Who needs eharmony? Evangelina Paredes found a match in a handwritten note on her windshield. It was from Stickney police officer Chris Collins who used the information that he recorded on a $132 speeding ticket to track her down and ask her out. Collins pointed out “I did cost you $132 — least I can do is buy you dinner.” It is a police version of the slogan “fall in love for the right reasons.”
The note stated “It’s Chris … that ugly bald Stickney cop who gave you that ticket. I know this may seem crazy and you’re probably right, but truth is I have not stopped thinking about you since. I don’t expect a girl as attractive as you to … even go for a guy like me, but I’m taking a shot anyways. . . . But hey, I did cost you $132 — least I can do is buy you dinner.”
Collins, 27, is now being accused of violating Paredes’ privacy and is being sued for causing “plaintiff to suffer great fear and anxiety.” While I am not sure of how much fear and anxiety is reasonably caused by such a note, he clearly did use his position as a police officer to violate her privacy. He is in far better a legal position than if he had made the date a quid pro quo for the ticket — which would have led to a criminal charge. There remains the threat of criminal charge if there is any allegation of the withholding the ticket or unauthorized access to other areas of police records — which I have not seen in the articles covering the case.
The lawsuit also names Stickney Police Chief Joseph Kretch and the village of Stickney.
The village is likely to argue that this is a rogue officer who acted in violation of city protocol and rules. It is also likely to argue that the note was not left under the claim or appearance of official authority. To perfect such a defense, however, it would be necessary to discipline and likely terminate the officer for the breach. Even then, it may not protect the city from liability. The question is how serious the damages would be in such a case. What do you think?
Source: ABC
Are there normally so many crackpots visiting and commenting at this website?
Some of these comments are off the charts ridiculous, not to mention mentally unstable.
I have heard of this happening before. Back in the 70s I heard of a local cop where I lived in Georgia who would pull women over and ask them for dates and got caught doing it and wound up committing suicide. I also knew a girl who told me she had had a cop one time pull her over and ask her for a date. (She didn’t accept.)
The people hired to be cops are almost universally scum……
In response to the police abuses and brutalities that seem to be ubiquitous these days, I’ve come up with 20 (so far) changes that would prevent such abuses. I apologize in advance for the randomness of them; I listed them as I thought of them and they are not yet in a cohesive order yet.
I believe they are all reasonable solutions although to some they may seem extreme. They should be extreme! LEOs are expected to protect us from unnecessary and illegal acts of violence and abuse, rather than being the perpetrators of it.
1. When a cop is suspected of or charged with a crime, he is unconditionally suspended WITHOUT pay until the matter is resolved. If the cop is found innocent or not responsible, he gets full back pay in a lump sum upon his return to work. Taxpayers should not be responsible for footing the bill for long, paid vacations for the guilty.
2. When a lawsuit against cops goes in favor of the plaintiff, it is the cop(s) who should be responsible for payment of restitution and damages, NOT taxpayers. This should also apply to any other cop, such as any LEO who did nothing to prevent or stop the incident, or attempted to whitewash it after the fact.
3. When a LEO is found guilty of any crime he should suffer at least the same punishment as everyone else. Ideally the penalties should be greater than for the average citizen, as public officials should be held to a higher standard. This applies to restitution, fines, and jail or prison sentencing, community service, and probation. NO MORE LENIENCY!
4. Any cop found guilty of a crime or who loses an excessive force lawsuit can NEVER again carry a badge or be involved in any way in law enforcement or private security work anywhere. No more moving on to another jurisdiction so they can continue their abuses on a different group of people.
5. When drug cops murder an innocent citizen due to overzealous failure to ensure they are attacking the correct address, they receive a mandatory life sentence with no parole.
6. When any cop misuses his weapon in any situation and inadvertently kills or wounds the wrong person, see #5 above. Human life has got to start meaning something to these people.
7. Police chiefs, regardless of department size, should be elected and be subject to recall if and when they lose control over their officers or knowingly and willingly defend abusive or corrupt behavior.
8. Any cop who kills a non-threatening pet or stray (the only reason they would do this is to satisfy a blood lust) should be fired immediately and charged with animal cruelty and their gun rights revoked. Plus #4.
9. Any cop who looks the other way when other cop(s) commit a crime or indulge in unnecessary abuse or brutality are as guilty as the cops they are protecting and should be charged accordingly. The “blue wall of silence” that has flown for so long needs to be grounded once and for all.
