Garrett Marino dismissed from Bobcat football team (FREE)

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RockyBearCat
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Re: Garrett Marino dismissed from Bobcat football team (FREE

Post by RockyBearCat » Thu Oct 23, 2014 8:25 am

KittieKop - First of Thank You for doing an often thankless job. My dad was law enforcement for 20 years when I was growing up. I nearly did it but changed courses the week of my BPD job offer in Billings.

To the poster that said they just sit in the passenger seat or backseat. Even with no keys in the ignition, you can get a DUI. I know it seems unfair and some officers will use discretion, but that is still considered physical control if you have the keys. Like KittieKop said earlier, if you are in control of that vehicle and he sees you, he is in a tough spot. Law says arrest for DUI. If he doesn't and you drive out 5 minutes later and kill someone or yourself, people will see the video of the parking lot of him checking on you and leaving you drunk in the car. He will be in big trouble.



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Re: Garrett Marino dismissed from Bobcat football team (FREE

Post by [cat_bracket] » Thu Oct 23, 2014 8:58 am

KittieKop wrote:I don't know about the national park thing - I assume the ticket there came on some regulation having to do with national park grounds. The MT open contain in a vehicle law applies to any OPEN container of alcohol in the passenger compartment. You're not going to get in trouble for empty beer cans on the floorboard of the car (though obviously a stack of fresh empties will probably peek a cops interest in DUI or something else, so throw them away). It DOES apply to open bottles of liquor, so don't grab the open bottle of whiskey to bring to someone's house and throw it on your passenger seat. If the seal's broken, its open; put it in the trunk.

As far as MJ goes, I can say in MT anyway, the attitude is obviously changing. I can speak for most the people I know, cops aren't out hunting for small quantity, personal use dope. You shove it in my face, yeah, I have to do something about it. You drive while you're impaired, whether its drugs or alcohol, yeah, I'm going to do something about it. You're stupid enough to be sitting in a car in a parking lot smoking and I roll up on you, the window comes down and its something like from a Cheech and Chong movie, don't expect me to ignore it.

The thing with being a cop is - and I'm sorry if I was a bit of a jerk on the earlier comeback, its been a rough week - its becoming more and more risky liability-wise personally. Its usually much safer, and I have no problem saying this, if there's probable cause to make an arrest to just make it and let the courts and attorneys decide whether it should proceed or be dismissed. There are few things to me worth risking my family, my house, my job for. And if I make the wrong decision just once, like letting a guy I know is drunk walk away from a stop, that's all it might take. Most of the time cops eventually are covered personally by qualified immunity, as long as you act legally under color of your authority, but if you step away from what's lawful or against what a policy or procedure it, you can find yourself flapping in the wind.

I can talk for hours about being a cop - I've done it for 20 years, I love my job and one of my passions is promoting the professionalism of my job, but its hard because there are knuckle-draggers in my profession and not all departments care about all the things I think I and mine do. Its hard changing the course of a river, particularly when you're under a microscope and every time an idiot cop in Texas does something - to a chunk of the population anyway - that somehow shows every single cop in the country is the same way. You get a guy who's truly a hood-wearing racist, then somehow everyone is. I've made mistakes, and will continue to make mistakes, because we're all human. And if you want people in jobs like this to be able to use judgement and discretion, to be able to have empathy and sympathy for people you need human beings not robots. If you have human beings, you have to live with some of the human foibles and weaknesses also, though hopefully to a lesser extent. So, sorry, end of rant. :D
Great post. Very passionate and it shows that you care about the people you're arresting for things like DUI. We need more people like you serving.



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Re: Garrett Marino dismissed from Bobcat football team (FREE

Post by allcat » Thu Oct 23, 2014 10:29 am

Yea, the lawyers took away discretion for the cops.


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Re: Garrett Marino dismissed from Bobcat football team (FREE

Post by John K » Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:46 pm

KittieKop wrote:I don't know about the national park thing - I assume the ticket there came on some regulation having to do with national park grounds. The MT open contain in a vehicle law applies to any OPEN container of alcohol in the passenger compartment. You're not going to get in trouble for empty beer cans on the floorboard of the car (though obviously a stack of fresh empties will probably peek a cops interest in DUI or something else, so throw them away). It DOES apply to open bottles of liquor, so don't grab the open bottle of whiskey to bring to someone's house and throw it on your passenger seat. If the seal's broken, its open; put it in the trunk.

As far as MJ goes, I can say in MT anyway, the attitude is obviously changing. I can speak for most the people I know, cops aren't out hunting for small quantity, personal use dope. You shove it in my face, yeah, I have to do something about it. You drive while you're impaired, whether its drugs or alcohol, yeah, I'm going to do something about it. You're stupid enough to be sitting in a car in a parking lot smoking and I roll up on you, the window comes down and its something like from a Cheech and Chong movie, don't expect me to ignore it.

