Police One-Liners N/A

Frank Browne

Frank Browne

Final Approach
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Police One-Liners


Taken off of actual police car videos around the country.

"Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch out after you wear them awhile."

"Take your hands off the car, and I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

"If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

"Can you run faster than 1,200 feet per second? In case you didn't know, that is the average speed of a 9mm bullet fired from my gun."

"So you don't know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?"

"Yes, Sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh ... did I mention that I am the shift supervisor?"

"Warning! You want a warning? O.K., I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."

"The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?"

"Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy, and step in goat poop."

"Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

"In God we trust, all others we run through NCIC."

"Just how big were those two beers?"

"No sir we don't have quotas anymore. We used to have quotas but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."

"I'm glad to hear the Chief of Police is a good personal friend of yours. At least you know someone who can post your bail."

> "I'm glad to hear the Chief of Police is a good personal friend of yours. At least you know someone who can post your bail."
 
Frank Browne said:
Police One-Liners

Taken off of actual police
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Looking back, my favorite was:

"You can tell me, I'm the good guy, see I'm wearing a white hat." said the state trooper as he pointed to his hat.

Len
 
Said by a Texas Assistant District Attorney: "Well, I don't own a gun, so I don't see why anyone else should"...

Just goes to show you that we have liberal idiots here in Texas also...
 
A buddy of mine is a cop.

I got to ride along with him one night. He stopped a guy who said, "Officer, before you give me a ticket, let me explain." My buddy said, "OK. Explain, then I'll give you the ticket."
 
Frank Browne said:
...

"Just how big were those two beers?"

....
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This reminds me of something.

About a month after a hearing, the new court reporter was typing up a transcript for my old man. Court reporters, at least at this time, did a lot things in shorthand, so a lot of transcripts were done off a combination of notes and tape recordings.

Anyway, at some point, she got to something where my dad had said that the defendant had "tuber syndrome." She listened to the tape a bunch of times, and asked around the courthouse what "tuber syndrome" was. Couldn't figure it out.

Eventually had to go ask my dad, and he couldn't figure it out either, until he looked at the case file.

Turns out the defendant said he only had "two beers." Hence, "what we've got here is a classic case of the two-beer syndrome." Which, given my dad's accent, was heard as "tuber syndrome." Poor court reporter literally thought he had been talking about a medical condition involving potatoes, in some case involving a guy who was stopped for suspicion of DUI.

Funny to me, anyway. :rofl:

For the record, "two beer syndrome" comes from the phenomenon where everyone says they've had two beers. The theory is that the police aren't going to believe just one, but for some reason two sure does sound more plausible and not incriminating at all.

I also distinctly remember a time where my dad told me to go get the "moor." I was probably 15 or so, and had no idea what he was talking about - I just stood there looking at him with a dumb expression, after he repeated himself a few times. I eventually just walked off after saying "ok" -- I figured he wanted me to bring him something off a boat, or a person of Moroccan heritage. I finally figured out that he was talking about the bushog - a "mower." Talk about feeling stupid. :)
 
Matthew said:
A buddy of mine is a cop.

I got to ride along with him one night. He stopped a guy who said, "Officer, before you give me a ticket, let me explain." My buddy said, "OK. Explain, then I'll give you the ticket."
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I actually had a cop once not give me a ticket because he appreciated that I pulled over immediately and didn't outrun him. I was on a sportbike and he was in a Crown Vic. It was a known speed trap and I was being very diligent to stay at the speed limit, but at one point, I missed the sign that said it went from 45 to 35 -- probably blocked by a truck in the other lane. He said that there was no way that he could have caught me if I had decided to run and he appreciated it, so he let me slide on the ticket. I just sat there and thought that I had made a wrong turn and ended up in the Twilight Zone...
 
