Opinions from my Law enforcement friends needed. Beware of rant thread.

[Madman337]

I read in the local paper today about how one of the pot clubs here was raided and wanted to see what the LOE's here have to say about this sort of thing. From my understanding when somebody wants to get in to this kind of thing they have to pay out for permits and be a certain distance from schools ect as well as paying a tax (currently 10% in Vallejo) on sales. I do know that federal law (pot is illegal) trumps state law (legal to sell for medical use) but I do not understand why this and other citys are allowed to issue such permits and then turn right around and raid them. I think this is nothing more than a purse snatching and it makes me sick.
I do not smoke the stuff but I still have a problem with this because it takes a lot of coppers off the street for hours and this place needs them on the street badly because you can run a red light right in front of one here and they will not stop you because they are so overloaded that they dont have the time to write tickets. I was told this on more than one occasion by local police. I guess my question is this. Do you as police officers think you should be spending time on something like this or out on the street stopping crime?
Please forgive me for even going here but I see what I consider a waste of a resource that is spread far too thin allready (we have other agencys coming in to help cover the city because too) and it pisses me off so I wanted to know if you think so too. Sorry for the rant.

[meissen]

Funny you mention the part about being overloaded -- as it is the Detroit PD doesn't spend much time for traffic enforcement. It's a well known standard that in certain areas if you come up to a red light, you look both ways to make sure no one is coming and then keep going because the longer you stop at the light the longer someone has to car jack you. I've passed officers on the freeway going 80+ mph in a 55mph and they don't flinch.

To add to the coincidence - Detroit just voted to make up to 1oz of marijuana legal. (Cracks me up - give a bunch of marijuana users the ability to vote to make their illegal substance legal... well durr, that was an easy vote)

[Blackbird96WS6]

Man, I wish the cops around here were as lenient as that with traffic violations haha. Here they're bored enough that they'll actually pull you over for expired tags, let alone any other moving violation lol. About the only thing they ignore is blinkers since almost nobody around here uses them, cops included.

[popo8]

ITs all going to depend on specific areas... Some depts and jurisdictions are "fruitful," with the large budgets, and the unlimited man power.... But others are very limited. Its not just small towns, it big cities also.

Now in PA, weed is illegal, no matter what...no medical...no pot houses, or whatever they are called, etc. So I have no insight into raiding something that is technically illegal, but as far as the state is concerned , "legal."

What I can tell you is that time has always dictated that where there is crime, there is WORSE crime.... so when you say Police should be out on the street stopping crime.... its a great theory, but what do we do? We stay vigilant...looking around, stopping cars if it happens in front of us...maybe. We respond to calls, where we deal with so and so, beating up so and so.... or so and so, complaining that their neighbors dog shit on their lawn.... etc... well as far as Im concerned, thats not really "stopping crime," thats simply playing a parental role to those who have no idea how to be PEOPLE.

Now, when you say...hey... there is a crack house, lets make some controlled buys, build up our PC, spend alot of money and man hours to know when the best time to hit it is... what we will find when we hit it then bring it all down... NOW, you take down a NUMBER (fill in your number of people here) of people.... we find out that number 1 and 2 have warrants for something... so they get locked up... we find out that number 3, is carrying an illegal fire arm.... so they get locked up.... Dont forget all of the drugs we just pulled out of the house and all of the money we just seized to go into the drug war, and or the DARE programs.... and thats not including the other people who may have never had a criminal arrest that now do, so that the next time... is not their first offense. We also shut down the house, its boarded up, or seized and sold, making that corner of the block a little better. So the 12 year old girl riding her bike wont have to worry about being assaulted by one of the crack heads who frequent the house.... and so and so's mom who is unloading groceries wont have her purse stolen....

NOW I exaggerated alot...but to prove a point... that sounds like alot of crimes solved and finding real crimes COMPLETED.... in your case its a pot house (which I dont know anything about) so I used our equivalent....

[ZGOBYBY]

Shit Meissen, same here. Detroit is its own world. I have driven by DPD in Detroit doing 80+ MPH, and they don't even care. We were down by the train station in September, and a bunch of my buddies were drifting and were having a car show. A DPD cruiser drove up on the grass of Roosevelt Park and sat there and watched. My buddy jumped the metal curb and took out an axel, and they just continued to sit there. It's like a whole other world.

