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Thanks for sharing this anecdote, I remember it from when you've posted about it in the past and it's stuck with me.

> I have donated to police in the last couple/few years, so... there's that... which may come to an end.

In my opinion, there's a good reason for it to come to an end that has nothing to do with this.

In the states I'm familiar with, PBAs and police unions were the top (and sometimes only) spenders when it came to lobbying against marijuana legalization. They use those donations to lobby and ensure that they can continue to arrest, fine and imprison scores of people for victimless crimes, while also ensuring their job security in doing so.

Ugh now I feel dirty...

In one state where legalization was approved by public mandate, the legislation that passed made it so anyone under the age of 21 could only receive a warning for possession, and no charges or arrests.

This is important because any drug arrests, charges or convictions make individuals ineligible for federal student loans or assistance for college, meaning the kids who do get arrested might have their plans to better their lives ruined by a cop who doesn't like the smell of marijuana.

Police unions spent months and millions of dollars lobbying the state government so that they could still arrest and charge kids for pot possession.

> Police unions spent months and millions of dollars lobbying the state government so that they could still arrest and charge kids for pot possession.

But why though? Hatred? Inertia? Culture? Do they get paid per scalp? Do they love their drug dogs that much?

The lack of arguments against pot-smoking notwithstanding, what is it that backs this? Because so much of this seems completely arbitrary.

It seems akin to a petty gatekeeper in a large organization—encroachment on a domain under their control is viewed as an existential threat.

In that state, a significant amount of arrests, convictions and revenue from fines came from marijuana charges. Each conviction came with hundreds to thousands in fines.

Not only that, each conviction created busywork for probation officers, as low level offenders were given the option to have their record cleaned of their conviction if they went on probation programs where they are drug tested regularly. The probation program came with more fines/fees, as well. It also opened opportunities to keep people in the system, because violation of probation has its own penalties. Kids' parents have the incentive to push kids through this program and to pay for it, too.

There are those reasons, and then there's the simple fact that cops know they will have less to do if they can't arrest people for pot, which might be bad for job security. Losing "I smell marijuana" as a method for establishing probable cause was a big deal, as well.

Arresting you improves their metrics and helps justify the labor hours that ultimately pay their bills. Also it's used as a pretext to steal billions of dollars via civil asset forfeiture much of it in less than $1000 increments.

See literal highway robbers stealing $500 from citizens via lawsuits like state vs 535 dollars and 75 cents where criminal intent is inferred but no proof is given.

The whole idea that there can be some monetary flow in to the police based on what types of things they do seems baffling to me. Donating to a governmental apparatus? That's just asking for influence and abuse.

Don't like what the cops do? Threaten to pull some multi-million 'donation' and suddenly everything becomes possible. At that point it's not law enforcement but money enforcement. Same as being a cop: need more money? Bust some people for whatever happens to be convenient and 'make money' on off of that.

The only money should be coming from the government, and everything they collect should be going back into the government. If you turn it into a corporate system where money is a motivator you're doomed from the start.

There's political organizations that advocate for police.

It would be an infringement of speech rights to prevent people from donating to them, at least as they are currently defined in the US.

And it should be one that we tolerate. There are lots of infringements on speech, especially professional speech.

The idea that somehow a group empowered by the state to commit violence in defense of the states policies have a more sacrosanct right to speech than doctors or teachers is absurd. These aren’t individuals speaking as individuals…this is effectively government speech and we ought not wrong our hands about restricting it. The government has no right to speech.

There are equivalent groups for doctors and teachers, I don't follow your meaning.

Like what is it that FOP¹ does that you think they should be prevented from doing? Should they not be allowed to exist?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_Order_of_Police

Please note that I don't give money to these organizations, I'm pointing out what a big chunk of donating money to the police consists of.

I’m aware of the other groups existing.

When such a group represents police it is fundamentally different and should be treated with much greater suspicion.

So what is your solution to prevent law enforcement becoming influenced to do things other than realistic law enforcement for the betterment of society in a designated violence monopoly?

You are apparently mistaking my description of the world as it is for an endorsement of the world as it is.

I guess I don't think that police should be (somehow) specially prevented from any police related political activity, but that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge the age old question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

He took my info and when he came back to my car after running license, told me "Look, I know you don't like cops. It says that when I pull up your file."

Another simple explanation is that ... he made the file part up. Not that the scanning your FB page thing is impossible but one has to consider multiple factors here.

It reminds me of the "permanent record" threat from teachers.

> I was yelling at him quite a bit ... > "Look, I know you don't like cops. It says that when I pull up your file." ... > I don't have any idea where they could have gotten that information at all except from my Facebook

I wasn't there, but this gives me the feeling that stalking your Facebook might not be the only way for them to infer this, especially if you've ever been stopped before this.