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CollinLeon said:
I actually had a cop once not give me a ticket because he appreciated that I pulled over immediately and didn't outrun him. I was on a sportbike and he was in a Crown Vic. It was a known speed trap and I was being very diligent to stay at the speed limit, but at one point, I missed the sign that said it went from 45 to 35 -- probably blocked by a truck in the other lane. He said that there was no way that he could have caught me if I had decided to run and he appreciated it, so he let me slide on the ticket. I just sat there and thought that I had made a wrong turn and ended up in the Twilight Zone...
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This guy had a funner story: "Officer, I know I was speeding, but it was for a good reason. See, my headlights don't work and I was trying to get to my girlfriend's house before it got dark. I figured I would be less of a hazard by speeding than by driving in the dark without headlights."

Not only did he get the ticket, but he got arrested for another, unpaid, ticket. Dumbass.
 
I think I have used some of those. I have also given people breaks based on their attitude, I still remember what it is like being the one in front of the police car.

Ok it not mine but there was a story about an officer that was chasing a vehicle that refused to stop. When the officer finally pulled the vehicle over and asked the operator why he was running, the driver stated that his wife had left him for a police officer and he was worried the officer was trying to bring her back.
 
As far a ticket quotas go, I found this out by talking to a former court cashier. It may or may not be true, or it could be partially true.

The State Treasury tells the State Attorney's office how much revenue they need. They pass this info on to the courts (based roughly on population) the County courts then tell the various police agencies how much to collect. The Court cashiers then verify that the money the State needs is actually being collected.
 
Matthew said:
This guy had a funner story: "Officer, I know I was speeding, but it was for a good reason. See, my headlights don't work and I was trying to get to my girlfriend's house before it got dark. I figured I would be less of a hazard by speeding than by driving in the dark without headlights."

Not only did he get the ticket, but he got arrested for another, unpaid, ticket. Dumbass.
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The one and only time I remember getting out of a ticket by what I said to the officer (a female this time FWIW), she had asked me "Do you know how fast you were going?" and I replied truthfully: "I'm sorry to say I really have no idea, I simply wasn't paying attention to my speed." She said "Well, you were doing 45 and the speed limit here is 30 but I'll let you slide with a warning for being honest, please slow it down."
 
The best excuse I ever heard for speeding was from a woman who my Sgt and I clocked at 45 in a school zone (20). I asked the standard, "Is there some sort of an emergency?" question and she said, "Sort of" and was clearly embarrassed. Turns out, her and her husband were trying to get pregnant and couldn't, so they had gone to a nearby fertility clinic to have the husband tested. He couldn't, er..uh, "make a deposit", at the clinic so since they only lived a few blocks away, the clinic sent them home with a sample cup to get the "deposit" at home. But they had to get it back to the clinic before the sample got too cold. She had it between her thighs keeping it warm as she drove like mad back to the clinic. She showed it to us about the time her husband pulled up and realized what we were looking at. You could see his red face three car lengths away. We let her go with a warning. I didn't want to hand her my pen to sign the ticket anyway. lol.
 
Capt.Crash'n'Burn said:
As far a ticket quotas go, I found this out by talking to a former court cashier. It may or may not be true, or it could be partially true.

The State Treasury tells the State Attorney's office how much revenue they need. They pass this info on to the courts (based roughly on population) the County courts then tell the various police agencies how much to collect. The Court cashiers then verify that the money the State needs is actually being collected.
Click to expand...

I don't know about California, but in Iowa that would be a bad thing. Quotas were a big no no, and a command officer would get in deep do-do for even suggesting a number. You could tell officers that they needed to jack up enforcement a little, or suggest that they target some area, but you flat could not throw out a number. We had an officer that wasn't performing, so his corporal told him that if he just wrote one ticket a day, he would be an over achiever. So he went out and wrote one ticket a day. One day he happened to mention to a driver that he had stopped for speeding, that he had a "quota" of one ticket a day. The guy complained to the Chief that we had quotas, and that the only reason he got a ticket was so the officer could meet is quota. The corporal got reprimanded.
 
