Ticketed driver cries foul over trooper's plate ploy

[Hadamustang1]

THIS REALLY SUCKS


VANCOUVER, Wash. — A motorist who paid a speeding ticket he got from a state trooper who used out-of-state license plates on his unmarked patrol car wants his money back.
"What gives the police the right to drive illegally on the highway?" said Dave Milbrandt, a company finance manager. "Do they have a special exemption?"
Milbrandt told The Columbian newspaper of Vancouver that he planned to see a lawyer about the $247 he paid after Washington State Patrol Trooper Bradford A. Moon, driving an unmarked Dodge Charger with Oregon plates, caught him going 56 mph in a 35 mph zone on Highway 4 in Longview last month.
"Did they write me a ticket illegally?" Milbrandt said. "If they did, I'd like my money back and my record cleared."
Moon, who removed the Oregon plates after the incident came to light, was trying to be creative in catching speeders but should have told his superiors, State Patrol Sgt. Randy Hullinger said Monday.
"It's not typically something that is done," Hullinger said.
"We encourage our troopers to look at innovative ways to catch people," he said, "but it's always good to run innovative ideas past somebody else so we can consider all possible outcomes.
"He went out on his own. He was attempting to use some initiative to solve a problem, which is our job, but in this case it looks like maybe judgmentwise he should have run it by somebody else."
Moon failed to consider that "the first thing the motoring public might think is, 'Is this a police impersonator?' " Hullinger said.
"When they see a nonstandard police car, we want people to understand that when all the lights go on ... this is for real — but if there are Oregon plates on the car, there's just that much more concern in the public's eye it might not be a police car."
Moon, who had removed the plates from a personal vehicle after moving to Washington from Oregon, will not face disciplinary action, and the ticket will stand unless Milbrandt is successful in persuading a judge otherwise, Patrol officials said.


Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

[FormulaMarauder]

Man people cry foul for everything. Having a license is a privilige, not a right. Play by the rules of the road and stop complaining when you get caught. I never got a ticket when I was growing up because I respected the cops, didn't want to pay tickets and higher insurance, and of course, my parents would take my car away if I slipped.

I can understand both sides of the fence here. Cops use suppressed registration plates all the time, and it is completely legal for them to do it in accordeance with Title 14 statutes. The people writing this article obviously don't know that, and thought they had a good story. Should the cop have run this buy his supervisors to make sure it was OK, yes. Did he do wrong, no.

[Hadamustang1]

Man people cry foul for everything.

I can understand both sides of the fence here. Cops use suppressed registration plates all the time, and it is completely legal for them to do it in accordeance with Title 14 statutes. The people writing this article obviously don't know that, and thought they had a good story. Should the cop have run this buy his supervisors to make sure it was OK, yes. Did he do wrong, no.



Wow thats legal huh? I did'nt know that. One more thing to watch for. I bet that cop has alot of fun with that hemi

[magindat]

I thought it was illegal to put plates registered to one car on another. I got snagged going 6 miles with a tag from my little trailer on my big trailer. Cost me $55 and a threat of being arrested! Even if the ticket stands, the officer should pay the fine and eat the penalties associated with the wrong plate on the wrong car just as any member of the public would.

Poor judgment. I paid for mine. He should pay for his!

[FormulaMarauder]

Again, the police can switch plates on cars. They are called SUPRESSED registrations. Narcotics Detectives do it regularly. As long as the car is registered through the state, the registered information comes back as something else. The Motor Vehicles Department has a whole division set up for precisely this kind of thing. For instance, you think if you run a Detectives unmarked car it will come back to the police agency? No. It will come back to a figment name/agency/address.

The point of this story is that this guy is crying foul because he saw the unmarked police car had different state tags on it. Doesnt change the fact that he was caught speeding, it solidifies the fact that he would be ignorant enough to speed along an unmarked cruiser just because it had different plates.

Do I agree with it, No. Does it make it right, no. Can they do it from a legal standpoint, yes. That's why they are UNMARKED, so they blend with other traffic.

[magindat]

I'm not saying the ticketee is right. I'm saying the officer switched tags without authorization or going through any such system and as such should be penalized like any of the rest of us would be.

[FormulaMarauder]

I'm not saying the ticketee is right. I'm saying the officer switched tags without authorization or going through any such system and as such should be penalized like any of the rest of us would be.

In that case, YES. I agree with you!

[JonW]

I think the issue is 1) the officer did so without approval and 2) the plates were off the officer's personal vehicle. They were not department-issued plates, which would come back as not on file or to a fictitious address. IMHO, the officer used poor judgement on 2 counts. It seems to me that either the officer should be fined or reprimanded in some way, or the ticket should be dismissed. It's a 2-way street.

