Last Updated on April 15, 2017 by Dave Farquhar
I’m sure almost everyone has heard the story about a 20-year-old getting harrassed by a police officer in a commuter lot and being told he could be arrested and he could just make up any old story as an excuse. The story’s been all over Digg and even hit some national news sites, such as USA Today.
It happened in St. George, Missouri. It’s the next town over from me, an obstacle on my way to my favorite hobby shop, pizza place, and batting cage.In high school, teachers actually warned us about that town, since the shortest route to the nearest Interstate takes you right through there. When I was 17, I did some computer work for someone who lived in St. George, and she provided me with a map indicating the precise location of each stop sign and gave me a stern warning to stop for a full five seconds at each sign. She told me a cop would be watching me with a stopwatch.
I did what she said and didn’t have problems.
Usually when someone has a flat tire or other car trouble, if a police officer is nearby and sees it, the officer will pull up behind them, angle the car and flip the lights on to keep passing drivers away from the scene. And it’s not uncommon to see the officer actually help the driver change the tire.
Not in St. George. In St. George the cop just keeps zapping motorists with the radar gun. I’ve seen it more than once.
I’ve been pulled over four times in my life. The first was a combination of factors: I made a U-turn, it was late at night, and my skin was the wrong color to be turning into that particular neighborhood. I was driving a coworker home. The officer let me go with a verbal warning.
The second time I was pulled over, it was by a cop who was notorious for harrassing kids. I know he was lying about the speed I was going because I knew the area and I didn’t like driving it much faster than 35 miles per hour (the posted limit). He said I’d been doing 47, which would have been suicide on that stretch of road. That stretch of road doesn’t even exist anymore, and for good reason. After he ran my record and found absolutely nothing, he let me go, but he said he’d go tell my mother what I’d been doing. I might have been a bit worried, if I’d been doing something wrong.
The third time I was pulled over was near the Lake of the Ozarks. The speed limit is 55 most of the way, but a lot of towns drop it down to ridiculous lows. I didn’t slow down enough, and I got pulled over. I didn’t get a ticket but I got a written warning.
The fourth and last time I’ve been pulled over was in St. George. It was late on a Friday, I was coming home from a Bible study (yes, really), and I was watching my speed carefully because I knew exactly where I was. When I saw the flashing lights behind me, I had no idea why. I pulled over, half expecting him to zoom past me, but he pulled over too. He told me right away why: The light over my license plate was burned out.
Up until then it had never occurred to me that there was a light over your license plate, let alone that it was illegal to drive without one. I’d been rear-ended a couple of weeks before, and that probably was the reason the light was out. He took my license, went back to the car and ran my record (as far as I know, still two words long: “No record”), strolled back to my car, and gave me a second lecture about the light over my plate. I told him I didn’t know the light was out.
“Well you do now,” he bellowed, and threw my license back at me.
So I drove my menace-to-society car out of St. George and back home, wondering all the way how many people have managed to get pulled over there and not get a ticket. Probably not many.
In this local account, the St. George police chief denies being a speed trap. “It’s not true. My officers are told to enforce the law. I want quality, not quantity. I want the drugs, the impaired drivers. Those’re the things that make a difference.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. If there’s any drug trafficking going on, it’s along I-55, just outside the city limits. There’s a small bar a mile or two away at the corner of Mackenzie and Gravois, but it’s not very big. I don’t think it produces many drunk drivers since there’s only room for about five cars in its parking lot.
I think they’re more worried about burned-out headlights, people stopping for less than three seconds at stop signs, and people who look like they might be under 18 violating curfew. I think the latter is the reason Brett Darrow was pulled over and harrassed.
If St. George is indeed cleaning up its act, it’s going to take a long time for the reputation to change. Twenty years ago it had a reputation for being a place where they’d pull you over if you didn’t shave that morning, and reputations like that don’t develop overnight.
Maybe a little national attention will give the cleanup a little more sincerity.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
I think both parties here are despicable. Was the cop wrong? Oh, yeah, no doubt. Threatening to trump up charges should mean the end of his career. I have very little to add to that side of the story because it’s so blatantly, obviously wrong.
But this kid had a police scanner and cameras in his car. This isn’t the first time he’s had “run-ins” with the police with his camera along for the ride. He’s either paranoid or trying to find a lawsuit. Let’s see, was he intending to sue police at that drunk driving checkpoint? Hmm…
Darrow’s main argument is that he has privacy rights, so he apparently needn’t respond to any questions from police. Taken to a ludicrous end, law enforcement can never search your car even if you’ve got, say, a loaded shotgun in the passenger seat and blood and brains all over the back. That’d just be a “private matter”. Why are strains of Monty Python coming to mind? “I’m being repressed, I’m being repressed…” One wonders if he’s also enjoying the national attention.
I call BS. You have free speech but you can’t shout “fire” in a movie theater. You also have a right to privacy, but it’s hard to argue that you can “privately” park in a public commuter lot. At 2 in the morning. In a lot that’s seen recent criminal activity. Where a policeman happens to be stationed. With your police scanner and cameras hot. Nothing suspicious there, of course.
Did Darrow entrap the officer? I can’t say, I’m not a lawyer. Guilty of being a jackass? Yeah, without a doubt. Both of ’em.
I’ll give a 50/50 probability that they have problems in that commuter lot. The lot isn’t in the middle of a slum; there’s a bank, church, elementary school, and two strip malls (with maybe one vacancy–combined), all visible from the lot.
The earlier checkpoint incident should have been a non-issue. Had Darrow conducted himself in a non-surly manner, he would have been waved through.
In this case, I do wonder what would have happened if Darrow would have told the St. George officer what he’s telling the world now: He was in the parking lot because he left his cell phone at his girlfriend’s, and she was meeting him there to drop it off. Is he obligated to tell the cop that? Not necessarily, I guess. But what would it hurt? The cop knows Darrow’s business now. And so do thousands of other people. So much for privacy.
St. George will be a better place without this cop, as long as they don’t turn around and hire another one just like him.
Darrow will learn his lesson eventually, I hope. I know I didn’t have his attitude when I was 20, and I know you didn’t either, Steve. I don’t know if he set out to trap a cop or if he just has all the equipment in his car because he’s paranoid. In either case it is clear that he needs to grow up.
From the title of your post, I thought this would be about some dragons you were fighting at work.
Seems some other people are the ones fighting the dragons. Glad you’re not involved in this mess.
Well, if they end up needing a replacment, this guy sounds like St. George material: Arnold officer resigns after restaurant flap.
St. George, of course, has hired ex-Arnold cops in the past. See paragraph 12 here.