The thing with being a cop is - and I'm sorry if I was a bit of a jerk on the earlier comeback, its been a rough week - its becoming more and more risky liability-wise personally. Its usually much safer, and I have no problem saying this, if there's probable cause to make an arrest to just make it and let the courts and attorneys decide whether it should proceed or be dismissed. There are few things to me worth risking my family, my house, my job for. And if I make the wrong decision just once, like letting a guy I know is drunk walk away from a stop, that's all it might take. Most of the time cops eventually are covered personally by qualified immunity, as long as you act legally under color of your authority, but if you step away from what's lawful or against what a policy or procedure it, you can find yourself flapping in the wind.

I can talk for hours about being a cop - I've done it for 20 years, I love my job and one of my passions is promoting the professionalism of my job, but its hard because there are knuckle-draggers in my profession and not all departments care about all the things I think I and mine do. Its hard changing the course of a river, particularly when you're under a microscope and every time an idiot cop in Texas does something - to a chunk of the population anyway - that somehow shows every single cop in the country is the same way. You get a guy who's truly a hood-wearing racist, then somehow everyone is. I've made mistakes, and will continue to make mistakes, because we're all human. And if you want people in jobs like this to be able to use judgement and discretion, to be able to have empathy and sympathy for people you need human beings not robots. If you have human beings, you have to live with some of the human foibles and weaknesses also, though hopefully to a lesser extent. So, sorry, end of rant. :D
That was a great post...very well stated. It seems that most people either think of cops as saints who should be immune from any criticism, or as barely half a notch above the people they arrest, when the truth is that just like in any other profession, very few of them should be categorized into either of these two extremes. A friend of mine was sleeping it off in his vehicle one time, and a cop knocked on his window and advised him to put his keys right behind (or in front of) his rear tire. He had no intention of driving later on that night, but was just waiting for a friend (or maybe he'd called a taxi...don't remember for sure) to come pick him up, after the bar had closed. I thought that was a very "creative" way to handle the situation.



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Re: Garrett Marino dismissed from Bobcat football team (FREE

Post by allcat » Fri Oct 24, 2014 1:03 pm

John K wrote:
KittieKop wrote:I don't know about the national park thing - I assume the ticket there came on some regulation having to do with national park grounds. The MT open contain in a vehicle law applies to any OPEN container of alcohol in the passenger compartment. You're not going to get in trouble for empty beer cans on the floorboard of the car (though obviously a stack of fresh empties will probably peek a cops interest in DUI or something else, so throw them away). It DOES apply to open bottles of liquor, so don't grab the open bottle of whiskey to bring to someone's house and throw it on your passenger seat. If the seal's broken, its open; put it in the trunk.

As far as MJ goes, I can say in MT anyway, the attitude is obviously changing. I can speak for most the people I know, cops aren't out hunting for small quantity, personal use dope. You shove it in my face, yeah, I have to do something about it. You drive while you're impaired, whether its drugs or alcohol, yeah, I'm going to do something about it. You're stupid enough to be sitting in a car in a parking lot smoking and I roll up on you, the window comes down and its something like from a Cheech and Chong movie, don't expect me to ignore it.

The thing with being a cop is - and I'm sorry if I was a bit of a jerk on the earlier comeback, its been a rough week - its becoming more and more risky liability-wise personally. Its usually much safer, and I have no problem saying this, if there's probable cause to make an arrest to just make it and let the courts and attorneys decide whether it should proceed or be dismissed. There are few things to me worth risking my family, my house, my job for. And if I make the wrong decision just once, like letting a guy I know is drunk walk away from a stop, that's all it might take. Most of the time cops eventually are covered personally by qualified immunity, as long as you act legally under color of your authority, but if you step away from what's lawful or against what a policy or procedure it, you can find yourself flapping in the wind.

I can talk for hours about being a cop - I've done it for 20 years, I love my job and one of my passions is promoting the professionalism of my job, but its hard because there are knuckle-draggers in my profession and not all departments care about all the things I think I and mine do. Its hard changing the course of a river, particularly when you're under a microscope and every time an idiot cop in Texas does something - to a chunk of the population anyway - that somehow shows every single cop in the country is the same way. You get a guy who's truly a hood-wearing racist, then somehow everyone is. I've made mistakes, and will continue to make mistakes, because we're all human. And if you want people in jobs like this to be able to use judgement and discretion, to be able to have empathy and sympathy for people you need human beings not robots. If you have human beings, you have to live with some of the human foibles and weaknesses also, though hopefully to a lesser extent. So, sorry, end of rant. :D
That was a great post...very well stated. It seems that most people either think of cops as saints who should be immune from any criticism, or as barely half a notch above the people they arrest, when the truth is that just like in any other profession, very few of them should be categorized into either of these two extremes. A friend of mine was sleeping it off in his vehicle one time, and a cop knocked on his window and advised him to put his keys right behind (or in front of) his rear tire. He had no intention of driving later on that night, but was just waiting for a friend (or maybe he'd called a taxi...don't remember for sure) to come pick him up, after the bar had closed. I thought that was a very "creative" way to handle the situation.
Right, or put them in the gas cap door. Just make sure you don't have possession.


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