[RCSignals]

I think the issue is 1) the officer did so without approval and 2) the plates were off the officer's personal vehicle. They were not department-issued plates, which would come back as not on file or to a fictitious address. IMHO, the officer used poor judgement on 2 counts. It seems to me that either the officer should be fined or reprimanded in some way, or the ticket should be dismissed. It's a 2-way street.

The way the Trooper did it, placing plates of another State on a vehicle Registered in his State, is illegal.
The WSP Patrol may be able to do it legally within the system, but that isn't what happened here.

In the local NEWS it was stated that the Trooper had been following either an on-line blog or bulletin Board where a driver was bragging he could always tell when there was an unmarked WSP vehicle. The Troopers move was in response to that.
It has also been announced that the Trooper won't be cited, (what he did carries a fine over $200) the matter was 'handled internally'.

[magindat]

I wish my tickets weren't fines and were handled 'internally'!

Go ahead, tell me I'm an idiot and let me go on my way!!! Sure beats the fine and points!!!

Furthermore, I think swapping plates is criminal in Florida now (not that it matters for this case). I know an expired registration is criminal.

[Aren Jay]

Police are officially above the law, didn't you know that.

[JonW]

Police are officially above the law, didn't you know that.

That's the thing. Incidents like this just reinforce that line of thinking in the public's mind. And the whole "handled internally" thing doesn't wash, either. It smacks of a cover-up, even if the incident was truly handled internally.

[TiTo35]

Wow...Police can do anything huh? But I mean its only $247, the police can pull that out they pockets! My dad was a cop, he told me police suck...go figure!

[Marauderjack]

What has happened to the ENTRAPMENT argument???:confused::confused :

What if the cop with OREGON plates had coerced him into a drag race??:cool:

Somewhere REALITY has to intervene with all of this "COPS & ROBBERS" crap!!:mad2:

I'm all for safer highways and God knows we need to slow people down in SC but "entrapping" folks for the sake of government income and meeting quotas is RIDICULOUS!!!:argue:

BOTH the public and the SYSTEM are out of control!!!!!!:rolleyes:

Marauderjack:bandit:

[dreydin]

"He went out on his own. He was attempting to use some initiative to solve a problem, which is our job, but in this case it looks like maybe judgmentwise he should have run it by somebody else."
aaahahahaha :lol:

[Cordoba1]

[QUOTE=Marauderjack;570851]What has happened to the ENTRAPMENT argument???:QUOTE]

What he did was not entrapment, as such. Entrapment suggests you setup a situation that causes a person to break a law. In this case, the speeder was already breaking the law.

Even so, as the officer had no authorization, what he did is clearly illegal. He doesn't even need a lawyer to get out of this one as the courts routinely throw out cases when procedure isn't followed. Using bogus plates isn't correct arresting procedure for a traffic stop. The "I'm not sure he was a real cop because he had out-of-state plates" argument is strong.

[Da Dark Jedi]

Wow... It's good to see people think that LEO's are stiil above the law. Just like here in Chicago, a police Lt. use torture tactics to get false confessions ( of course these tactics were use against minorities) and this was when our Mayor was States Attorney, men spent years in jail because of this. The city is paying off lawsuits and the LEO is found not guilty because the statute of limitation has expired.

In my city they take city plates off undercover cars and stick them on Crown Vic's, and these low lifes use this to pull over women and get a feel or extortion of money from good people. This is what we have come to!

God Bless America!

[magindat]

Wow...Police can do anything huh? But I mean its only $247, the police can pull that out they pockets! My dad was a cop, he told me police suck...go figure!

You mean OUR pockets! Their pay comes from OUR tax money!

[FordNut]

A local State Trooper was fired this week for taking money from someone he stopped for a traffic violation. In a TV interview the Department Director said "the Highway Patrol officers should be held to a higher standard than the general public". I agree, so since I'll get a ticket and fine for putting a license plate on a car which is registered to a different car it appears that the officer in question should also get a ticket and fine.

[Marauder]

The only time I've seen police with out of state plates is normally on a state border. Depending on the department or state, they can go X distance into a neighboring state to enforce a law that was broken in their own state.

But this officer was just plain dumb.

[OO91]

In Michigan (or at least at our sheriffs dept) police vehicles must have a sheriff or municipal (or state police- for them) plate and have a star or marking on at least one door to perform a traffic stop. This is why our detective (who is the only one here that has a suppressed plate, and no markings) cannot have red or blue lights on his vehicle.

Get into the cities and it might be a diffrent ball game though.

[Aren Jay]

On the other hand, he is guilty of speeding.

[SHERIFF]

Police are officially above the law, didn't you know that.


Sadly enough, a lot of the current cops actually believe this. I can't understand what they are being taught in the police academies nowadays! This license plate deal is nothing more than a display of the "us vs them" mentality many are leaving the police academy with.

[SHERIFF]

My dad was a cop, he told me police suck...go figure!

I think you misunderstodd your dad. He was most likely telling you
the new breed of cops being hired nowadays suck. And he's right.