[Madman337]

ITs all going to depend on specific areas... Some depts and jurisdictions are "fruitful," with the large budgets, and the unlimited man power.... But others are very limited. Its not just small towns, it big cities also.

Now in PA, weed is illegal, no matter what...no medical...no pot houses, or whatever they are called, etc. So I have no insight into raiding something that is technically illegal, but as far as the state is concerned , "legal."

What I can tell you is that time has always dictated that where there is crime, there is WORSE crime.... so when you say Police should be out on the street stopping crime.... its a great theory, but what do we do? We stay vigilant...looking around, stopping cars if it happens in front of us...maybe. We respond to calls, where we deal with so and so, beating up so and so.... or so and so, complaining that their neighbors dog shit on their lawn.... etc... well as far as Im concerned, thats not really "stopping crime," thats simply playing a parental role to those who have no idea how to be PEOPLE.

Now, when you say...hey... there is a crack house, lets make some controlled buys, build up our PC, spend alot of money and man hours to know when the best time to hit it is... what we will find when we hit it then bring it all down... NOW, you take down a NUMBER (fill in your number of people here) of people.... we find out that number 1 and 2 have warrants for something... so they get locked up... we find out that number 3, is carrying an illegal fire arm.... so they get locked up.... Dont forget all of the drugs we just pulled out of the house and all of the money we just seized to go into the drug war, and or the DARE programs.... and thats not including the other people who may have never had a criminal arrest that now do, so that the next time... is not their first offense. We also shut down the house, its boarded up, or seized and sold, making that corner of the block a little better. So the 12 year old girl riding her bike wont have to worry about being assaulted by one of the crack heads who frequent the house.... and so and so's mom who is unloading groceries wont have her purse stolen....

NOW I exaggerated alot...but to prove a point... that sounds like alot of crimes solved and finding real crimes COMPLETED.... in your case its a pot house (which I dont know anything about) so I used our equivalent....

So far here what is going on is that we have CHP (highway patrol) and SO (deputy sheriff) units as well as American canyon pd rolling in our streets along side of our own Vallejo pd just to keep some kind of police presence on the streets. There has not been any kind of drug house busts like the crack houses, dealers, dope fiends ect ect going on here for a very long time and I know damed good and well that they are out there because I see them on the streets. The police here were down to just 12 cops on the streets for a city of 100000+ and they ran from one call to the next to the point that the ONLY time you saw a unit you would hear it first because it was running code the whole way. We now have something like 20 officers on the streets now and when something like this goes down almost all of them are tied up dealing with it and to me that is a waste and I dont believe they even want to be there either. I think the whole pot club bust thing should be left up to the feds since the federal law is the one being violated and leave our cops out of it for the most part. We had a young woman mugged at a park at 2 pm yesterday and while I dont know when the club bust happened I can tell you this much, if there were more cops on the streets then there would have been one in this area of town and maybe that would have been enough to prevent it from happening but they may been tied up arresting stoned people instead. Please dont get me wrong here because I thing our police do a great job with what they have I just think its a waste of their time doing this kind of thing is all and the thought that this place PAID for a permit ect just to get raided for doing what they were permitted from the city-state to do seems unjust to me, why issue permits to get raided?

[Madman337]

Man, I wish the cops around here were as lenient as that with traffic violations haha. Here they're bored enough that they'll actually pull you over for expired tags, let alone any other moving violation lol. About the only thing they ignore is blinkers since almost nobody around here uses them, cops included.

Last year I was in Austin and spent most of the time driving around there at 80-85 on the freeway because thats how fast I drive here and its just habbit for me. I find out later after going back to cali that Austin is speed trap crazy and they will totally give you tickets for everything, now this year when I drove I stayed at the limit because now that I knew about the ticket thing I was gonna get one if I went speeding on the freeway again. That is just how it seems to work for me, I get away with it until I find out that I really am getting away with it and if I try it again then I get clowned LOL.

