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From the Police Blotter: House Mouse Roars
What is a “House Mouse”? It’s time for a review of police jargon. There are phrases that you will never see on an Incident or Custody Report.
Police jargon is dependent upon geographical location. For example, “perp” is used on the East Coast, “subject” is used on the West Coast.
Police Jargon 101:
1. Anti-Social Tendencies; Resists arrest.
2. Frequent Flyer; Runs from the police in a vehicle or on foot.
3. Slow learner; See #1 and #2
4. Dumb Ass; Self-explanatory, also see #1 and #2. Used often on the street.
5. House Mouse; used on the East Coast to describe a supervisor that spends time avoiding the street. Second guesses cops that do real police work.
6. Admin Cop; See #5. Used on the West Coast
There is some jargon that would violate the Code of Conduct on Ricochet. Some do not contain a vowel. One of those might be one that was unique to my former agency. JFB (Just [redacted] Beautiful), you can figure out that one. It was used to describe the latest demand from the mayor, admin cop, or any number of calls, and incidents that came your way.
Eric Adams, the Mayor of the City of New York, is demanding that NYPD officers no longer congregate or talk to each on the street. One would think he might worry about individuals who talk to each other and congregate to carry out muggings, shootings, or smash-and-grabs in the city.
Eric Adams was a high-ranking NYPD officer at one time. There are some NYPD officers that call him a House Mouse. I don’t know if that’s true, but he certainly speaks like one. He says he supports the NYPD, but talk is cheap.
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Published in Policing
Exactly. I have no problem with the 2nd Amendment. I don’t have any problem with concealed carry. You have a right to your own life. You know who has a problem with that? It’s lawmakers.
Want to clean up the FBI. Well, it’s lawyers at the top. Lawyers who have no street experience. Lawyers that manipulate judges, a polite word for lying. Lawyers in the DOJ, and lawyers in the FBI, not police officers that know if they lie to a judge their career is finished. Not only that every conviction they may have been involved in could be overturned.
Personal experiences with cops are the foundation for how one feels about them. But hey, I guess I am not giving you the full story.
Most people don’t.
It’s a stain on our country’s legacy that we even have license plates. If our founders were asked if wagons and one-horse shays should be required to have license plates, they’d have snorted in derision. Sadly though, technology won’t require them much longer as facial recognition and other biometrics are making them passe.
I’ve long wanted to understand why God was so angry at King David for taking a census. It may have had something to do with this.
So the broken tail light makes the officer risk his life for the safety of drivers? There’s no other concern he might have for the public being subjected to violent criminals?
So, in other words, the system is corrupt and police officers are just following orders from their corrupt bosses – who they know are corrupt – but they still deserve a pass because they have pretty much the same observations and opinions, but will still arrest you for not wearing a mask on a public beach.
Well as some on Ricochet say again and again voters get what they deserve. I don’t believe in that. I lived in an area where the police weren’t used to enforce unlegislated mandates. I find this to be a feature of the East Coast and the Midwest. LA and San Francisco might be an exception.
I have some disdain for the East Coast politicians. They use police officers as bill collectors. When it comes to the Northeast after the Revolutionary War, they didn’t waste much time trying to get rid of the Bill of Rights.
Police officers have some discretion when it comes violations. A violation is an offense that does not include imprisonment. There are two types of offensives violations and crimes. Crimes can include both a fine and imprisonment.
If a freeway is posted at 55 miles an hour and everyone was driving at 65 MPH and maintaining lane discipline, I didn’t stop the parade. I had my own selfish reasons for doing so. When you start a shift at 6:00 PM and end a shift at 4:00 AM having to go to traffic court at 9:00 AM on a regular basis is not very appealing.
Driving under the influence, or DUII in Oregon is a traffic crime that becomes a different matter. If I believe someone is DUII then that motorist is a danger to others.
Driving at 100 MPH in a 55 zone becomes Reckless Endangerment, a traffic crime. Attempting to Elude is a traffic crime.
The fastest pursuit I was involved in with other officers reached speeds of 90 MPH in a 35 zone. There is nothing glamorous about that. If you are not worried about your own mortality or someone else’s mortality at some point, you’re an idiot. It involved a suspect that had armed robbery warrants and when it ended a sawed-off shotgun was found in his car.
This presumes that voters have some kind of control. They really don’t. After all the bureaucratic filters and legalese and embedded edicts, ‘voters’ have little or no control. This is compounded by the fact that politicians losing elections isn’t any kind of career killer. In fact it’s just the beginning of their wealth curve.
And you, copper, are saying to us, in effect: Too bad your other citizens voted for this crap, but I have to enforce it.
Relegating oneself to be a functionary. Hiding behind lawmakers who you privately disdain, accurately (!), while protecting oneself from all moral judgement… by citing the state as a defense.
A tautology.
I long for the days when police were able to use their own discretion. It is not any one person’s fault, but I feel we must acknowledge what is going on first.
I think, having watched this video several times over recent years, that answering everything with a question may be responsive without declaring anything. But even if it is, I don’t think I have the discipline to do it consistently.
You probably should have posted my quote as how I wrote it:
“Well as some on Ricochet say again and again voters get what they deserve. I don’t believe in that.”
And the judges rule more harshly on those without lawyers representing them so that lawyers can make a living, too.
Most people never what what’s running through the officer’s mind. But I do agree with those who say the officer is always believed in routine stops, so long as no one is shot. And then the officers are almost always believed.
That depends upon what goes on in traffic court in any given jurisdiction. For example, in Oregon a judge not only has a copy of the cite he/she also has a copy of the drivers DMV history. If you tell the judge, you have a clean DMV record and you don’t you are probably not going to get the benefit of doubt. Every state is different.
If it’s an equipment violation and you produce a copy of the repair, or a receipt for a lens or bulb the fine is waived in the majority of cases. If the cite is for no insurance producing a receipt for purchasing insurance can persuade a judge to waive a fine,
Well, no, this was published in a newspaper as the professional opinion (and complaint) of a judge who had written in legal circles quite bluntly that the officer is always believed when there is disagreement with the one charged. The popular and accepted thinking in courts and by judges, he said, was that police officers were trained observers would have no reason to lie, and it always naturally served the defendants to lie. So when it came down only to policemen’s word against defendants’, it was the officers’ word that was summarily given credence.
I’ve not seen this to be true, in fact where I have practiced in civil law it’s more the opposite.
Yes. Mar a Lago