unlawful cop actions?

What is the name of your state? Arizona

The whole situation started and ended pretty harmlessly but the overall idea of it still makes me mad. Me and a friend were getting home from a movie and pulled over off the road and a smalls ways down a side road ( a bit suspicious yes). I was really just saying goodbye before i dropped her off and was there for a couple mins before a cop stoped to check us. this was no big deal he was only doing his job. we gave him our drivers licsions, surprisingly he never wanted insurence card. We were both over 18 and he decided just because of the time of night it was suspicious. Still understandable.

Then he started drilling us with questions which didnt phase us much cause we virtually had zero to hide but he was getting pretty worked up. Eventuly it came to the question of him wondering if we had a cell phone in which my friend replied yes to. He said he didnt believe us and asked if he could "see" it. She was in the passanger seat, the officer at my driver side door window.

She simply held it up in front of her and said look this is the phone i was using. He practicaly leaped over and grabbed it from her and carried on to call her parents from her previous call list, even after serveral pleads that she never gave him the phone, she wanted it back and that she did not want him using it. i dont care about his moral intentions, what right did he really have to do all this if we arent minors?

If you feel this officers actions are inappropriate, contact their supervisor and file a complaint. Did he say anything inappropriate or untrue to her parents?

There is way more to this story - you won't be able to get accurate answers if you don't provide the full (truthful) facts...

well of course theres more to the story but i thought i could get an answer from the basics that i presented. I didnt want to bore anyone with counless paragraphs.

Um well i was lawfully pulled over on a side street not very far from the main road at all (20 feet or so.) i was parked in the dirt not the street but i know for a fact the dirt is public land cause its in a public section of a housing develpment.

After we pulled over, in the horizon we saw a truck(semi) pull over and turn on his warning lights. About 1 min later the cop that later delt with us pulled over next to him for assistance i guess. He was there for a couple a mins and when he left the truck and came for us. No big deal though hes doin his job and we werent the least bit worried. He took both our drivers license, checked them out and of course they came back clean we both have not had anything close to anything against us (good kids). HE began drilling us with questions to the first question, what are you doin here i responded we were just heading towards her house and i pulled over to have a little talk with her first.

by the way thats the honest truth if you seriously think we were up to anything i dont see how it makes sense that we just barly pull off the main road when we could have went somewhere not visible. He thought this idea was completly outrageos and made no sense cause of the hour of the night. So after a while we added that we were going to see a friend. This part was a lie pretty much but just to shut him up and it didnt at all contradict anything said, the friend lived next door to the girls house and its completly plausable that when i said we were headed in the direction of my friends house both houses are in that direction.

This is where things started getting to the point where i wasnt comfortable with the situation, its the time when he took my friends phone while it was still in the presence of my own car and proceeded to call her parents out the the scene. I was completly outraged by this for it was completly unnecessary. His claim was he was trying to validate our story but NO WHERE in our story did we mention anything to do with her parents. We are both 18 and to bring them into the situation would have been as random just calling any any number in her phone and trying to "validate" our story.

We protested many many times to this and he become very agressively spoked about arresting me cause im protesting something that isnt mine. (The phone wasnt mine, it was my friends, its just shes not one to express her voice against a yelling police officer.)

Also throughout the whole situation he kept changing our story outload seeing if we would go along with it and we knew it each time he did it it was so obvious and we never agreed to anything he was saying. Everything changed when her parents got there.

First thing he ordered us seperated so he could talk to the parents without us ( I DONT SEE WHY UNLESS HES TRYING TO HIDE SOMETHING) which he basicly did. The story that he told them consisted of all the things he was trying to get us to say, but he told them as if we kept going back on what we said which was so ridiculous, perfect example of a cop accepting the fact that he will be believed over the victims in a situation like this.

He went on to tell the parents that a trucker (the one we saw him pull over) claimed that there was other trucks over the overpass that where "looking like they were involved in drug activity". The thing that makes the story crap is he #1 went straight from the first trucker to us, he never went to investigate the truckers that were aleeged to be doin drug stuff. Its because of that i think the whole trucker drug story was a lie, we are pretty sure that trucker just broke down and the cop was helping him, no drug complaints at all.