That aside, I hope your family member was okay.

Very interesting. They may be using a third-party service that pulls data in, thus they can say "we don't have that info." So the next step in your FOIA is to get records on how their systems work and contracts with third parties to provide data for driver records.

> I don't have any idea where they could have gotten that information at all except from my Facebook years ago

Well, you were yelling at that cop. Maybe he had just added it to your file. Maybe you yelled at other cops. Maybe you had no notice in your file and he was lying to you. Maybe you had a Black Lives Matter or Democrat bumper sticker. Who knows.

If someone is yelling at a cop, it's not a giant stretch to think they don't like cops.

Meanwhile, unless you were speeding because you were transporting someone to the hospital, were racing to donate an emergency organ or needed to be there to supply a legal signature, I'm not sure you have an excuse. A cop should probably cut you some slack, but there's no "I was in a hurry for a decent reason" exemption. It's a "hurry for a good reason" exemption.

>"Look, I know you don't like cops. It says that when I pull up your file."

How do you know he wasn't just lying to see if you would unintentionally confirm his lie?

Or it was just his idea of a joke. He doesn't need to pull up a file to know that this guy didn't like him. People are especially dense to punchlines when they're stressed out and don't expect someone to be pulling their leg.

> How do you know he wasn't just lying to see if you would unintentionally confirm his lie?

Or how much of it was bait? "I never said such a thing." > "Now are you calling me a liar?"

> except from my Facebook years ago when I openly voiced that I didn't like cops at the time

Hmm, I wonder if this is why Reddit keeps asking for my email address. I'd rather remain anonymous for exactly this reason. I don't hate all cops, some friends and family are cops, but there's no profession where every employee is good and fair all of the time.

Heads up, and not because of any stance I hold on this issue:

I don't know if OP posted this story multiple times, or if this is a template that people are using, but I've definitely seen this story with incredibly similar wording and pacing on HN before.

I posted it a couple months ago/ish, once. I had not filed FOIA at that time.

It was literally me.

If you see it more than there and here, it was not me.

*edit: than, not that

HN has a very good search feature, and "you don't like police" turns up an earlier mention from the artificialLimbs:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28028743

There's probably a note from the last time you berated a cop. You are reaching...

Plausible if I had ever berated a cop before. In fact, I didn't berate this one on this stop.

Is it possible that the officer was bluffing?

No, he immediately followed up with "... but I'm going to cut you a break on this one." And did. No ticket.

He told me as he left "We're not all bad."

It was surreal.

Your experience is horrifying. Not long till you can arrested for thought crimes if this trend keeps continuing.

I don't see how that makes a bluff implausible, especially since you were yelling initially.

really just sounds like a cop telling a small lie based on your reaction in an attempt to spread good PR on behalf of the police all the while establishing a position of authority, unintentionally making you think there's darker forces at play then there really were, when in reality he was just defusing the situation with a lie. obviously one can't know for certain but that seems like the most plausible explanation. I can see this being an informal personal technique a cop might use in situations like this, all the while being completely oblivious to the terrifying implications of what he's saying.

I doubt there's any way to ever prove what happened here, but this is what I was thinking too. It was a lie to cool things down. Someone who's angry to the point that they're yelling is dangerous, not just to the cops but to other drivers on the road.

If they weren't bluffing and you're in the same county, it could just be the dispatcher remembered you from last time.

I had something analogous to this where the local PD left a voicemail saying my brother had gone missing and left a name with the same last name and a name similar to mine.

When I called back, I told the dispatcher and they refused to leave it there and wanted to transfer me to the cop in question which I thought was really weird. He took it down but it seemed like there was something else there. And I realized he was probably fishing to serve an arrest warrant or something.

To see if I would go, "No, my brother isn't missing. That's my cousin and he's at <address>." Cops do that type of shit all the time.

Was that your first encounter with an officer in your lifetime?

No.

The last time I read your account of this incident, you left this part out: "I was yelling at him quite a bit"

I can certainly sympathize with that reaction, most traffic stops are chickenshit and to be interrupted with that nonsense when in the middle of a medical emergency must be infuriating. But I think your FOIA requests looking for this file will never turn up anything, because the cop was almost certainly fucking with you. He figured you didn't like cops because you were yelling at him, not because of anything some computer file said.

This is exactly what happened. Only dang will get to read this message and share the laughter, and that makes us almost friends.

Well, if it didn’t say that on his file before the stop, it does now…

"It says in your file that..." ... Uhh, hey, look at that, I think you are right, ...sure had me going there, LOL.

I really do hope they aren't "keeping a file on" me but I think I would definitely believe it was true, if they said it was so. I guess I'm easily conned. Generally trust authority.

That's a mistake!

Note that the cop may well have been bluffing. They do that.

You've mentioned this previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28028743