met behind his car. Hanger told McVeigh he stopped him for no tag; McVeigh said he had just purchased the car.
Hanger, who thought the car was stolen, asked for proof of insurance or a bill of sale, but McVeigh had none, so Hanger asked for his drivers license. As McVeigh reached into his right rear pocket, Hanger could see a bulge under the man’s windbreaker that looked like a weapon.
He took McVeigh’s license, which had a Michigan address, and told him to use both hands to slowly unzip his jacket and pull it back.
“He looks me in the eye and says, ‘I have a weapon,’” Hanger said. As events unfolded on the side of highway, Hanger said he grabbed his weapon and stuck it to the back of McVeigh’s head.
As he walked McVeigh to his patrol car, Hanger said McVeigh made a statement that his weapon was loaded. Hanger nudged McVeigh with his pistol and said, “So is mine.”
Upon further inquiry, Hanger learned what McVeigh meant. He had a .45 caliber Glock pistol in a suicide holster. Hanger removed McVeigh’s weapon, along with a knife and magazine he was carrying and tossed them onto the shoulder of the highway. He placed McVeigh in his patrol car.
As Hanger unloaded McVeigh’s weapon, it had a Black Talon round in the barrel — a bullet that causes ultimate damage to the body.
“I believe had I walked up to that vehicle, I’d been a target,” Hanger said.
Because of the crisis in Oklahoma City, only emergency radio traffic was permitted on police radios, so Hanger used a bag cell phone to call headquarters about his traffic stop and to check out McVeigh and his car. He read McVeigh the Miranda warning; McVeigh was calm and compliant, Hanger said.
McVeigh gave permission to search the car. There wasn’t much there other than a legal-size sealed envelope. As Hanger searched, he noticed McVeigh was squirming around in the patrol car, alleging his handcuffs were tight. Hanger loosened them and put McVeigh back into the secure patrol car.
Hanger found a vehicle identification number on the car — it wasn’t reported stolen and registration was found in Arkansas, where McVeigh said he was moving. McVeigh was still going to jail and had a choice of leaving the car on the side of the road or having it towed. He chose to leave it there, including the envelope and other contents inside, so Hanger secured the car.
En route to the Noble County jail, they chatted and Hanger realized the man was a gun enthusiast. At the courthouse jail, there was a TV in the booking area, Hanger said, with constant coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.
“I caught McVeigh looking up at the screen a couple times,” but Hanger said he figured the man didn’t realize what happened because he didn’t have a radio in his car.
McVeigh was booked into the jail like anyone else, but at first, wouldn’t answer questions about next of kin. He used the information from his driver license in Michigan, which was the address of Terry Nichols’ brother. Nichols, a co-conspirator, is now serving life in prison.
Hanger went about his day and was sent back to the interstate to look for a brown Chevrolet pickup, possibly occupied by the bombing suspects.
“Little did we know we have the bomber in custody,” he said.
Two days later, Hanger got a call from OHP asking about him running a particular driver license about 10:20-10:25 a.m. on April 19. It was McVeigh and he was apparently on the FBI’s radar. Hanger told them he arrested him and took him to jail; they wanted to know if he was still there.
McVeigh didn’t get to see a judge for a bond appearance on April 20 because the judge was busy, Hanger said, which he called divine intervention. On April 21, normal court times didn’t happen either because the judge’s son had missed a school bus. Again, divine intervention, Hanger said.
On the afternoon of April 21, McVeigh was in line to see the judge, but was stopped. Hanger talked to FBI agents, who inquired about looking at the man’s car still parked on the side of the interstate near Perry. When Hanger returned to the courthouse, it was surrounded with crime-scene tape as a security measure because of McVeigh, then determined to be the Oklahoma City bombing suspect, being housed at that jail. Media invaded the small community of Perry, he said.
To avoid the crowd, he had a trooper drive him home and avoided any contact with the media. That weekend, Hanger drove to Oklahoma City to meet with then Governor Frank Keating and those who had lost loved ones in the blast. Before leaving, he did a routine search of his patrol car. On the right rear floorboard, he found a business card for a military surplus store in Wisconsin. A note on the back said, “Will need more TNT — $10 a stick,” he said.
“It must have come from McVeigh’s pocket and he stuffed it in the back seat,” he said. Hanger turned that card over to the FBI; Hanger and McVeigh’s fingerprints were on it.
Hanger said the system of justice worked with McVeigh’s trial; he was later executed.
“His partner is better off — he got life,” he said. “Regardless of your views on the death penalty, McVeigh will never hurt anyone again. Neither will Terry Nichols.”