Ras, you'll get a chuckle out of this one...
So my sister-in-law gets stopped in Hillsville, VA on the way to PA to bury her step-father, who had passed away after a long battle with a laundry list of illnesses. She's driving my wife's SUV, and my wife and niece are also in the vehicle. 80 in a 65 on I-77. The officer is professional, but curt. Tells her he could "arrest her for reckless driving", but writes the ticket and sends her on her way.
Steph is a single-mom, and doesn't have much in the way of disposable income, so I'm going to pay the ticket. She was speeding; she got caught; and that's that. But I make a phone call to the PD and leave a message on the officer's voice mail asking him to call me back. All I want to know is if he will be willing to ask the court to withhold adjudication, so that Steph doesn't take the double-hit of seeing her insurance go up when the ticket posts on her D/R.
No response. So I start doing some research, and I find exactly what I suspect I will find. Virginia is known for draconian traffic laws, and draconian enforcement of those laws. And Hillsville, VA is known as a speed trap. Go figure. Small town, small department, and nice shiny new patrol cars and equipment. Thanks to the close proximity of I-77.
This is the kind of stuff that makes me shake my head, and feel free to laugh at me for getting "caught on my own hook", although not really. Yes, I write speeding tickets...sometimes a lot of them...but I rarely even look at anything less than 15 over, and regardless of the speed, I always try to speak with the driver to see if there is some mitigating circumstance which would allow me to issue a warning instead of a citation. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. But I always ask.
Had that been me, I'd like to think I would have sent them on their way with a written warning. And when I get a call from anyone, LEO or not, about a citation I have written, I always return the call. If it was important enough for you to reach out to me, it's important enough for me to at least return your call. I can say this because I have done it, hundreds of times. They don't always get the answer they want, but they always get the courtesy of a return call.
Not claiming the moral high ground here, but in an age where everything we do is surgically scrutinized, it's bad enough when LEO's tarnish the badge with questionable, over-aggressive, and sometimes outright criminal behavior. Tracing our lineage back to the Roman Centurions...who kept the peace in whatever recently conquered village they were posted in...sometimes we need to be reminded that we are peacekeepers first, and enforcers second.
I don't think I needed the lesson, because I examined this incident, and I didn't see me. Nonetheless, moving forward I'll try to remember that the car I just stopped may be occupied by someone who might benefit from just a small measure of compassion.
Fire away.....