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Maxmosbey said:
I don't know about California, but in Iowa that would be a bad thing. Quotas were a big no no, and a command officer would get in deep do-do for even suggesting a number. You could tell officers that they needed to jack up enforcement a little, or suggest that they target some area, but you flat could not throw out a number. We had an officer that wasn't performing, so his corporal told him that if he just wrote one ticket a day, he would be an over achiever. So he went out and wrote one ticket a day. One day he happened to mention to a driver that he had stopped for speeding, that he had a "quota" of one ticket a day. The guy complained to the Chief that we had quotas, and that the only reason he got a ticket was so the officer could meet is quota. The corporal got reprimanded.
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I know a few police officers in Minnesota that hardly ever write tickets - definitely not even one per day. Someone has to do something extremely ridiculous in front of them to get one.

They tended to be the older officers on the force - whereas the new ones wrote as many tickets as they could.
 
jesse said:
I know a few police officers in Minnesota that hardly ever write tickets - definitely not even one per day. Someone has to do something extremely ridiculous in front of them to get one.

They tended to be the older officers on the force - whereas the new ones wrote as many tickets as they could.
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I found that to be true as well. The thing is that the older officers were younger officers at one time. It takes a while for everyone to discover the meaning of life.
 
jesse said:
I know a few police officers in Minnesota that hardly ever write tickets - definitely not even one per day. Someone has to do something extremely ridiculous in front of them to get one.

They tended to be the older officers on the force - whereas the new ones wrote as many tickets as they could.
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In New York City there are no specific ticket quotas for actual NYPD officers. (That doesn't include the meter maids and traffic agents who work for NYPD, but who are not actual police officers). However, young officers who write a lot of tickets tend to get better assignments more quickly.

-Rich
 
Quotas are illegal in Mass as well. I cant even remember the last time I wrote a money citation. I base everything on attitude and honesty. Most of the people I do stop are just trying to get to or from work and make an honest living. I do stop alot of cars but I am looking for the criminal activity not the simple speeding ticket.
 
I didn't have a ticket quota, but did have a contact quota.
Meaning I had to make contact with so many people a shift. A good idea IMHO, keeps someone from just parking somewhere all night.

Tickets were never my thing either. As stated earlier, you had to do something pretty blatant in front of me to actually get one.
 
markb5900 said:
I didn't have a ticket quota, but did have a contact quota.
Meaning I had to make contact with so many people a shift. A good idea IMHO, keeps someone from just parking somewhere all night.

Tickets were never my thing either. As stated earlier, you had to do something pretty blatant in front of me to actually get one.
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Unfortunately, a lot of cities consider traffic enforcement as a significant part of their budget. I remember all the whining by the city of Houston when the state raised the speed limit from 55 to whatever is is these days. They were complaining of millions of dollars in lost revenue.
 
markb5900 said:
I didn't have a ticket quota, but did have a contact quota.
Meaning I had to make contact with so many people a shift. A good idea IMHO, keeps someone from just parking somewhere all night.

Tickets were never my thing either. As stated earlier, you had to do something pretty blatant in front of me to actually get one.
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Tickets weren't my thing either. I would have never made the top of the list for numbers written even if the "list" would have existed. They discouraged us in patrol from writing too many tickets. They didn't mind traffic stops for contacts and DWI enforcement, etc. But they figured that time you spend filling out that ticket, about three drunks probably drove past you or a dozen calls went holding. Now traffic officers on the other hand... they wrote a LOT of tickets.
 
ausrere said:
They didn't mind traffic stops for contacts and DWI enforcement, etc.
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"Traffic stops for contacts"? What is that? Another term for "let's just harass someone randomly"? I had a cop once pull me over right after I left a diner in Wyoming because he said that I was in the wrong lane to make a left turn at the light. I tried to explain that the road was covered in snow and you could not even see the lines on the road to know where the lanes might be, but he insisted on giving me grief about it. Hell, I figured that with as much snow as was around, I was doing good if I just stayed between the ditches. He didn't give me a ticket, so I guess that was just his "contact" for the night.
 
