How to contact internal affairs?

[PHILBERT]

Alright I'm trying to get in touch with this police department in regards to being harassed by 3 different officers in the same night, and not even being told their names, badge numbers or answer any questions I asked them.

I've called them and they told me to come in and fill out a complaint form, and I did. They told me someone would call me, and, 3 days later still no call back. So I called them today and the lady told me I'd be called before the day was over, and still no reply.

What other ways would I be able to get in touch with them? I checked online and apparently they don't even have an internal affairs page on their police site.

[Jason Chambers]

Your current method of contact is probably best. I doubt that IAB will give your plight much weight considering the volume of harrassment complaints an average PD gets.

If you cannot provide them with names of the officers, it will most likely go nowhere.

One more thing, the police do not have to answer YOUR questions, but it is best if you answer thier's.

Sorry.

[PHILBERT]

I was told though that if you directly ask "What is your badge number?" or "What is your name?" they have to give it to you. These officers however said "That's none of your information" and DWG officers don't wear metal badges like other cops with the badge number written on it. They basically look like glorified security guards, and the only way to tell they are not security guards is because they have a patch on the shoulders saying "Town of DWG" or something.

[Joseph Svinth]

Polite letters to elected officials often get results.

[joe yang]

Scott, who told you cops have to tell you their name or badge number? Was that a qualified legal opinion? Does it apply to all agencies, at all levels of government, in all jurisdictions? Did that same person tell you all agencies even have internal affairs departments? The Borough of Delaware Water Gap? LOL They only have three cops and one is the chief and one is part time. The town is only five blocks long and two blocks wide. There is one traffic light and they switch it over to a blinking light after dark. Internal Affairs? Sorry to hear you got hassled. Not much you can do about it. The mayor and the borough council are unpaid officials for example.

[Shitoryu Dude]

Far too many cops are little more than thugs with a badge. On the other hand, what were you doing that attracted all the attention?

If it was nothing, consider the possibility that one of the insane women in your life is now giving a cop "special services" and asked him to spread the word that you need to be taught a lesson.

[PHILBERT]

Ok here is the full story:

My boss, 3 girls and myself all went out to Dallas to some bar to see some acoustic show. The girls and I both parked our cars in the parking lot in front of the office I work in, right at the very edge under a bright light. This btw was in a town called Pantego.

When we came back, we saw about 3 DWG cops on the road in this 1/2 mile radius, one literally was driving across the lawn of people's businesses without a care in the world like he owned the places and could just drive on their grass.

Well we pulled back into the parking lot and got out of my manager's minivan and we each hopped into our cars (the girls came in 1 car). As soon as we pulled out, one cop came into the parking lot (Out of his town) and flipped on his lights towards my manager, and 2 more followed me and the girls down the road and after we got past this one light (Even further out of their crap town) they flipped on their lights and pulled each of us over seperately. The girls were let go within 10 minutes with a few quick questions.

I on the other hand got a gestapo cop. He asked me 5 questions:
1.) Where are you going?
2.) Your house is that way, why are you going this way?
3.) What way were you going to take home?
4.) Why bother to go that far to drive home?
5.) Where do your friends live?

My answers were:

1.) I'm going home.
2.) Because I chose to drive this way, I decided to take a longer route home.
3.) I'm going down a few street lights and taking the freeway back.
4.) Because I decided I wanted to drive a little longer home.
5.) I don't know where they live.

Notice something there? He esentially asked the same question 5 times, just worded it differently. I was being honest too, I was going home, but I was trying to avoid his crappy town in the process so I was taking a much longer route to avoid these fat pigs. He then insulted me saying "What kind of friend are you?" because I didn't know where my friends live. Then he asked if I had been drinking, what my business was in that parking lot, and where I had come from. I told him that I didn't drink at all that night and offered to take a breathylzer, that my place of employment was in the office there (and gave him a business card to prove it) and that I had been to a bar in Dallas. When he asked why I had gone there I said to see a band, he asked who and I told him I didn't know. Again he insults me saying "So you just went wihtout knowing who was playing? That's dumb." I told him I didnt have to buy my ticket in so I didn't care who was playing. More insults. FINALLY he asks for my license/information, and by the time he did this, the girls were gone and the cop that pulled them over was standing next to my car staring in my car looking for weapons.

This second officer walked to the front of my car and checked my license plate, WROTE IT DOWN, then walked to the back and checked this one as well. A few minutes later a 3rd cop pulled up and came up to me and said "How are you doing tonight?" and I said "Hey whats up." He then literally yelled "THATS NOT THE ANSWER I WAS WANTING. I SAID HOW ARE YOU TONIGHT?!" then he told me that some people had been syphoning gas out of military vehicles (that werent even parked there at 1:30 am) and that the cops "saw something fall out of one of our cars and that was cause enough to pull us over" despite the fact that, where they were parked when we got in our cars, they couldn't see jack !!!! because they were sitting in the u-turn lane and that was around the corner from a building in the parking lot. I've tested this theory too, where we were, all he could see was us pulling into the parking lot, then leaving the parking lot.

Anyway, he then asked if I had been drinking and I said no and again offered a breathylzer and then he screamed again "I DIDNT ASK IF YOU WANTED A BREATHYLZER, I ASKED IF YOU HAD BEEN DRINKING. IF I WANT YOU TO TAKE A BREATHYLZER I WILL ASK YOU TO TAKE IT!" He then handed me my license back and told me to go home. Not have a nice night, he said "Here you go. You need to go home." Like Im not allowed on the road at 1:30 in the morning. I called my manager afterwards and he told me the cop just came up to him, said hi, saw the business card and left him. I was there for almost 30 minutes and by the time I got released, the girls were already home and my manager was half way home.

