In an interview, Russell King said he and his wife Myra were driving home near Haslet on April 23 when he saw two pickups that appeared to be racing behind him.
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I don't know about Texas, but around here I see all kinds of unmarked pickups sporting flashing lights behind the grill and driven by cops, sometimes in uniform but most of the time in street clothes.
While I'm not sure what Macon County Sheriff deputies make, I saw an article in the paper a few weeks ago where Lafayette PD hired a new patrol officer for a whopping $16.50 an hour. If they can't afford to pay their cops a better wage than that, they probably can't afford to buy new cars either, finding it much cheaper just to give their detectives and senior officers an allowance to use their POVs.
Betty White!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but....what the hell happened to precipitate all this? If the Rangers are involved (their divisions are a branch of the DPS) then they probably found something was going on that was not above board.
ReplyDeleteBack in my college days, my roommate had a vehicle with off-road lights. A couple of gals passed us and, as he thought they were cute, flashed these lights on and off. The gals pulled off to the side of the road, apparently thinking we were some form of LEO. With all the after market add ons for pickups, it would be easy to mistake low rider lights for some of these.
ReplyDeleteThe police out here in the PNW use impounded vehicles. When I was working a temp for the city, saw their hippy van they confiscated and used for surveillance.
ReplyDeleteThe "stove pipe" was a camera and it had parquet floor.
They shouldn't be running around without lights and uniforms anyway.
ReplyDeleteTwo days ago some guy in a late model black Suburban tried to corner me. When that failed he followed my onto the interstate and stayed on my tail for about 30 miles. Sometimes he got right up on my bumper. Windows heavily tinted, a fed lic. plate. One time when they ran up ahead of me for the 5th time, the front seat passenger had partially rolled down the window. I saw there were at least three guys all with high and tight cuts and wearing suits. I think they wanted me to see that to intimidate me.
ReplyDeleteCall 911 dispatch, "I'm in fear of my life... they're trying to run me off the road!!!", then swerve and shove the suburban into the jersey barrier. Let them explain to their supervisor what happened.
DeleteI was in fear of my life your honor, just trying to defend myself. Same excuse would work if you put a few .357's through their engine block. I tried but could not evade the threat, so I attempted to disable the aggressors vehicle.
These things write themselves!
They will just assign an officer to stalk them until they can find something to charge him with. You don't disrespect the authority of the jackboots.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if Russle King does of old age or if the cops go from some form of revenge. The only thing tighter than cops are corrupt cops.
ReplyDeleteWe need to hear about this officer's record. This sort of behavior makes me suspect this guy is a bit ...freelance.
ReplyDeleteAlso, King and his Wife are not done with this. A vengeful police force will FIND something to charge him with. I'm not claiming this particular force is that patty, but the fact that they're still "investigating" is suggestive.
All police are that petty. It is a job requirement.
DeleteThe Rangers are doing the investigating to prevent the regular DPS from doing the investigation of a shooting of one of their own officers (especially if the trooper returned fire.)
ReplyDeleteHaving another agency, or, in this case a 'superior' branch of the same agency, investigate an officer involved shooting is good practice.
I'm not sure of DPS policy, but for my own agency, only marked patrol vehicles are allowed to make traffic stops. The best practice thing for the plain clothes trooper to do, if he really thought the guy needed to be stopped, would have been to radio the PD with jurisdiction and have one of their patrol units pull the guy over.