10. Any cop who plants evidence, or in any way tampers with evidence, and then lies on paper or the witness stand to secure a conviction or conceal their own or others’ incompetence/corruption should receive a mandatory 20 years in prison with no parole.
11. When cops destroy personal property while looking for drugs, the cops (not taxpayers!) should be held personally responsible for restitution, regardless of whether drugs are found or not.
12. A standardized battery of psychological testing should be developed and implemented before any person can be hired to be a LEO at ANY level. Those who indicate a propensity toward violence, aggressiveness, abusiveness (including animals), over-reaction, deceptiveness, dishonesty, etc. should be disqualified from being issued a badge and gun, regardless of who they are or who they might know. Disqualifications should be entered into a national database so a permanent record of the information is on file.
13. All current LEO’s at ALL levels should be subjected to the same battery of tests whether they’ve been on the job for a week or a decade or more. If they fail, they get immediately terminated, POLICE UNIONS BE DAMNED!
14. Standardized collective bargaining agreements should be developed for nationwide use and limited to matters of compensation only. No language that allows for Union protection of rogue cops should ever be tolerated. It is a slap in the face to morality and justice, and undermines public respect for both the law and law officers.
15. Arbitrators who force the re-hiring of fired officers should be abolished. If it is discovered a cop was unjustly terminated, an arbitrator is unnecessary for the cop to be rehired. Arbitrators (arbitraitors?) are only necessary when the cop is actually guilty.
16. Whenever police have a suspect in custody or the suspect is defenseless or cooperative and video evidence clearly shows police continuing their attack, the standard defense of “department policy, procedure, or protocol was followed” will cease to apply. Violence beyond what is necessary to subdue a suspect should NEVER be a part of standard anything.
17. Any LEO who assaults a citizen for legally video-recording them and then steals or destroys their video recording device should be immediately fired and proper charges filed against them followed by harsh punishment. The only reason a cop would want to do such a thing is to conceal and protect his or another cop’s improper conduct. This wouldn’t apply to the several remaining Dark Ages states that actually have laws that make video-taping a cop illegal.
18. If any situation(s) in a LEO’s private life (familial problems, dispute with neighbor, financial difficulties, etc.) may cause him to take out his anger on an undeserving citizen, he should be removed from patrol and assigned to a desk. This would also apply to work related problems, i.e., a cop gets mad at his sergeant or whoever. One’s bad mood is never justification for abusiveness, and if a cop can’t handle it, he shouldn’t be on the job.
19. Every LEO should be subjected to random, frequent, and “surprise!” drug testing that should be controlled by a citizens panel rather than departments themselves.
20. Cops should never be allowed to investigate themselves for any reason. This would be best done by a panel of neutral citizens.
These citizen protections should be applied evenly throughout the entire USA. We’re all Americans and have every right to be safe from LEO abuses regardless of what state we live in.
Please google and read Roger Roots’s treatise on “Are Cops Constitutional?” then fire them all.
I’m not a cop. But if I used customer’s private info for a personal matter such as this I’d be fired. That’s how it is when you work for a living. Lousy pig.
Aw, how romantic. Like a purse-snatcher writing a love letter to the lady he stole a purse from. I wonder if stalker-thieves are her type?
OINK! oink.,
This little piggie says that if this was my daughter; I would tell her to be afraid; be very afraid.
I have taught my children to avoid cops whenever possible.
Avoid any contact.
Avoid sobriety checkpoints, crime scenes and never but never interact with a cop on a off duty social basis.
I would never approve of them being involved with a cop. No more than I would approve their being involved with an organized crime extortionist.
Same thing really isn’t it?
I want my children to marry a man with integrity and self-respect. Not some grunting, musclebound pinhead whose only carreer options were working as a Stormtrooper for the Fascist Government or a Torturer for the Corrections System.
It doesn’t matter what this cop’s intention was.
Anytime a woman is approached; for whatever reason and addressed by a member of todays Police Forces; it is perfectly reasonable for her to be in fear.
Fear of being arrested, raped, imprisoned and raped, offered freedom for sex etc.
If she happens to be wearing the same color jacket as a woman suspected of murder in the next town; she could be arrested; charged; convicted; and executed long before the crooked, power hungry DA allows the DNA evidence to be examined.