ALso he never once had any pointed questions about drugs or alcohol. The only thing he asked was if i had any weapons in the vehicle. I understand if a cop suspects drugs he needs to kinda beat around the bush first to test the waters but he never ever even got close to asking anything about drugs. If he was trully suspecious about us why didnt he atleast fit something in like, do you have any drugs in the car? or anything.

i say he was just being an as*hole. honestly, stories liek this go around so much in that town that late night cops get bored and power hungry. We never broke one single law besides perhaps sort of lying to him about where we were going but the thing is he never talked to the parents about that, it never came up they said so what the hell is he doin calling parents of a non-minor?

After reading all of that, I am standing by my original comment: If you feel this officers actions are inappropriate, contact their supervisor and file a complaint.

The officer committed a theft (cell phone minutes). File a complaint.

Ozark_Sophist said:

The officer committed a theft (cell phone minutes). File a complaint.

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Was it a cricket phone?? LOL

fairisfair said:

Was it a cricket phone?? LOL

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Battery Charge.

The cop was out of line. Do what Some Random Guy suggested...file a complaint. You don't really have recourse beyond that since you don't have any damages.

ForFun said:

The cop was out of line. Do what Some Random Guy suggested...file a complaint. You don't really have recourse beyond that since you don't have any damages.

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Damages: Cell phone usage (minutes can be expensive); missing mom's meatloaf because a cop suggested you were engaged in illegal, drug related behavior--PRICELESS!

Carl would never do anything like that!

The officer has every legal right to contact two people parked along the side of the road. Under certain circumstances, he could even detain them. For all he knew he had a pair of underage kids in the car making out or doing something worse. While the phone call to an adult's mother might be out of line, I doubt it is unlawful. However, if the girl did not have any ID on her, he might have decided to call mom to verify her age.

If you have a beef, speak to his supervisor or ask to make a complaint for unprofessional conduct.

- Carl

Yes im pleased with the basic trend of replys iv recieved. I fully understand nothing serious was done and any complaint i would file would most likely be pointless and annoying to the system. I was just in a really helpless state of mind cause i realized how sh*tty i was being treated over nothing that i did, i wasnt being some punk kid and i wasnt breaking any laws. iv just accepted the guy was an as* and i'll actuly let my parents decide the rest of the course of actions.

i say that because i guess it turns out my mother was the leader of the committee that got our city/county police cheifs and whatnot all elected, i guess she even got our current major kicked out and got our new mayor elected too. i had no idea she was so political, she used to be a librarian, go figure.

anyways abou carl's comments, i was in no way mad about him pulling over to check up on us i would even say i was glad, its his job. what i didnt like was his boring talks about his life, (his stepkids that are our age and about how he gets so bored at night and he was glad we were around, it was really late, i needed to be getting her home and this dude was just wasting time.), and later his harrassment type actions.

She did give him ID and the it even backed up the story that i was going towards her house, her house was the next street to turn on and we were in the middle of no where, the next street after hers was miles miles down. i didnt understand why he felt he needed to cal her parents to come get her when NOTHING was wrong, at all. at all. in fact after the officer talked to her dad he just left, without any other talking to me or my friend.

oh ya and i find this funny, "For all he knew he had a pair of underage kids in the car making out or doing something worse" heh what oh what could be worse then that =P.

drpepper133 said:

oh ya and i find this funny, "For all he knew he had a pair of underage kids in the car making out or doing something worse" heh what oh what could be worse then that =P.

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Quite a few things.

Okay ... I'm confused. You got mad because he called her parents, yet you are "actuly [sic] let my parents decide the rest of the course of actions"? As an adult, why don't YOU decide on your course of action? Your parents weren't there, so they aren't going to have a stake in this and IF they conduct a personnel investigation, the only parties with statements to make would be you and your girlfriend.

Even her mother wasn't there, so even she - politically involved or not - cannot say what happened.

So, if you want to complain, go down and complain.

- Carl

haha no well i guess i didnt phrase that well at all. All i mean is im not gona be doin much else in this situation but truth is my parents became pretty mad, my mom mostly because of all the work shes put into this town. what i ment by ima leave it to her is im not gona do anything, if she feels she wants to get this guy punished she will do it, and she wont need a single thing from me to do it. i cant controll what she does, we are both adults. if you dont understand what im meaning now then nevermind about it all, thanks for the help though, i do appreciate it.