Just when someone thinks they're in the clear, they make what is possibly the dumbest decision they could have, especially with the cops involved. These people thought they could pull a fast one over on some cops, but they didn't receive the exact reaction that they had been hoping for. Content has been edited for clarity.
Hiding From The Law
“We responded to some sort of disturbance in a trailer park. This was about ten or eleven years ago, so I don’t remember the exact details of the disturbance, but whatever it was, it wasn’t anything major. Basically we told the four guys involved to cut this behavior out and go to bed, or at least keep it inside, since it was like 2 a.m. and the neighbors had to work in the morning.
Anyway, as usual, we ran everyone’s information to make sure no one has any warrants. One guy comes back with a warrant for a suspended license or something. We go to put cuffs on him and he tells us that wasn’t his real name, and that he gave his friend’s name because he thought he had a warrant and didn’t know his friend had a warrant. So we run his real name and it turns out he doesn’t actually have any warrants.
He ends up getting arrested for giving the wrong name and also gets charged with identity theft and couple other related charges, since the name he gave was actually a real name. One of the officers in scene walks this guy outside to put him in a car. For some reason, this man decides to slam his own head into the hood of my Sergeant’s brand-new car, hard enough to leave three different dents in the hood. He hit the hood hard enough that it activated the dash cam, so there wasn’t any question about what happened. Well, now it looked like he was getting charged with vandalism as well.
We call EMS to check him out for a possible head injury, and they decide to transport him to a hospital in another county. The guy then starts making suicidal statements, so it turned into an emergency evaluation in addition to all the other nonsense. The charging officer heads to the precinct to take care of the criminal charges, while another officer follows the ambulance to the hospital to complete all the necessary paperwork. We weren’t going to wait on the guy, since an emergency evaluation takes several hours at a bare minimum, and he could end up getting held for up to three days if that’s what the doctor decides. In cases like that, we just send a letter to the hospital requesting that they notify us when he’s getting discharged, so we can go pick him up to serve the warrant he now has.
About an hour after the officer leaves the hospital, they call us to say that the guy walked out of the ER on his own and they don’t know where he went. That was a huge mistake on their part, since they were the ones who were supposed to be evaluating him! Since it was in another county and out of our jurisdiction, we weren’t going to go look for him.
Had the guy just given us his real name to begin with, we would’ve been done with the call in maybe fifteen minutes. Instead, he ends up getting charged with several misdemeanors and a felony, my sergeant’s brand-new car needs to be repaired, this loser gives himself a minor head injury, gets an emergency evaluation served on him, and then the hospital messes up by not actually watching the guy like they were supposed to. The guy was running around with that open warrant for four years before someone finally came across him.”
The Trail Ran Straight To Her
“My office represented ‘Sally’ over ten years ago, prior to me joining the firm. She’s currently in her late 70s. Sally has a MASSIVE drinking problem. She’s had a few arrests and currently does not have a driver’s license as a result of several license suspensions. But that doesn’t stop her from drinking or driving. She calls my office randomly, at different times, including first thing in the morning when my office opens, and she is ALWAYS wasted. I’ve had the misfortune of picking up the phone when she called several times, prior to us having caller ID. She would talk and talk and talk and you couldn’t get her off the phone. She talks about anything and everything. Occasionally it would be about her latest legal issues, but more often than not she’d act like we were her friends and she was calling to chat. My secretary would put her on hold sometimes, and ten minutes later take her off hold, and she’d still be talking.
We tell her every time that we don’t represent her anymore and she needs to speak to her current lawyer, to no avail. Anyway, her antics: One particular incident involved her getting into a car accident and fleeing the scene. She undoubtedly to avoid another arrest, but she’s now a convicted felon for not stopping at the scene of the accident. When she’s not driving, she’s drinking in her home. She then walks up and down the street of her neighborhood yelling. Sometimes she forgets to put her clothes on all the way when she does this. She’ll bang on her neighbors’ doors, whether it be 1 p.m. or 1 a.m. The neighbors call the cops and the police come, who know her VERY well, and she’ll try to run away. They’ve cited her for all kinds of things: disorderly conduct, defiant trespassing (for being in her neighbors’ yards in the middle of the night after being told one hundred times not to), harassment, and even abuse of the 911 system for repeatedly calling to have her neighbors arrested for yelling at her as she stumbled down the street in the middle of the night. And now for my favorite incident.