Or even if they find you are innocent of that crime they can imprison you indefinitely just because that cop you refused to have sex with says, “Gee I think she looks Lahk’ a Terr–st'”
No; this young woman was Sexually Harrassed by this Cop. She had to have felt pressure to say yes.
Yes he should be discharged and prohibited from working in any position where he has authority over others.
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Liberty1st1, January 4, 2012 at 8:28 am
“Jonathan was the one who claimed that President Obama snuck the NDAA under our noses under the cover of New Years holiday cheer.
This post does deserve some comment though. SHE SHOULD HAVE SAID YES!”
She id say Yes. She said yes I am going to stand up and speak out about corruption.
She said yes I am going to fight the devient actions of this Fascist Pig.
She said Yes. I am going to stop this Cop from doing to me what he and his kind of Mercenary Bullys do to the American people every day.
She said Yes I will not allow myself to be defiled by the repulsive Hired Enforcers of Corporate Will.
This woman; unlike so many of the more right-wing chippies that follow the Republicans and their Henchman like groupies offering themselves to whichever cop is free at the moment in hopes of grasping a hold of that very bottom shred of the Corporepublidemofascinazi Power Structure; refused to sacrifice what Cop Lovers never have.
Pride and Dignity…………………..And her rights; don’t forget her rights
Because I’ sure that what this Cop had on his mind could be appropriately termed;
“Unreasonable Search and Seizure”……oh hell I forgot we already lost that one
When I was young, many years ago, I was traveling on a rural road in my bright yellow convertible when an oncoming cop car passed me, did a u-turn and came after me. I knew I had done nothing wrong. I was polite, somewhat assertive and rather obvious in showing my wedding band. The officer didn’t give me a ticket, nor even a warning. We both went on our way. If it had happened at night, I wouldn’t have stopped, but continued on to a well lighted and populated area.
“What do you think?”
It depends on the foundation the plaintiff is relying on. If it is 42 USC 1983 they will have to allege and prove a pattern of allowing such activity for the city to be liable. There may be a state or municipal law that allows the suit under non-federal law.
Cops issuing “warning” tickets to attractive women is common.
My daughter was ticketed by a cop after she refused a date with him. He had stopped her on a highly questionable pretense, told her he was going to issue a warning, asked for a date, she refused and knowing she’d done nothing wrong, took the ticket which was not issued as a warning.
She hired a lawyer. They figured the cop would deny the date asking so contested the ticket as it stood but insinuated the request for a date … it was very cleverly done. The Judge dismissed the ticket and issued a private caution to the cop to have no further contact with my daughter. The cop then tried to approach her in the hallway outside the Courtroom. She yelled for her lawyer and they all went back into the Courtroom where the Judge made the caution to the cop formal and notified his Chief.
The fine for the ticket and court cost would have been less than $100. Her lawyer’s fee was $350. She claims it was the best $350 she’d ever spent.
I think he should be straight out fired for misuse of authority. Given that he admitted using his LEO position to obtain personal information on Ms. Paredes, it is reasonable to think that the note had menacing overtones. Therefore, there is some measure of damages that she has suffered. How one devolves that into a money figure though is beyond me.
This officer should be sanctioned. The misuse of the information could have lead to more serious issues. If he had any brains in that bald head of his, he would have just give her a warning, and then ask her out! 🙂
Surprised huh people. This guy is probably a LEO just so he can check out the women he sees in his cruiser. He can carry a firearm to compensate for a lack of turgidity in his member. He figures he will get lucky one day. It’s really an issue of abuse of one’s position of power. All you men are piggies!
There was a case in the Minneapolis, MN suburbs a few years ago of an officer stalking a woman using the tools of his trade. Not only did he stop her repeatedly, he cruised her house regularly and finally arrested her actual boy friend on some trumped up charges.
Some guys just won’t take no for an answer I guess.
I think this is another stupid overreaction. Yes, he should be slapped for misusing data, with whatever the internal penalties of the department are. But a lawsuit? Come on. She should just grow up, say “No thank you,” and move on. Only if his behavior actually crosses a line into stalking – if he continues to pursue her after being turned down, etc. – should this become a legal issue. As it is, it’s a shakedown.
Catullus,
How do you know what drugs the copper uses???
(grin)
Officer Collins is obviously a speed dater.
Jonathan was the one who claimed that President Obama snuck the NDAA under our noses under the cover of New Years holiday cheer.
This post does deserve some comment though. SHE SHOULD HAVE SAID YES!