Should this trooper be fired 4833

I probably wouldn't actually do that, but I actually am genuinely curious now.

I gather it's somewhere in the Houston area.

Fortunately, I'm not familiar with every PD in that area, but you would be consistent with pigs I've encountered (and heard accounts of other people's encounters) in HPD, Bellaire PD, and Hedwig Village PD.

I will say that I've encountered HPD officers who did seem to be decent, but far too many of them aren't, and whether you remember them or not, us citizens remember things even it's not their local PD.

Moody Park, Ida Lee Delaney, Byron Gillum, the junkie cop (yeah, I forgot his name but not what he did), De La Paz, Tulia, and that's just in Texas and just off the top of my head. I'm sure I've forgotten more than that.

Look those cases up if you're not familiar with them. Then think twice about the "code of silence" (yes, I know, you claim it doesn't exist - think about it anyway. Cops should be held to a higher standard).

I also remember incidents that I or close friends have experienced that you are most likely not familiar with - unless by some strange coincience you were involved.

I can just imagine that you're thinking I'm some sort of lowlife criminal to have experienced and have friends who have experienced ill treatment from cops.

Maybe you're not thinking that, but I suspect you are.

Without admitting to anything, I can honestly say that the only reason I might ever have even been arrested (and I never have been) are for DUI or possession (not sale or cultivation) of sugar (under 2 ounces as IIRC that's the cutoff between the lowest offense and the next step up in TX - actual amounts would never have been more than an oz, and that's if what I got actually weighed what it was supposed to).

I came close to a DUI once, and I have to say that the officers who pulled me over and ran me thru FSTs were professional and didn't say or do anything I could possibly object to. (Hell, they didn't arrest me - what more could I ask for?) They still wrote me 3 tickets - speeding (I was barely speeding), red light (it was barely red), and failure to change address on my DL.

They told me they thought I would blow "right on the line" if they took me downtown. Sure, I was guilty of the things they wrote me tickets for, but I wasn't a road hazard.

The bottom line was, they weren't sure they would get a conviction for their trouble. They knew I had a decent job and would most likely be hiring a very good attorney and they weren't sure that I was in fact legally drunk.

I'll try not to get side-tracked on DUI laws other than to acknowledge that I understand that cops don't write the laws, they only enforce them.

That was HPD, BTW just in case you're thinking I think all HPD cops are buttholes. They were exceptional in that respect.

I have no way of knowing, but I think being honest with them about my failure to change address on my DL might have made the difference between driving home and going to jail that nite. Needless to say, I take DUI much more seriously now. Spending 60 seconds of my life at a red light is way preferable to spending even a nanosecond in handcuffs.

What can I say? I was a young punk then. Unfortunately, there are too many young (and old) punks among our nation's law enforcement agencies.

Based upon what I know now about Texas law, I wouldn't consent to giving any evidence against myself. IOW, if I thought I might be over the puny 0.08 limit, I would refuse eveything, just like that cop did recently.

It worked for him, why shouldn't it work for me?

Well, it looks like I did get side-tracked a bit there on DUI laws, but trust me. I could go on much longer on that subject.