When she tries to run from the police, there isn’t much of a chase. Being in her 70s, she’s not too fast. The police just meet her at her home with a citation. Well one night the police come around the corner, and there she is in the middle of the street, completely wasted. She immediately runs off. The police get out of their car and can see from the light of their flashlights that she’s peed herself. They follow the urine trail all the way back to her house and knock on the door. She answers as if nothing is wrong, as if they didn’t just see each other in the street two minutes before, as if she didn’t have the pee stain going down her pant leg. And they hand her another citation.
It’s been about two years since she called my office. She’s now living with a family member in another state. She told me she was, ‘Chased out of town’ by the police. What she means by that is they wouldn’t stop citing her for her wasted misconduct.”
Accidentally On The Lam
“This happened when my husband was arrested. He was out on his boat fishing and forgot his life jacket in the truck. The game warden wrote him a ticket, told him he didn’t have to appear in court, and to come to the courthouse on the date listed to pay the ticket. Cool, no big deal! The day came for my husband to pay the ticket. He was in the area for work, so he figured that he would pop in instead of driving forty-five minutes back out there He went to pay the ticket and gave it to the girl so she could process it. She said, ‘You can’t pay this. There is a warrant out for your arrest.’
My husband was extremely confused, and no one would say anything to him about what was going on. A sixty-year-old sheriff came over and handcuffed him. While the sheriff was walking him across the road to jail, he finally explained everything to my husband. There was a warrant out because he failed to appear in court. Remember, the game warden said he didn’t have to appear in court and even checked on the ticket that he did not have to appear. My husband told the sheriff that, and the sheriff completely understood. He definitely knew this particular game warden. According to the sheriff, this was not the first time that this had happened. I ended up bailing him out and he was on probation for a year.”
A Stunning Plot Twist
“My friend’s son, when he was in his twenties, had an addiction problem. His mother could always tell he was under the influence. because during these periods, he would clean and clean and clean the space, and then he would simply sit around and do nothing when he was sober. Well, it seemed that it was time for another hit, and he had already pawned off everything else of value in the house. So what does he do? He goes to his poor elderly neighbor’s house, breaks into the garage, and steals items from there. The police are called after a different neighbor spotted him. The elderly neighbor didn’t want to press charges, surprisingly. This addict showed enough remorse that the elderly neighbor truly believed him. That, along with the fact that the addict cut the elderly neighbor’s lawn all the time. So all was good, right?
It seemed like the addict wasn’t having any of this. This man, who had an otherwise clean record, was guilty enough (and still high enough) that he asked the officers to continue to press charges on himself. Literally everyone else was alright with this kid getting away completely free. The officers explained to him that he would be charged with a crime, and that this would be quite serious. This kid told the cops that he had done wrong and truly wanted to pay for his mistakes.
The item he tried to steal was fairly expensive, so it was still counted as a felony. The breaking and entering this was something he was also charged with. This dude spent seven years in prison. He is still on probation today. This guy that had a totally clean record completely changed the course of his life because he basically wanted to.”
How Did These Thieves Function?
“This guy I dealt with decided to rent every bank heist movie that he could find. He watched them all and planned a one-person bank heist. He goes to a small-town bank away from the city, and he brings with him a piece of wood shoved in his hoodie pocket, in order to somewhat resemble carrying an actual weapon. He slides a note to the bank teller, saying that he had a weapon and they need to give him all of their bills, except for the $100 bills. Because apparently, one of those movies said that only $100 bills were traceable. The clerk empties her drawers and leaves the $100 bills. This guy, who is not wearing a mask and is sporting a distinct shirt, takes that drawer of cash and runs. He makes it about a couple of miles before the police catch up to him. They seize all the cash and count it. This guy was running away with only $127 in cash from the drawer.
Another one of my cases involved a woman who was the legal guardian for her mother-in-law. This required her to be in charge of her mother-in-law’s social security benefits. When the mother-in-law passes away, this woman just kept on taking the money for herself for years. Well no one seemed to notice for a while, and this woman now worked in a nursing home with her disabled husband. The woman decides that she feels bad and writes a letter to the Social Security office, telling them of her exact mistake and a check for $100, along with a promise that she would try to pay them back for the total. The total was $45,000 in wrongful Social Security payments. Police ripped her out of that nursing home and put her straight into federal prison. To this day, I do not think that she would have been caught if she just hadn’t sent the letter.”
Wacky Walmart Adventure
“I was sent to the local Walmart to catch a shoplifter. The workers there have all the paperwork for me, and all I have to do is fill out a booking slip and act as an Uber driver to take this person to jail. While I’m on my way over, a Walmart employee calls me and says, ‘I don’t know if dispatch told you, but she’s got a service dog with her.’
