In twenty-five years of working in law enforcement, I’ve seen and heard quite a few threats from people who were going to have me fired or would “have my badge.” Despite the fact that there were a surprising number of such threats, my career survived them all.
My badge stayed pinned to my chest the entire time.
I once pulled over a teenager who was driving a Lamborghini Countach at 50 miles per hour in a 25 MPH zone. When I asked him for his driver’s license, he asked, “Do you know who my dad is?”
I responded, “I guess your dad is the guy who’s going to be pissed off his son got a speeding ticket while driving his $100,000 car.”
The kid didn’t like this answer very much. He also did not like it when I added that he did not have any proof of vehicle insurance to the citation. To this day, I still don’t know who his dad was since I never heard from the kid or his allegedly career-destroying parent ever again.
In addition to threats, I have also dealt with tears, bribes, promises, and pleas. I was even propositioned once, although I didn’t realize what was happening until it was already over. I pulled over a woman who had just gone through an intersection without stopping at the stop sign. When I walked up to the driver’s side window, the young lady was wearing a black miniskirt that barely covered her hips and a white blouse with the first four buttons unfastened. The view was rather impressive.
She smiled at me and asked how I was doing. I said fine and asked her for her driver’s license. When I explained that she had gone through a stop sign she laughed and apologized. She said, “I must have been distracted. I’m so sorry. I promise that will never happen again.” I thanked her and started walking back to my patrol vehicle with her paperwork.
The woman poked her head out of the window and yelled, “Hey! Are you giving me a f***ing ticket?”
I said I was, then asked her to remain in her car. When I returned to have her sign the ticket, her skirt was pulled down to her knees and her blouse was buttoned up to the neck. I have never before or since seen anyone shift from flirty stripper mode to angry nun quite so quickly. She signed the ticket while glaring at me the entire time, then drove off before I had time to tell her to have a nice day.
My favorite traffic stop story, however, has to be the time I was following a black SUV and I watched the vehicle drive past a stop sign without slowing down. I activated my overhead lights to pull the vehicle over. The SUV drove several more blocks without any acknowledgement that I was behind it. I turned on my siren thinking that maybe the driver just hadn’t noticed me. The vehicle still did not stop.
About the time I was considering using my radio to request an additional officer for a “failure to yield,” (police double talk for “I think I’m in a really, really slow car chase”) the SUV turned down a side street and finally pulled over. I approached the vehicle and noticed that the driver was talking on his cell phone. I started to ask for his driver’s license, but he held up a finger and told me, “Hold on!”
I paused, and I heard him say over the phone, “Yeah, he’s right here next to me. You want to talk to him?” The driver then held his phone out toward me. “Your Patrol Commander wants to talk to you.”
Surprised, and curious, I accepted the phone.
“Hello?” I said.
“Who is this?” said the voice on the phone.
“Officer Wilbanks. Hillsborough Police Department.”
“Oh, hi, Gary. It’s Tom.”
Oddly enough, I actually was talking to my Patrol Commander. He asked me what was going on and I explained why I had pulled the SUV over.
“Sounds pretty straight forward,” he said to me. “Do what you gotta do.”
“Do you want to talk to the guy again?” I asked.
“No. Just hang up. I don’t really want to talk to him anymore.”
I disconnected the call and handed the phone back the driver. He had an unpleasant smile on his face as he accepted his phone. “Well?” he asked, getting ready to drive away.
“I need your driver’s license and proof of insurance, please.”
The smile on his face went away. He handed me his information, then told me, “You must really not want this job anymore.”
“There are days I don’t love it,” I admitted. “But today isn’t one of them.”
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