CollinLeon said:
"Traffic stops for contacts"? What is that? Another term for "let's just harass someone randomly"? .
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No, valid traffic stops. Field investigative stops with valid probable cause. In my district, more often than not, it was someone in a vehicle matching the description of a vehicle burglary suspect (LOTS of apartment complexs in my usual district) creeping in and out of parking lots. Some agencies call them FI stops (field investigation stops), suspect stops etc, my agency just happened to call them contact stops.
 
Maxmosbey said:
Quotas were a big no no, and a command officer would get in deep do-do for even suggesting a number. You could tell officers that they needed to jack up enforcement a little, or suggest that they target some area, but you flat could not throw out a number.
Click to expand...

But.. on the same token.. there are performance measures officers must meet. Handling a certain number of incidents, or initiating a certain number of traffic stops are measures of performance.

If you dont write any reports, dont make any contacts, and otherwise drive around all shift (or park)... just how do you expect to measure up to colleagues who do otherwise. It all adds up.
 
jesse said:
I know a few police officers in Minnesota that hardly ever write tickets - definitely not even one per day. Someone has to do something extremely ridiculous in front of them to get one.

They tended to be the older officers on the force - whereas the new ones wrote as many tickets as they could.
Click to expand...

Well.. when you have to come in to court on your off day.... you learn real quick not to do that crap...
 
My favorite line was one I used myself, actually, when I was a young kid in Brooklyn. I'd just gotten my license, and I was driving my girlfriend back from some event or another at my high school when I got pulled over.

The officer walked up to my window and asked me if I knew why he'd stopped me.

"Why?" I asked, "Have you forgotten?"

The cop looked at me for a few moments, laughed, and told me to get my brake light fixed. Then he walked away, still laughing, got back in his car, and drove off.

I guess in Brooklyn you can get away with things like that. People raised in Brooklyn are renowned for our mastery of the art of sarcasm.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I guess in Brooklyn you can get away with things like that. People raised in Brooklyn are renowned for our mastery of the art of sarcasm.
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That would probably get you yet another ticket down south -- one for the original infraction, another for being a smart ass...
 
CollinLeon said:
That would probably get you yet another ticket down south -- one for the original infraction, another for being a smart ass...
Click to expand...

and remember, no one likes an educated mule!
 
Doggtyred said:
But.. on the same token.. there are performance measures officers must meet. Handling a certain number of incidents, or initiating a certain number of traffic stops are measures of performance.

If you dont write any reports, dont make any contacts, and otherwise drive around all shift (or park)... just how do you expect to measure up to colleagues who do otherwise. It all adds up.
Click to expand...

Performance is not always measured buy quantities. A lot of times it is more subjective. That is always a problem when you try to justify funding. Most people have no idea what cops do. Not all cops work traffic. One cop working night shift spends the whole night prowling around alleys and behind businesses looking for burglars. Just by their presence in the area they may prevent ten burglaries. Another cop gets on the street at eleven and has a drunk driver every night by midnight. The cop who was out there protecting property has nothing to show for his eight hours. The cop who arrested the drunk driver was off the street for three hours processing his drunk. So which one gets higher scores? They both do. They both have a job to do. I worked street crimes for years. I wrote tickets sometimes, but I drove right by more traffic violations on my way to calls that I was dispatched to investigate than I ever actually wrote. When there is a burglar alarm going off at an office building,an area cop can't pull over someone for running a stop sign while the burglar gets farther away. A lot of times people get warnings and they think that the cop was a nice guy, or that they were so clever that the cop was impressed and let them go. A good percentage of the time it is because the cop has something else more pressing to attend to and doesn't want to waste time writing a ticket for some minor violation that happened to catch their attention. We used to have two cops that walked bars all night checking IDs. People would always say, "don't you have something better to do." The answer is that is what they do. Someone else is out catching felons. Those two cops are checking IDs. So back to performance, every cop has a command officer. Several of them. The Corporal is out there lending expertise and experience, the Sergeant is out there making sure no one is parked behind a store sleeping and that everyone is out hustling, the Lieutenant is running the show. When evaluation time comes along, the Corporal and the Sergeant get together and take everything into consideration, the tangible and the intangible, then they evaluate the officer. They take the evaluation and present it to the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant takes it from there.

