THE POLICE PROBLEM

I once worked for a small vehicle tracking company. Like tracking fleets. School buses, delivery trucks,... But one day I heard that a local police department was a customer of ours. I overheard this when the police chief was visiting. He wanted to know where his vehicles were, but weirdly he was super pointed about making sure we weren't keeping any history. I immediately looked up the account (small company, devs had keys to the kingdom) to see what kind of history the police wanted to hide. Dozens of vehicles on the account but one quickly caught my eye: a vehicle without its sirens on was doing 125 MPH back and forth on some dirt roads just outside the city. That vehicle did this at least once a week.

The RNC bus full of senators we tracked stopped outside of a strip club for 4 hours one year. Didn't need history to watch that happen.

A Seattle police officer was reprimanded for driving three times the speed limit without emergency lights and blazing through a solid red light at 50 mph, according to a recently released disciplinary report. Ofc. Ernest Cleaves initiated the pursuit without authorization after a stolen SUV backed into him and drove away.

The vehicle had a tracker and was being followed by a helicopter. The cop also wasn’t certified for high speed pursuit, even if this was a situation that warranted a chase (which it was not). How bad to cops get to fuck up before they get fired? 75 in a 25 with no lights or sirens? It’s a miracle he didn’t kill anyone (I’m assuming this is a separate incident than the one where the cop actually did kill someone with this kind of bullshit)

https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2024/03/15/how-washington-s-police-pursuit-law-will-change

police and sheriffs have been complaining about the pursuit laws in Washington so the lawmakers changed the laws for the popo.

turns out the popo don't give a shit either way

end of story

I'm a school bus driver and of course I have cars passing me when my red 8-ways (the flashing red lights which mean FUCKING STOP) are on a few times a week. I always wish there was a cop around when this happens, but one time it was an actual cop (without his lights on and going the speed limit FWIW) passing me in the opposite direction a couple of seconds before I opened the door and let kids out; a few seconds later and he would have hit them. I looked down as he passed to see him steering with his left hand while looking at his phone in his right hand. I reported him but of course nothing was done.

At least it was just a case of inattention. Sometimes people pass in this situation going the same direction as me, which means they're deliberately going around a bus with its red lights flashing by crossing into the oncoming lane. One time this happened and the driver ran over the foot of a girl who had exited and was crossing the street (she was somehow unhurt). At least we're getting "Bus Patrol" cameras this year which automatically record vehicles doing this and ticket the offenders; it's an improvement but I would prefer machine guns.