Cops really don't like Massholes
By adamg - 3/30/11 - 1:04 pm
Boston Police report arresting a cab driver who, they say, played a game of cat and mouse with officers trying to pull him over after they spotted him running a red light at Chelsea Street and Neptune Road in East Boston on Tuesday afternoon.
When the officers pulled behind the cab, the cab would stop and then move up by about 20 feet. The operator of the cab did this three separate times before finally coming to a complete stop. When asked to provide his license and registration, the operator refused to obey the officer's legal instructions. As the suspect verbally disparaged and disrespected the officer, the officers asked him again to produce his license and registration. When he refused again, the suspect was placed under arrest.
Comments
One less on the road!
One less jackass cabbie on the roads. Hopefully this will serve as a warning to all the others that they're not above the law either.
the truth is nothing will
the truth is nothing will happen to this guy and he'll be back behind the wheel in a matter of hours.
When will bpdnews start
When will bpdnews start reporting incidents of police verbally disparaging and disrespecting citizens?
awww... did someone get his
awww... did someone get his whittle biddy feelings hurt by a big bad police officer?
Double standard
When a police officer insults a civilian, the civilian is supposed to grin and bear it.
When a civilian insults a police officer, a police officer gets to arrest the civilian for contempt -- a charge which will undoubtedly be thrown out in court -- and publish mean things about the civilian in the police blotter.
Nope. But nonetheless I have
Nope. But nonetheless I have empathy for other people's situations.
(Thank you for your insightful contribution to the discussion, which is in no way full of ad hominem attacks or immature language.)
"Disparaged and disrespected"
Arrest him for refusing to show ID and refusing to pull over. But shame on the police for the gratuitous mention of disparaging and disrespecting an officer. Courts have held again and again that it's well within your rights to disrespect an officer.
Yes and no
If you click through, the charge is "refusing to submit to a police officer." As you point out, this should only apply to refusing to follow an order ("stand over there," "step out of the car," etc.), or an outright threat to people or property, but not to "fuck you, idiot" or "yer mom's a whore" or anything that's constitutionally protected speech.
In the interest of public relations though, BPD should specify which actions brought about which charges. I'm hoping that the refusal to submit was just the not pulling over and not showing ID, not any of the insults or anything.
I don't have a problem with them mentioning how the guy behaved; while I'm among the first to speak up and say that cops have a track record of harassment and discrimination, they're also humans, and it has to be really tough having unfamiliar individuals flip out at you and having to decide in a milisecond whether the person actually poses a threat or whether they're just running their mouth. I'm perfectly fine with the police department publicizing the kind of shit they have to put up with and how they (usually) deal with it appropriately.
(I was recently explaining to a client with a fairly significant psych disability that it was really poor judgment of her when the cops came to her door looking for someone else to tell them she couldn't talk to them because she had to take a shower. The cops don't know she has obsessive tendencies around schedules, and her first amendment rights aside, the reality is that cops make mistakes, and I'd rather see her offended and off schedule than arrested or shot. I don't think this makes me a cop apologist or anything; it's just reality.)
Although it isn't a crime
to be rude or disrespectful, courts do take into account peoples behavior during police investigations, traffic stops and the like.
And the name of the statute is just what the blurb says it is, and it basically includes a bunch of crimes into one statute (failing to pull over, failing to give your license during a stop, give a false address, etc)
Chapter 90 section 25
Section 25 Refusal to submit to police officer
Section 25. Any person who, while operating or in charge of a motor vehicle, shall refuse, when requested by a police officer, to give his name and address or the name and address of the owner of such motor vehicle, or who shall give a false name or address, or who shall refuse or neglect to stop when signalled to stop by any police officer who is in uniform or who displays his badge conspicuously on the outside of his outer coat or garment, or who refuses, on demand of such officer, to produce his license to operate such vehicle or his certificate of registration, or to permit such officer to take the license or certificate in hand for the purpose of examination, or who refuses, on demand of such officer, to sign his name in the presence of such officer, and any person who on the demand of an officer of the police or other officer mentioned in section twenty-nine or authorized by the registrar, without a reasonable excuse fails to deliver his license to operate motor vehicles or the certificate of registration of any motor vehicle operated or owned by him or the number plates furnished by the registrar for said motor vehicle, or who refuses or neglects to produce his license when requested by a court or trial justice, shall be punished by a fine of one hundred dollars.
Lemme Guess
This guy was driving a school bus a couple of days ago.
Refusing to stop and refusing to show license, both arrestable
The cabbie was committing an arrestable offense when he refused to remain stopped, three different times. Even if he had stopped as required, the refusal to produce a driver's license is also arrestable. As for being disrespectful and rude, not a crime but surely a violation of local regulations that require municipal licensees (cabbies, common victaulers, bartenders, etc.) to cooperate with the police during the course of an investigation. If this guy is a Boston cabbie, this could be an expensive tantrum if BPD decides to revoke his medallion, valued around $300,000 the last time I checked. We've all heard of abuses by the police. This doesn't appear to be one of them.
No surprise...
Cabbies generally drive like a-holes anyway, and they're even worse in the East Boston/Chelsea area. Good riddance!