We all have that one friend who just won't shut the hell up when they're nervous, drunk, guilty or all of the above. When it comes to authority figures, especially police officers, remember that everything you want to say unless it's a respectful, "thank you, officer," should probably just be left unsaid. Don't tell them about that tiny little bit of weed you've kept in your glove compartment for months, Ashley. They weren't going to look in the glove compartment. Feel free to tag Ashley.
When a recent Reddit thread asked, "Police officers of Reddit, what was your 'they could have gotten away with it if they had kept their mouth shut' moment?" it was amazing how many people are truly idiots when it comes to the police. I'm not an expert on being a criminal, but I would consider the first step of getting away with a crime is to not tell the police you did the crime. Right? C'mon guys. Just. Stop. Talking.
1. Oh boy, "CheckOutMyGun."
I had a car pass me once. Passenger hangs the upper half of his body out of the passenger side window with his middle finger in the air while screaming, ‘fuck the police’.
He had my attention for the seatbelt violation. I got behind the car and ran the registration. Registration is suspended, registered owner’s drivers license is attached to the registration and his license is suspended. Registered owner also has two warrants for retail theft.
I stop the car, and they both started with the, ‘free speech’ thing and how i cant stop them for giving me the finger or swearing, which is 100% correct...when i pointed out that i can, however, stop them for the passenger not wearing a seatbelt and for the registration violation, suddenly they got quiet.
Driver got arrested for suspended license and his warrants and the passenger got himself a citation. The drivers vehicle got impounded.
Moral of the story? Tell your passengers to shut their mouths. Had that guy not been a moron, his buddy would have been homeward bound.
2. Damn, "Honzo427."
I was asked to help keep peace while two probation officers searched a guys house. Before everyone gets upset, in most jurisdictions, you have to submit to a search of your person and your home if you’re on probation.
During the search, a PO lifted the probationers mattress and said monotonously, “Wow.”
The probationer got upset and said, “yeah, it’s fuckin meth and a gun, arrest me, I don’t give a fuck.” Turns out the PO found a huge dildo, but after the guy opened his mouth, the PO lifted the mattress more and found a bunch of individually wrapped grams of meth and a glock 17.
The PO said that seeing the dildo was enough for him to ignore the mattress but because the guy said something, he kept looking. That’s guys attitude and his need to open his mouth got him 10 years in prison.
3. WTF, "FingerMyDinger."
Not a police officer, but I do know of this house in my local village that was a notorious drug den. The police came to search the place but couldn't find anything, as they were leaving, the lovely owner yelled at them that they "should've brought the drug dogs!".
So yeah, they came back a few days later with the drug sniffing dogs and found huge amounts of drugs hidden away.
Absolute morons.
4. This is so creepy, "No_Im_Random_Coffee."
Pull over this guy for expired tabs. Ask for his ID and he's feeling around for his wallet. Can't find it.
He says, "Ah man, I'm one of you, it's cool."
"Oh, what department?"
"Oh....uh actually I'm a security guard, but same thing."
I'm polite, "So where's your ID?"
"Oh it's in the.." and he motions to the trunk.
"It's in the trunk?""Actually...no."
My BS radar is going off. "Ok, want to get you ID out of the trunk?"
"Nah, I don't have it." He starts looking around for another story to use. But now I know I'm supposed to stay out of the trunk. He's also not giving me any more information.
"No ID, then I have to take you in and get you fingerprinted." I'm going to get into that trunk one way or another.He's looking like he's lost. I ask him what's in the trunk, but he's not talking anymore. We pull him out and get him in cuffs. Another officer takes him to get ID through fingerprints.
Since his car is expired past 6 months (California) we tow the car. In the process of getting ready to tow the car, we need to take a quick inventory.
In the trunk was a "police" uniform with fake patches and a metal badge. No gun, but a duty belt. He also has stacks of child porn.
This is a guy who a neighboring city had been looking for months. His MO was to dress as a police officer, talk to kids and you can figure out the rest.
If he just gave me his name, I could have looked up his ID and verified he had one. I'd probably have let him go. But...
Edit: The neighboring city had zero information as to his name. They only had a vague description of the car and the fact he was posing as a police officer. In fact, what he would do is start talking to a kid in the 9-12 year old range. Tell him he has to be taken in for questioning, handcuff the kid (!) and take him to his car. He was a bad dude.
5. Damn that is honest, "bigb1tch."
Not me, but my boyfriend.
BF's working overnight when a guy comes through town doing ~35 mph in a 25 mph. BF pulls the guy over and asks for his documentation (license, registration, insurance). Guy flips open his glove box, snatches his documents out and snaps the glove box closed super fast.
BF laughs and says, "What do you have in there?"
Guy gets a little sheepish and says, "You know, registration, insurance, (whispers) little bit of weed (end whisper)"
BF, "What?"
Guy coughs and says, "registration, insurance, and uh... a little bit of weed."
BF laughs again and says "Seriously? Can I see?"
Guy got a slap on the wrist for being honest and having a very small amount.
6. Know your rights, "BigBoyGator."
I’ve had countless times where dudes give consent to search them or the vehicle and they end up having drugs. It baffles me why you would let me search if you don’t have to, knowing there’s some damn heroin in your car lmao
7. Oh no, "trueSEVERY."
Not a cop either. Friend was pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt while he was with a few buddies. Gets handed his ticket, guy in the back seats says “Am I gonna get a ticket too?” Officer replies, “Well, were you wearing your seatbelt?” “Uhh, no..” “Alright, can I see your ID?” Not the brightest fella about.