What I think I will do is send their city a letter explaining what happened, send the town of Pantego (where they began chasing us), the City of Arlington (where they pulled me over) and the state of Texas.

These officers also denied me the request to have an Arlington cop come out there and oversee this. And any time I have ever been pulled over, even for a warning, the officers have voluntarily given me the information.

Oh and this gets even funnier. Exactly 2 days later, I was up at the office again at 2 am. My manager and I were at a party and he got totally, totally trashed. Some idiots put 10 shots of tequila, one in each beer he drank (10 beers total) and then threw him out of the house and I had to take him home, except there was no where home was for him. His house was over an hour away and he moved within the last month and didn't update his license.

So I took him to the office at 2 am, and threw him in his office chair, propped his legs up and said "You owe me a promotion for this" and left. I was there for over a half hour doing all this, then left the back door of the office. A Pantego cop drove right past me as I came walking out from behind the building and didn't even pull into the parking lot. A half hour, and I know DWG cops drove past this parking lot, but a half hour and no other cops came up to me when I was walking around the building.

[Tripitaka of AA]

Perhaps you could invest in a piece of cardboard and some string. I suggest the following legend "Don't mess with me... I might write a letter"
or "I've got a rattle and I'm not afraid to use it".

How about putting this one down to experience and never ever mentioning it in public again. If I ever get to read such a heap of nonsense again I will personally reduce you to a quivering mass of gelatinous body fluids by blowing a large raspberry in your general direction.

[joe yang]

Sorry for the misunderstanding Scott, I couldn't believe there are two towns were the cops are baged DWG, but you know there is a way to put a bug up their you know what? I've used it a few times myself with some success.

You need to send a formal letter of inquiry to the chief of police. Keep it short and curteous. Don't make it sound like you have a gripe. Don't give him a chance to dismiss you as a crank. Tell him on such and such a date and time, three officers stopped you and your companions and while you appreciate there concern for public safety, ask if it is standard practice to selectively detain priate citizens or to fail to identify yourself. Something along those lines. Here is the important part, cc the mayor and the town council or who ever else is in authority. The chief will have to look into. If the officers in question have a history of this kind of behavior you really have kind of an obligation to add to the paper trail.

[Brian Owens]

I'm leaning towards David's reading, I think.

It sounds to me like what started out as a simple field check turned into more because someone copped an attitude; and I'm not talking about the cops.

Oh, BTW, asking the same question several times in slightly different ways is standard practice. People who are lying often answer differently each time the question is asked.

[joe yang]

Brian, I understand. I'm giving Scott the benefit of the doubt. That's why I like the friendly letter of inquiry approach. A civil inquiry about a possible irregularity suggests you aren't looking for trouble. If there is a problem, the official response is usually to address it quickly before it gets worse and nobody suffers and you do the right thing. If you want to make people suffer and try an IA approach, well that kind of re-enforces the idea that maybe somebody did cop an attitude.

I've seen it go both ways, cops who where "badge heavy" throwing there weight around and civilians who were way out of line who got off easy because the cops were good natured despite taking a very hard line approach. Usually where drinking was involved it was more of the later.

[PHILBERT]

Brian, the last thing I wanted to do was cop an attitude with them, due to that I didn't want them to try and arrest/detain me for some reason. Call it being paranoid, I dunno. I answered each question honestly, and without a hint of frustration or anger or sarcasm, hell I was scared because, while I don't have fear of being pulled over by Arlington cops, each time I see a DWG cop going the same direction as me, I literally get a sinking feeling in my stomach because I know how these cops are. They are thugs with badges, nothing more. I'd never yell, be sarcastic or purposely try to anger a DWG cop. My remark to that cop who yelled at me when I said "Hey whats up?" is a standard response I give whenever say something like "Hey there" or "How are you?" Even when he began screaming at me, I didn't give him an attitude. By the time he told me why I was being pulled over, I already knew as my manager had called me and told me the story. When he began telling me, I purposely had to bite down on my tounge because I almost said "Oh I already know why I got pulled over. My manager just called me." So no, I wasn't giving them an attitude.

I've literally had 2 of these officers follow me home one night; almost running one red light, ran a stop sign AND speeding just to catch up with me. I was driving home one night at 12:30 in the morning when they began following me, they were about 1/4 a mile behind me. They finally caught up to me at a stop sign just around the corner of my house (And about a mile out of thier city) and stayed in my blind spot so when I turned on my signal to get in there lane, they wouldn't let me over. I tried to slow down, they slowed down. Finally I threw on my brakes and turned left and ended up making a u-turn. When they turned around and were coming back and past me, they threw on there brakes and turned around and followed me all the way to my house, then kept driving. I never bothered to contact there city about these cops following me.

When you get down to it, their entire city is corrupt. I had to go to court, and from my understanding, when a cop doesn't show up to court the ticket gets thrown out, right? Well, the cop didn't show up, I was ordered to pay over $200 for an expired inspection sticker AND take defensive driving. They also tried to hit me with double jeapordy.

[Joseph Svinth]

Go find an attorney specializing in traffic law. His services will probably cost a hundred bucks or so. Then give the attorney another couple hundred bucks on retainer. That way, he's already paid for future services. Put him on speed dial. And off you go: Legal defense.

[PHILBERT]

Go find an attorney specializing in traffic law. His services will probably cost a hundred bucks or so. Then give the attorney another couple hundred bucks on retainer. That way, he's already paid for future services. Put him on speed dial. And off you go: Legal defense.

Im actually about to sign up for just that in the next few weeks through work. We got some deal on legal defense, costs about $300 a year, and I get free legal counsel whenever I need it.

[Jason Chambers]

How about you don't make such a big deal of it and move on with your life...?