Hmmm, I always thought drinking and driving WAS a REAL crime. I hope you are not suggesting that it should only become one once they injure or kill someone. At least the possibility of being stopped may deter some people from driving impaired.
Of the crimes you listed above, (burglaries, aggravated assaults, rape, larceny/thefts, and property crimes) all of which are "crimes of opportunity" do you have any suggestions on what police could do to "fight" these crimes to prevent them from happening? They could pull people over 24/7 and never know if they were involved in any of those crimes without a witness. Driving impaired is pretty easy to spot.
Sorry, I've lost more than enough friends to drunk drivers. Pull em over!!

It is a violation to weave within your own driving lane and I have personally arrested people around 4 P.M. for DWI. He's just doing his job and trying to keep the others using the road safe. The officer made an observation that your driving may have been impaired and he had every right to ask you if you had been drinking.

Well said Macgyver and Morneau!

Its well known that many "crimes of opportunity" occur on fri and sat nights because these people know that especially in small areas like where I live that the cops devote almost 100% on duty manpower to DWI enforcement and many are tied up with dwi booking for a good portion of the night.

Cops are in a pretty tough spot, if they don't do enough to stop DWIs people are complaining. If they do too much, people are complaining. I won't dispute that much of their time is devoted to DWI enforcement. But, rather than sit around waiting to catch opportunists on Friday and Saturday nights, why not keep DWI offenders off the roads while waiting for other calls? Most "crimes of opportunity" are not even known about until someone reports them anyway. My question still is, what would you have them do to prevent/deter these other "real" crimes instead of patrolling? My thinking is that not many rapes, assaults, burglaries and thefts are stumbled onto while on a regular patrol in a city or town, while DWIs are usually a pretty sure thing on most any night.

DWI IS a REAL crime, it is done intentionally, and without regard for the safety of anyone, including themselves.

Hmmm, I thought that statement made it pretty clear I was excluding the DWI arrests from the nuisance stops.


I believe the majority of these crimes are planned in advance and not "crimes of opportunity".
Saturating a drag strip with random traffic stops is not going to prevent any of these crimes.

These are definitley crimes of opportunity ....somebody forgets to lock their car or to shut the garage door, stuff gets ripped off. A woman caught off gaurd on a dark street at the wrong time, bad news! A couple guys argue and a fight results. Although some may be planned to a point, the location is random based on where the opportunity presents itself. Thats why they are difficult at best to prevent. I realize that saturating a drag strip with random traffic stops wont prevent any of these other crimes, but it does in fact accompish something. Police often use probabilities of results in order to decide where to look for crime.
If you could suggest effective ways to prevent these other crimes, I'm sure there would be plenty of interest.

Yeah, well, ummm, OK.
I'll agree to that.
Let's get back to NASCAR.
Go #17 !!

For the record, I am all for putting the drunks in the tank.

I do also think though that a patrol through the neighborhoods helps to curtail crime. And giving people a heads up 'Hey don't forget to close your garage door tonight' if you happen to be outside at around 8:30... wouldn't hurt either. Help people protect themselves from themselves...

I posted what I consider real crime and how to prevent it in another forum. Did'nt think it belonged in the NASCAR forum.
Quality Police work

Officer Dan Frank of the Sherburne County Sheriffs department openly said in a traffic class I had to attend a couple weeks back, if he would see a person with out a seat belt on, even know it is illegal to pull over a vehicle for this sole violation, he said “I will find a reason”. He stated this to the whole class. I know profiling was brought up, but can not remember an exact quote from Dan, but if it helps save other peoples lives was a main topic. Also I remember about being drunk and sleeping in your car. If the officer can not find the key, you can not get a DWI. If he finds the keys in the bush’s, in the trunk, glove box, you are going to get a DWI.

To be straight forward with you, ask any officer and I am sure they will state profiling and gut instinct are two of the best tools they have for crime fighting. Now, will a confession by an officer of profiling cause a case to be thrown out of court, I do not know and would not think so.



If you are very nice to the police when pulled over for speeding, you will get ones of these. The trade off in Sherburne County is you have to go to a traffic class with officer Dan Frank

You go fishing where the fish are.

boilerguy,

5 minutes after reading your post I finally stopped laughing long enough to type this reply.

Good stuff man...

LOL

I would have to say looks to me they caught there limit or maybe they where a little shy LOL