8. Wow, "GoogleAnthony."
So this happened a few years ago. I was patrolling with my buddy at night, it was almost the end of our shift. Suddenly, we get an alert that a local nearby gas station had just been robbed (unsuccessfully) and that the suspect was supposed to pass by us in a red car. Indeed, seconds later we saw a man speeding through the road. Details on the side, we ended up caughting him on a dead-end street. When my buddy was handcuffing the suspect, I asked the suspect if he had had something to do with the robbery. He repeatedly said 'I have never been there. Ask the ginger lady!'. Turns out the cashier that night was an old lady named Marcy, covering up for her ill daughter, whom would had never been able to identify him since he was wearing a black mask during the robbery (which we never found). Marcy had ginger hair. Fortunately, the suspect was kind enough to inadvertently confess the crime. How could he know the appearance of the cashier if he had never been at the crime scene? The jury thought the same.
9. Oh man, "Eff-Bee-Exx."
He wouldn’t have gotten away with it, but a patron of the bar that my sister worked at many years ago was stopped by the troopers while driving along next to the highway, in the ditch. His explanation: “Officer, I’m way too drunk to be on the road!”
10. Don't drive and drive if you're a lawyer, "GaryNOVA."
Ok so we had a DUI accident where a guy kept driving straight into the woods into a tree because his GPS was predicting a future street. He walked back to his hotel room and left his check in papers in the car.
So we go to the hotel and go to his room and knock on the door. He did not have to answer. But he did. He was pretty clearly drunk. I ask him if he had anything to drink since the accident. He did not have to answer OR he could have told us that he drank after the accident. He said “no I haven’t had anything to drink since the accident”.
AND where I’m from you have 24 hour to report a property damage only accident. So it wasn’t even a hit and run.
So as I’m locking the guy up he tells me he’s a lawyer. I told him “I hope you’re not a defense attorney”.
11. Secret gardens need to be secret, "Keims."
A cousin of a friend of mine travels around the state to take in dead beat dads. Gets to one place, a 4 year old kid is home, dad isn't. So the cop starts talking to the kid, making sure he's ok and such. After a bit of this, kid says to cop, "want to see my dad's secret garden?" Takes him to a closet with a false back, opens it up to see a small pot farm. Guy gets home to a few cop cars and a few charges.
12. Wow, poor kid, "flpacsnr."
Not a cop but a witness.
During college, my friends and I would hang out outside and smoke Hookah. Frequently we would invite strangers who pass by to join or campus police would casually chat with us as they made their rounds. So one time a group of freshman walk past and ask to join. After about 15 min the campus police car rolls up and the freshman get visibly nervous, we tell them calm down, the cops are chill. As soon as the cop gets out of the car, one freshman bolts and makes it about 20 feet before the cop tackles him. We all clap and heckle the kid. Upon searching him, the cop finds a bunch of weed, then he says, “You realize prior to running, I had no reason to be suspicious. I just wanted to talk to my friends over there.” And points at us. The cop ends up writing a ticket and sends him off.
13. What the hell, "reallycodered."
Fellow officer stopped a car for a turn violation. Guy is a “wanna be” drug dealer who we have seen around the bars before. We are talking with him and ask permission to search his car. He agrees. I’m bullshitting with him about sports and weather and the officer finds a duffle bag. So I joke and say “nothing in there that’s dangerous right, like bombs or grenades or explosives?” He nods and says, “yea a bunch of dynamite.”
I’m waiting for him to laugh or smile or shrug or do something that screams it’s a joke. Nothing. I say, “I’m going to open the bag and look, ok?” Expecting at any moment he will stop me. He doesn’t.
It was 8 sticks of dynamite he stole from a construction site (separate story). If he didn’t say anything, I would have ignored the bag thinking it was tools.
14. This is so dumb, "weedful_things."
A friend told me a story about when he and his teenage friends had a shitty garage band. They were jamming one night and some family member gets into it with her boyfriend in the house. Cops were called. They stop playing and go outside to watch. A cop walked over to them to find out who they were. One kid straight up admitted that he had been drinking that night. Because that wasn't what the cops were there for and he didn't see anyone drinking, he said he didn't care. The kid took that as permission, walked into the garage and walked back out with his beer. Now the cop cared enough to take him to jail.
15. C'mon dude, "MrMrLee."
I was working a trial of a guy accused of a gunpoint robbery of a bodega. His defense was it was a case of mistaken identity, that somebody else did it. When the prosecution called a witness he became visibly upset and started to yell at his defense attorney; "They can't call that guy to testify against me!". Why not? The attorney said.
"He can't possibly identify me, he wasn't there!" Whoops!
16. This is crazy, "ministryofttimetravel."
There was a dispute between two drug dealers that lead to one of them being murdered with a shotgun. The cops arrest the other dealer who is obviously the main suspect and begin to question him. In the middle of the interrogation one of the cops says “Listen, we know it was you witnesses described a man matching your description at the scene.”
To which the accused dealer laughed and defiantly replied
“That’s complete bullshit, I was wearing a balaclava!”
The cops looked at each other and promptly left the room and started laughing.
That guy will probably spend every day of his sentence thinking about that sentence.
17. This guy sucks, "Dedguy805."
I work as a correctional officer. We had a inmate push a mental health specialist to the ground and attempt to kiss her.
While getting the inmate separated from the victim he spontaneously stated “I just wanted to have sex with her”.
Went from simple assault to attempt Rape.
This was a bad situation made much worse by speaking.
18. Wow, this is so funny, "EricRauty."
Was about 1 am. He had someone pulled over with his lights on and was writing them a ticket. All of a sudden a car pulls behind the cop car. He finishes writing the ticket and then goes to the other car.
Cop “Can I help you”
Driver “You pulled me over, didn’t you?”
Cop “I sure did. Stay right there.”
Guy was totally drunk and ended up getting arrested.