A tale of a traffic stop

There’s three carloads of us heading north on I95 Saturday morning. We’re heading to a two day shooting event in a small town in the next state. So naturally all three vehicles are crammed with guns, ammo, and camping gear.

My two sons, Josh (19) and Joe (25) are bringing up the rear, and they’ve fallen behind the rest of us by a good four miles. Shortly after the first two vehicles got off the interstate I called Josh to see if they’d reached the exit yet. That’s when he told me they were being pulled over by a cop.

“Aw sh*t!” was my natural response. He said “Let me deal with this and I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes.”

At this point I pulled over in a small country churchyard so as to not widen the distance between me and the boys. After a couple of minutes I called back and Josh said “We’re not getting a ticket, but when I catch up to you I’ll fill you in on what happened.”

Five minutes later we’re all standing beside the road hearing this tale. I’ll let Joe take it from here:

“So we’re rolling along on I-95 at a good clip and along comes this county cop from behind us just a haulin ass. He was doin’ at least 80…and not using his flashing lights! I told Josh to speed up and let’s get his vehicle or tag number and report his ass to the county Sheriff”

Let me just interject here that NO ONE detests cops more than my son Joe. He’s had some “personal interactions” with our local authorities, and he’s never gotten over his hatred of anyone with a badge!

“We speeded up to catch the cop, which meant we had to do at least 80 or 90. About the time we caught up with him, he ran into some slower traffic and was forced to slow down. Well we kinda ran up on his tail in the process. In the meantime I was on the phone with the McIntosh County Sheriff’s office demanding to speak to the County Sheriff himself about reporting some officer misconduct.”

“About this time, the cop we were trailing took notice of us being on his tail and so he changed lanes and dropped back behind us. As we came alongside of him, I gave him the most evil look …all the while pointing at my cell phone. He looked sort of confused.”

“Now by sheer coincidence we came upon the exit where we were supposed to be getting off the interstate, and ‘our cop’ got off behind us. About then the Sheriff came on the line and I explained to him that ‘you have an officer out here on I-95 who is speeding, not using his lights, and risking everyone’s life out here in the process! I asked the Sheriff if he condoned this sort of behavior by his officers.”

“At this precise moment, the cop behind us turned on his lights signaling us to pull over. I told the Sheriff that we were being pulled over and he instructed me to stay on the line.”

When ‘our cop’ walked up to the car, I leaned over across Josh as he rolled down the driver’s side window, and before the cop could even say a word I thrust the phone toward him and growled ‘It’s for you!’. Well he was confused and stammered “huh…what…” and I said it’s your boss: the McIntosh County Sheriff. I was just telling him that you were out here speeding without your flashing lights on and endangering a lot of people’s lives!”

“Now here, the Sheriff (whom I had on the speaker phone) speaks up and asks the officer if he can hear him. The officer says ‘yes’, and the Sheriff instructs him to continue with the stop…that he (the Sheriff) was going to act as an observer.”

“So now the cop is all nervous and completely thrown off by what’s happened. He asks for our driver’s licenses. I told him that since I’m not operating a motor vehicle, he doesn’t need my license. He didn’t argue with me, he just turns and goes back to his cruiser to run Josh’s license. I asked the Sheriff if he was still there and he replied ‘Yes, just keep the line open.’”

“In a minute ‘our cop’ comes back and says’s something about ticketing us for speeding. I immediately said ‘Oh no…YOU were the one speeding. We just followed you to get your tag or squad car number’. The response was some ‘Wells’ and ‘Ummms’ but again, no real argument. Then he changed his approach and asked if we were in the military. We said ‘What difference does that make to the fact that you were speeding and putting people’s lives at risk?’ Then he asked what we’re doing in the area, and I briefly considered saying ‘none of your damn business’. I think he asked if we were there to see friends and we said ‘something like that’.

“Finally Officer fast-car says ‘Well I’m not going to ticket you. Just drive safely’, to which I responded ‘And you better slow down, or use your flashing lights Officer!’. Once he walked away I asked the Sheriff if he got all that. He said ‘Yeah, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’ll take care of it. Oh…and boys…y’all drive safely too’.

“Yes sir”

Okay… once I stopped laughing I told Joe and Josh to NEVER try that again. Clearly they got lucky. If that Sheriff had been buddies with the officer, the next words coming out of that speaker phone might have been ‘Bring them on down to the station for a little chat.’

This is what comes of letting these two clowns read Boston T. Party’s book You And The Police.