I have noticed over the years that there are a lot of people who have to have facts and figures. Everything is quantitative. I call it assembly mind mentality. The person who puts together the most widgets is the best. The cop who writes the most tickets is the best. The numbers never lie. During my career as a police officer, the only time numbers counted was if we were justifying grant money. If we were getting federal or state funds for traffic enforcement, we needed stats, otherwise numbers were meaningless.Being a cop is a lot more than just producing numbers. I saw plenty of officers who wrote more speeding tickets than anyone else get poor evaluations because they would set in one place all shift running radar, and let the rest of their patrol area go to pot. When I was a Lieutenant I was more concerned with how many property crimes were being committed in an officer's area than I was with how many tickets he wrote. Writing tickets is easy.
 
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Maxmosbey said:
Writing tickets is easy.
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Yeah, writing tickets is a relatively low risk endeavor that brings money into the department. Catching real criminals tends to be more dangerous and it costs money to prosecute and incarcerate them. Easy enough to see why they would choose the former if given the chance.
 
CollinLeon said:
That would probably get you yet another ticket down south -- one for the original infraction, another for being a smart ass...
Click to expand...

LOL, you're probably right. Brooklyn sarcasm doesn't seem to go over very well with Southerners. I first learned that in boot camp.

-Rich
 
CollinLeon said:
Yeah, writing tickets is a relatively low risk endeavor that brings money into the department. Catching real criminals tends to be more dangerous and it costs money to prosecute and incarcerate them. Easy enough to see why they would choose the former if given the chance.
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1. Take a look at where and how most cops get killed.

2. Prosecuting is a fixed cost. The DA gets paid the same whether he's locking someone up on a careless driving or on a homicide.

3. Find a single instance of cops choosing to write traffic tickets instead of investigating, I don't know, a serial rapist.

4. Take a look at what kind of arrests/crimes actually bring money into a police department.

5. Go for a ride-along sometime.

6. Stop by a courtroom and see what actually happens.

Although Max said above that police work isn't always a quantifiable issue - and he's absolutely correct - in this instance it is.

There are plenty of valid reasons to object to what the police do and how they do it. At least go to the effort of finding them.
 
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CollinLeon said:
Yeah, writing tickets is a relatively low risk endeavor that brings money into the department. Catching real criminals tends to be more dangerous and it costs money to prosecute and incarcerate them. Easy enough to see why they would choose the former if given the chance.
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The money generated from traffic tickets and fines does not go to the police department. It get's divided up. Some of it goes to the courts to cover their costs. A lot of it goes into the general fund. None of it goes to the department, unless you figure that each year the department gets a budget, and somehow a dollar from a ticket ends up finding its way into the budget.
 
Maxmosbey said:
The money generated from traffic tickets and fines does not go to the police department. It get's divided up. Some of it goes to the courts to cover their costs. A lot of it goes into the general fund. None of it goes to the department, unless you figure that each year the department gets a budget, and somehow a dollar from a ticket ends up finding its way into the budget.
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Which just means that they have to write more tickets since they are not getting the full amount from them...

I see too may cities who consider the police department traffic enforcement as a big part of their budget. Probably the most blatant about it was a Houston area town called "Iowa Colony". The city provided no services to the citizens. The city administration existed entirely to serve the police department which existed entirely to get money to run the city. They annexed a couple of small sections of TX-288 for the sole purpose of being able to write tickets. If I remember correctly, the Iowa Colony PD was disbanded after they arrested their mayor for DWI.
 
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