Bravo8-
Thanks for the response. Allow me to clarify further on some of the unknown information and to add some comments and a scenario of my own.
Vehicle information:
My son is driving my old 91' Plymouth Sundance 2.0L SOHC (single over-head cam) with about 120,000 miles and cracked piston ring(s) in the #3 cylinder (oil blow-by foils the spark plug). All considered it puts out maybe 90-95 HP. It's too old to fix. It runs okay around town and she can do 80 mph for a short period of time before it starts to protest and shake and rattle.
The average Police pursuit cruisers on the other hand tend to use V-8 engines more in the 4.6L / 5.4L range that put out in excess of 235 HP using modified engines and suspension components. Dead stop acceleration on these vehicles is also higher than the standard issue vehicle. All said, they can do 0-60 in under 8 seconds and run around 140-150 MPH. I'll stake my 21 years in the auto industry in saying that my old Sundance is no match.
Considering my son passing a cruiser doing 80 and the cruiser at a standstill 20 yards off the roadway on gravel or grass, it will still be able to catch a car doing 80 in a relatively short time and distance. Hardly what I would call a "pursuit" or "need for assistance" in stopping someone. Also consider him being on a 4 lane divided road in the middle of corn, soybean and tobacco fields where the local officer would have known that there would be nowhere for him to run even if he wanted. The bottom line is, there was no refusing to stop, no evasive action and no police pursuit. Anyway, let's not get to over dramatic about all this. It was a routine stop in all respects.
Then there are the radios. Police tend to monitor multiple frequencies. If one heard the other call in that he was moving on a traffic violation, the other would have most likely herd it and have known the officers location as it is common practice for them to report it on the calls.
More about my son:
My son is student at a college in Kentucky and was returning to school after having attending some special services in Lebanon Kentucky. My original post stated that there were girls in the car. My mistake.
I have since talked to my son and he has clarified to me that there was one girl and two other male students. The girl and two other gentlemen in the car with my son had also attended the same services and are also studying for entry into the ministries. The gentleman, all clean cut and proper, still had on their suit pants and ties and had placed their suit coats in the trunk. The lady was also dressed appropriately for the occasion. Everyone was polite.
More about the incident:
The police officers were more interested in the way my son talked then in the way he was dressed. You see, he is from Illinois and does not have a southern drawl when he speaks. For this (speech) he was ridiculed. I have no problem with such ignorance! Besides there are no laws that govern comments. It should also be noted as previously stated that the license plates on my son's car are also from Illinois and that he was stopped just outside of Elizabethtown Kentucky. He was also ticketed for not having proof of insurance. He found his insurance card in the car the following day. They said he can just fax in a copy and that will be taken care of. I found that funny as anyone can use a computer to scan someone else's information, alter the names and then fax in the results. Anyway, not the point!
My son also told me that the two officers talked amongst themselves for a few minutes before approaching his car. He offered no bribe and they did not solicit one from him.
BOTH the tickets showed RADAR as the source for determining his exact speed and neither officer offered to show him the gun. Already being in a discomforting position, he did not challenge their authority and ask to see the guns. They thought never even crossed his mind!
My son was speeding! Nobody is arguing this fact and payment of this ticket is not a problem. The ticket for non-proof of insurance is also not a problem as stated above.
How's this for a scenario:
A couple of "good old southern boys" from Kentucky were parked along the road shooting the breeze when along comes a car full of kids with out of state plates speeding "recklessly" down one of their roads. Beings the car is from out of town and from the NORTH no less, they needed to teach the driver a lesson and pulled him over. After some questions and a little ridicule they know he is about 3 hours away from school and about 11 hours from home. So they figure, lets just slap him with a bunch of tickets. He won't go through the time and expense to come back to court. Even if he did, it's our word against his right? He won't bother to hire an attorney either because of the cost. There'll be no investigation to check our dashboard mounted cameras that recorded everything that happened (including the "pursuit time") and no subpoena for the tapes from our radio transmission to see if we radioed in to our dispatchers at the same time and listen to what we said and when we said it. No time trail at all. Nobody will bother to take the time to go through our court records to see if other out of state people have had multiple tickets issued to them on the same day, place and time. He'll just have to take whatever we give him won't he?
All things being equal, we can scenario this thing to death. Let's assume for a moment that you are wrong but the officers claims exactly what you say in that he needed assistance to stop my son.
Question:
Can the officer make the claim that he had difficulty in getting his 4.6 liter 235 horsepower specially modified pursuit vehicle up to speed in a reasonable amount of time and distance as to catch my sons 91' Plymouth Sundance with it's 2.0L single overhead cam engine with cracked piston rings in the number three cylinder that has over 120,000 miles on its 90-95 horsepower engine traveling at 80 miles per hour?
All things being equal, isn't my son innocent until being PROVEN guilty or do we just assume that he isn't being truthful? If the officers make such a claim can he not ask them to produce the video from their onboard dash mounted cameras as evidence to PROVE the time and distance that they claim to have traveled? Can he not ask them to produce as evidence the tape recordings between themselves and the dispatchers that record the time and place of the radio transmissions? What happens if those videos show two police cruisers traveling together from the beginning and they catch up to and pull my son over together? Can they make such a claim without the risk of perjury or in having to produce such evidence to support it? If he can prove them to be liars in court will THEY face charges or will the case just be dismissed (at best).
Thanks again for your time.