Great. So I get there and there’s a bitter Walmart customer in a riding cart held in the officer, holding a tiny Chihuahua dog. She was wearing a shirt that said, ‘Service Dog’ written with a Sharpie. I explain to her that she is going to jail for shoplifting, but since she’s been cooperative with the employee, I’ll let her call a friend to pick up her dog. Otherwise, I would have to call animal control and this dog would have to go to the pound. She proceeded to argue with me that he’s a service dog, so he can go everywhere that she does, because she needs him to keep her calm due to her PTSD. She claims that she has all the paperwork from the Americans with Disabilities Act in her purse to prove it. She hands me this little card out of her purse, and I read it out loud to her. It says, ‘This federal law applies to all businesses open to the public, including restaurants, hotels, taxis and shuttles, grocery and department stores, hospitals and medical offices, theaters, health clubs, parks, and zoos.’
Since jail is not on that list, she won’t be taking her stupid dog. She finally calls a friend and goes into hysterics, saying that the police are trying to arrest her dog and she needs her to come and get him NOW! Then she cries and cuddles the dog while practically hyperventilating for the next ten minutes until her friend shows up. The friend takes the dog and leaves. The woman immediately calms down and is super cooperative during the rest of the time while I get her out of her riding cart and shoehorn her into the back of a Chevy Impala. She stays calm all the way to jail, and I’m thinking the whole time about how her dog is useless, since she was much more calm after the dog was gone. The kicker to the whole story? She was shoplifting clothing for the dog!”
The Maid Did It!
“I was a seasonal officer at a beach resort. One day, I was stuck in the station working on a bunch of reports, when I hear another seasonal officer and a senior officer get dispatched to a hotel for unknown reasons. Two hours later and I’m still doing paperwork, and both of the officers come in with arms full of large brown paper evidence bags, like the two feet tall ones you put groceries in. They start pulling out the widest variety of illegal substances I had ever seen at once from the bag. Apparently, this nineteen-year-old punk had arrived at the beach to deal these substances out. He had paid for a few nights at this nearby hotel. Well, he missed his checkout time and the hotel needed the room, so the housekeeper let herself in. She removed the covers to the bed and found this buffet of sketchy substances. This kid ended up arriving to check out while the officers were searching his hotel room, so they immediately got him.”
But Why Did He Do It?!
“One time on a ride along, the deputy that I was riding with gets dispatched to cover a stolen truck report. By the time we get there, the truck had apparently been magically discovered on a road far away from the highway. This was one of those roads that the average resident wouldn’t know exists unless they had lived out there for a while. The truck was completely burned to the ground. Due to the location of the truck, the way it was parked, and the way that the damage looked, the deputy wasn’t buying that the truck was stolen and burned as evidence. He thought it was just a theory.
The owners of the truck was a father, who had brought along his teenage son. The dad talked to the detectives, and he further promoted the idea that this truck was stolen and then burned. However, the eighteen-year-old kid was beyond sketchy in how he told the story. He kept changing his own story on when he last used the truck and who was using it when.
We brought in our county’s cooperative auto theft task force, composed of officers all across the various local departments. Since the truck had been stolen, the dad needed to file a report with the police, in order to file with insurance. The deputy volunteered to drive the father and son over to the station. By the time we made it to the office, the teen boy completely cracked and admitted to the whole thing. He parked the truck himself and burned it to the ground in order for them to receive the insurance money. However, the plot twist is that since the dad didn’t actually file a claim, no laws were broken, since it isn’t technically a crime to burn your own property. So he and his dad were stuck with a truck note and no truck. They had only had the truck for less than a year, and it was brand new when they purchased it.”
Only in Florida
“This dude had piled all of his old lady’s stuff in and around the fireplace and set it all on fire. He met up with us cops after the firefighters had put out the fire and was explaining the situation. He told the cop that he was intending to burn up all of her stuff and burn down the house. The cop patiently explained to him that setting her stuff on fire in a fireplace was one thing, but trying to burn down an occupied house was something completely different. He asked this gentleman if he would like to clarify and possibly revise his statement? This guy repeated that he wanted to burn down all of her things and the entire house. This hapless offender stood fiercely by his story. At this point, the officer read a short statement from a card that he carried around in his pocket. This resident patiently and obstinately explained that he was trying to burn. down. the. house. and. all. the. stuff. He could not be more clear in his explanation if the officer wasn’t going to listen him.
Well, it turns out that this guy ended up with a sentence of twelve years in the Florida prison system. Of course, it was Florida.”