[firebird_1995]

I think I would be more concerned about the meth epidemic rather than pot. I believe we will see it legal country wide in the next 5-10 years.

[Blackbird96WS6]

Last year I was in Austin and spent most of the time driving around there at 80-85 on the freeway because thats how fast I drive here and its just habbit for me. I find out later after going back to cali that Austin is speed trap crazy and they will totally give you tickets for everything, now this year when I drove I stayed at the limit because now that I knew about the ticket thing I was gonna get one if I went speeding on the freeway again. That is just how it seems to work for me, I get away with it until I find out that I really am getting away with it and if I try it again then I get clowned LOL.

Haha yeah, so far it seems to be that Texas as a whole is just speed-trap crazy. I live 8.5 miles from work and only 2 miles of that is on the freeway and I've had days where on that 2 mile strip of freeway before exiting, I've passed 5 cops. It's seriously like they have nothing better to do than just sit and wait for speeders here. I've seen other days where they even sit and camp out hiding off city streets and residential streets waiting for speeders and people who California-roll stop signs and such. I almost thought about becoming a cop because I figured I could easily find some good hiding spots for speeders lol.

On-topic though, I do agree with your point. It's pretty stupid to give out city permits and then raid them and arrest them for illegal activity - certainly seems like robbery to me. The city lied to them and sold them something useless only to lock em up in jail. The feds should certainly be handling something like that if they really want it stopped so bad.

[Madman337]

I think I would be more concerned about the meth epidemic rather than pot. I believe we will see it legal country wide in the next 5-10 years.

Personally I do not have a problem with people wanting to smoke but I DO have a problem with meth because it destroys lives on the user and those around them and as far as I am concerned it needs to be destroyed, legalize pot and tax the hell out of it and get our cops back to chacing bad guys like they need and want to be IMO.


Haha yeah, so far it seems to be that Texas as a whole is just speed-trap crazy. I live 8.5 miles from work and only 2 miles of that is on the freeway and I've had days where on that 2 mile strip of freeway before exiting, I've passed 5 cops. It's seriously like they have nothing better to do than just sit and wait for speeders here. I've seen other days where they even sit and camp out hiding off city streets and residential streets waiting for speeders and people who California-roll stop signs and such. I almost thought about becoming a cop because I figured I could easily find some good hiding spots for speeders lol.

On-topic though, I do agree with your point. It's pretty stupid to give out city permits and then raid them and arrest them for illegal activity - certainly seems like robbery to me. The city lied to them and sold them something useless only to lock em up in jail. The feds should certainly be handling something like that if they really want it stopped so bad.

The 2nd biggest reason I wanted to wear a badge back in the day was to get away with speeding LOL.
California has a rich history of ripping people off with taxes and fees ($500.00+ a year for vehicle tags) but yes the feds need to leave our cops out of the picture when they do something like this.

[Blackbird96WS6]

Personally I do not have a problem with people wanting to smoke but I DO have a problem with meth because it destroys lives on the user and those around them and as far as I am concerned it needs to be destroyed, legalize pot and tax the hell out of it and get our cops back to chasing bad guys like they need and want to be IMO.

+1 fo sho


The 2nd biggest reason I wanted to wear a badge back in the day was to get away with speeding LOL.
California has a rich history of ripping people off with taxes and fees ($500.00+ a year for vehicle tags) but yes the feds need to leave our cops out of the picture when they do something like this.

O_O are you shitting me? Tags here are like $55 and inspections run about $40. $95/yr total. Man, I'm glad I'm happy living in Texas.. I feel like I couldn't afford to live anywhere else if I tried to move LOL.

[Madman337]

+1 fo sho



O_O are you shitting me? Tags here are like $55 and inspections run about $40. $95/yr total. Man, I'm glad I'm happy living in Texas.. I feel like I couldn't afford to live anywhere else if I tried to move LOL.

The car I picked up 2 years ago is a 98 Saturn that I got for 200 bucks because the owners thought it needed an engine, I fixed it without replacing the engine and since the tags are 4 years out it is over a grand for tags. This is what happens when you have socialist people running things.
Texas is much better off then we here in cali are for a lot of reasons not the least of which is government involvement in our daily lives.