There is an interesting lawsuit out of New Orleans where two undercover Louisiana State Police troopers, Sgt. Joseph Patout and Master Trooper Christopher Treadaway, stopped for Sushi and parked illegally across the street. A booting company employee promptly booted the vehicle and when the police came out, they ordered him to remove the boot. The employee refused without their paying the fine so they arrested him, searched him, took the key and removed the boot. The attendant, Brandon Hardeway, was never charged and the company was then fired by the parking company in what many suspect is the company’s currying favor with the police over the incident. What is most striking is that there does not appear to have been any discipline, let alone termination, of the officers responsible.
Hardeway says that he watched the officers enter the Sushi restaurant that had no parking privileges and booted the vehicle like other vehicles. After leaving the restaurant, the troopers demanded that the boot be removed from their Dodge Ram pickup. Hardeway checked with his employee, Premier Parking Enforcement, who said that the company only “extended courtesy” to official vehicles used by New Orleans police as well as “other plainly marked emergency vehicles.” Patout and Treadaway then arrested Hardeway for “interfering” with their performance of their duties. He was detained for several hours and never charged. Notably, various high-ranking officers were consulted before he was released. However, the troopers conducted a search and took Hardeway’s keys off his belt and removed the boot. They also searched his vehicle without a warrant and without probable cause. The scene was captured on Hardeway’s chest camera.
The owners of the parking lot then punished the booting company for what appears little more than standing up to police.
What is astonishing is that there is no evidence that this illegal arrest and illegal search as well as the abuse of authority resulted in any discipline at all for Patout and Treadway, let alone terminations as officers.
Source: Advocate
It starts off as a perfectly sweet and touching family film before making an abrupt left turn into something much darker and less appropriate for young children.
Paul C. Schulte: “davep – there is a car sticker that says ‘Uncover Police Vehicle’ and some humorless cops made someone scrape that off. :)”
Indeed.
Goes alone with the general theme of cops getting away with things that civilians can’t.
Finally, this whole “what’s good for me isn’t good enough for them” argument is tiring. When the fugits hit the fan blades, just who do you expect to step up? Most times it isn’t you or me.
All that said, I find the undercover police vehicles to be kind of funny anyway…always a sedan or cross over SUV with spotlights next to the external rear view mirrors, crappy wheels with mini-hub caps….I assure you that no more than 1 in 10 citizen is “fooled” by their vehicles. They rely on other activities in traffic or where ever as distractions to conceal those obvious symbols…and it usually works.
The true deep under-cover guys usually borrow real civilian vehicles, from businesses or who ever is willing, or use “clean” unmarked cars for the purpose…such as the FBI and DEA guys on occasions that warrant it. When I worked as a DOD “Fed” we had a garage full of those “clean” cars with civilian plates.
In my past I’ve loaned a brand new Datsun 280Z , also later a fancy customized Ford 250 Van, to local cops on a anti-car theft detail….in an area where the crime was rife. The local creeps had even stolen one of my cars off our lot. Michigan Consolidated Gas, now part of DTE, also has loaned vehicles for this purpose regularly. In the “swap” I sometimes got a nice police cruiser to drive home and give back the next day. Trust given and trust exchanged. You get far better relations with local PD’s if you work with them, not against them. The guys who got to drive my 280Z said it was a hoot. 🙂 …and said they’d never been detected or outed with that little sports car.
I will acknowledge that the PD in my town (Dearborn, MI) is exemplary, and those precincts in Detroit where I’ve worked, have done more good than bad. Come on, a fight over parking with police is rather simplistic isn’t it? Does it reveal a resentment per se toward authority and maybe just the the badge itself? I don’t know…you tell me.
bam bam said …
Of course it let’s this individual know that they are undercover troopers. Once the parking attendant knew this, however, I believe that he should have swiftly, and without hesitation, removed the boot.
What I do have a problem with is some snot nosed parking attendant, who, after being informed that the vehicle belongs to on duty law enforcement, refuses to promptly, without any preconditions, remove the boot.
I agree. I routinely make allowances for police vehicles however parked or however blocking traffic. Egregious “parades” is one of my peeves, especaily when nOT on a celebratory day, but I’m not going to get in to a debate over whose rights supersede whose rights…I mean What the Flip? They take precedence over me, however spurious their reason might be…I want them there when I need them, if I need them, and this debate over “parking authority” is spurious in its own right. In this case there was the parking guy exerting his “authoritah” versus Police exerting there’s. Oh, please. It isn’t just a simple matter of police doing so. It really is a v-e-r-y minor matter and the attendant was just silly. The police taste for food is noxious to me anyway, so out of pity I’d have just shut up if I was the attendant. 🙂
Ross said …
“Statute Enforcement Officers” may be a better job title than “Law Enforcement Officers” for police departments and federal police.
My town actually has something similar…a department, within the PD, named “Ordnance Enforcement” and it is marked on their vehicles. Except in emergency that is all they do, and courteously to boot.
Paul C. Schulte: “davep – because they are police and have a get out of jail free card.”
I know that (it was somewhat rhetorical).
If they wanted that to work, they should have had an “undercover police vehicle” sign on the truck.
The arguments some people are making that the boot should have been removed so the cops could respond to emergencies or because their cover would have been blown are BS.
The only way those things could be satisfied would be if a boot would not have been used at all (given that, typically, boots are set and the “booted” leaves). That is, the cops had to have been using a marked car or legally parked.
davep – there is a car sticker that says ‘Uncover Police Vehicle’ and some humorless cops made someone scrap that off. 🙂
happypappies
No animus here. DS clearly knows his stuff, is well-versed and experienced.
Problem: How are the law enforcement officers in this case exempt from being punished at all? He merely gives them pragmatic advice. Or at least a condemnation. Ordinary citizens have been called idiot, and asked where their honor is for tasteless events. Why no disgust here?
He is disgusted. He shows contempt and disdain. Why is it that you can not see that? He shows it by outlining two ways that a moron should know how to take care of a problem. Darren is very bright and is making them look stupid and I just got politically incorrect to try to clarify this it to you
“What is astonishing is that there is no evidence that this illegal arrest and illegal search as well as the abuse of authority resulted in any discipline at all for Patout and Treadway, let alone terminations as officers.”
Let me correct this: ‘What is absolutely unsurprising that……’.
“The troopers should have performed one of two options:
1) Pay the attendant and then put in a memo for reimbursement by their employer.
2) Pay the bill themselves and make the problem go away quietly. (the better option if you want to go to coffee later and not be the laughing stock of the detachment)”
So we know who DS wants justice for. Reminds me of the title of Greenwald’s book: with liberty and justice for some…
There are people who have been sent to prison for less offensive and dangerous behavior.
TJustice
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I know you have just been waiting for Darren Smith to answer this and I also know that you have an unfounded unreasonable animus with him. Please read his comment again
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.Louisiana State Police Officers Park Illegally And Get Booted . . . Then Arrest The Parking Attendant And Take Keys To Remove Boot
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Darren Smith
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The troopers should have performed one of two options:
1) Pay the attendant and then put in a memo for reimbursement by their employer.
2) Pay the bill themselves and make the problem go away quietly. (the better option if you want to go to coffee later and not be the laughing stock of the detachment)
So, do you realize that Darren was on the side of the Parking Attendant and wanted them to pay the fine by reimbursement to as a “charitable” donation to the Police Department?
Do you realize that he thought they should make the problem go away on their own and you have no case here????