Unforgettable Memories
“My roommate was arrested for a noise complaint. We were having a very loud party and the cops showed up, said we were too loud, and if they came back that someone would be going to jail. They came back and cuffed my buddy, saying he was under arrest for violating the noise ordinance. I tried to tell him how, ‘That’s basically the same severity as a parking ticket, it’s a civil infraction and not a criminal offense.’
And the police told me to shut up immediately, or I was going to jail too. At some point in time that night, someone took a picture of him handcuffed, wearing nothing but a tie and smiley-faced boxers. I still have it, it is a great photo. So in the morning, we go to get him out of jail, and the people at the jail say that they can’t finish booking him. Apparently, the booking system used on the computer didn’t have an actual category for noise complaints. Well no wonder, since it isn’t even a criminal offense. We had to wait until Monday for their official IT guy to create a new category in their system, so we could finally get him out. Fast-forward to his court date, and the judge immediately stares down the prosecution. The Judge stated, ‘A noise complaint is not a criminal offense. Why are we even here? If you ever bring a case like this to my court again, I will be having words with your boss and quite possibly the bar!'”
Why Such An Extreme Reaction?
“My buddy arrested a dude for slapping a little girl. We were out on a local brewery porch on what happened to be a nice summer evening. At that time of day, it was still a family-friendly scene. So as usual, kids were playing and running around. This little five-year-old girl ran full sprint into this balding, middle-aged man and knocked over the pretzel he had been eating out of his hand. He didn’t have an instant reaction. He sort of looked around, and then he proceeded to slap this little girl.
My buddy jumped up and grabbed the dude. He stated that he was an off-duty officer, and he was forced to basically protect this dude from about fifty people who wanted to beat this monster up senseless until the actually on-duty cops could arrive. You don’t slap a girl in a small town dude, everyone knows where you live. What on earth is wrong with you? This dude wasn’t even wasted, just a horrible person. Thankfully, I haven’t seen him around in a while.”
They Knew Exactly What To Do To Him
“My partner and I get called out to a local park, because it seemed that a couple was having a very loud verbal argument in public. As we pull in, multiple bystanders are pointing us towards the disruption, because everyone clearly knows exactly why we were there. We found the young couple, both in their mid-twenties, still arguing as we separate them. My partner talks to the man, and I talk to the woman.
It turned out that day was the woman’s birthday, and the two of them were quite wasted. The woman grew angry because he wasn’t paying enough attention to her. She was pretty intense, but this dude didn’t seem like he had that much to drink. He was pretty calm. Witnesses described to us how the woman had been hitting and pushing her boyfriend. The man further confirmed that she had gotten physical with him. He said that he had felt some pain, and there were some minor scratches on him, but the main vibe I got from him talking was that he was simply fed up with her whiny self more than anything.
This woman admits to physical assault, so we put her in our car. As I’m clicking her seatbelt, I hear my partner talking with her boyfriend. Out of the blue, the boyfriend exclaims, ‘So I’m just supposed to stand here while y’all take my girl?!’
My partner and I sighed. This dude started to get really belligerent about us arresting his girlfriend. We were desperately trying to deescalate the situation and tell him that he can bail her out later if he wants. But by this point, he has completely lost his mind. My partner and I were really not in the mood to fight that night, but that time was rapidly approaching us.
Suddenly, we both have the same small moment of clarity. This woman was already in the squad car. So we didn’t say any other word to the boyfriend, got in our cars, and simply just drove away. This guy’s face in the rear-view mirror was absolutely priceless. He was probably even angrier than he would have been if we had fought and arrested him.”
Did They Get Away With It?
“Once when I was a no good ruffian, I got pulled over with some friends of mine and we had a lot of illicit substances in our car. The driver only had her permit and wasn’t supposed to be driving with passengers yet. Two of those passengers were on probation alongside me. The cops pull all of us out of the car and searched us individually, but they hadn’t examined the car yet. Now, we grew up in a small town and these particular cops knew us from their various school meetings and appearances. Not to mention that one of the officers had gone to school with us and was in our graduation class. While he is patting us down, he notices that one of us has rubber bands on his pant legs near the feet. The cop asks, ‘What’s with these rubber bands?’
The guy says, ‘It is so I can run faster to get away from you guys.’
This cop doesn’t believe that it’s possible, and he offers to let us go with a warning if my friend can beat him in a foot race. The only person who was being charged at the time was the driver, who would have had their car towed and likely searched, which would have been very bad news for all of us. So the two of them raced and my friend beat the cop. True to his word, the cop let all of us go.”