The Secret Police of Kansas City, Missouri?

P

PsychoSword

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http://www.firearmnews.com/page2.asp?id=6101

"From GUNED.COM-- FRISCO, Colo. - The Summit County sheriff has a plan for cracking down on speeding: Giving citizens their own radar guns so volunteers can sit by the side of the road and watch for lawbreakers.
(Great pastime for *TOTAL LOSERS* Hey, we need a secret police in the United States don't we???)

Sheriff John Minor said the volunteers would not have any contact with motorists and would never be responsible for issuing citations. They would forward license plate numbers to the sheriff's office, which would send out letters asking violators to slow down."

You can read the complete story at:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/10353489.htm?1c
 
Unbelievable. Think on my way to work this morning, I'll do my civic duty and swing by the donut shop.
If the "volunteers" weren't already popular enough in their community, I'm sure they will be winning all kinds of points with this. I am all for volunteer activity in the community, but this is a little much.
 
Oh this is great. Now they are going to give the busy bodies actual AUTHORITY to be a pain in the butt. I actually had some guy call the cops on me for cross-street (facing the wrong direction) parking on the residential street DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE.

Then there is the guy that sits in front of one of those signs that indicate your speed using radar and writes down the license plate number of everyone that goes 26 in a 25. He does this for 8 hours at a time. Some people REALLY need a hobby.
 
Actually it would be better to start junior high school kids doing this after school, come to think of it we could issue little uniforms for them and at the
same time they could watch there parents and neighbors for illegal activity.
Seems like I've heard of this being done somewhere. :barf:
 
Isn't this the kind of stuff that Hitler got a "woodie" over ???? That ol' boy invented a new kind of "turnover". Turnover your guns , turnover your neighbors , turn over your parents etc. ad nausem .
 
Wwwweeeeelllllllllll...........

.....I'm all for volunteer law enforcement. I.E. reserve deputies, volunteer firefighters, etc. I have actually considered joining the local volunteer deputy program. This, however, is too much. These people will need training to use the radar, training as to vehicle reporting, and background checks for honesty. There always seems to be that one person in town who has a list of people they don't like and would just love to paint with a radar gun every chance they get. And who will prove the offense? police cruisers have things like video cameras, audio recorders, etc. What's to stop these individuals from writing down plate numbers with no offense recorded? Imagine, Joe Liberal has a radar gun, and knows that you, Ken Conservative, own firearms. He thens proceeds to follow you, tagging you every chance he gets. Or worse, simply forwards your tag number once a week because he doesn't like your guns?
While I do see possible good intentions, I think that overall this is a recipe for harrassment suits, budget problems, dishonesty, and, ultimately, failure.

If I'm wrong, please correct me. Just my $.02
 
Sounds like a dangerous thing to do. When I was a cop in SE MO the city finished a new section of road. In order to determine an effective speed limit we would use our personal vihicles with radar guns and record everones speed. With that info the city was to decide on the effective speed limit. Think was I got reported dozens of times, cars that I clocked would circle blocks and pull up behind me to confront I suppose. Drove away when they saw the uniform. Not a good feeling having to watch so many things going on at once.
 
ya know.....

Destructo's post brings up a good point. Don't worry D, I saw the humor :D
But how many of these are going to get used for their proper purpose anyway. I know I have better things to do with a radar gun than sit and watch you, and I suppose these other folks do. too. I can just see these turning up to measure junior's fastball. great thing to do, and I love baseball, but not at taxpayers' expense. Just a thought....
 
Food for thought . Old Man Jones signs up for the program . He notes that Joe Smith is doing 35 in the 25 zone in front of Jones' house quite often . He reports this to police a few times a week for a couple of months . Joe Smith hits the little Williams boy that is crossing the street . The Williams family sues the police because it is KNOWN that they knew this guy was speeding frequently and did nothing . De Shaney V Winnibago Co. et al not withstanding there is a problem for the cops here .
 
Now, this something I have long advocated. Take a sealed system, with the usual GPS Time references and image combination. The volunteer, who should get 10% of the fine, goes out with his radar/camera/time location system and finds things like parking illegally and takes a picture of the situation and license plate. (Negative feedback for insufficent data in photograph will be excellent instruction.) Pay should be doubled for catching an official car doing something illegal. City cars in the "mobility impaired" slots come immediately to mind.

Geoff
Who wants to get the police out of the ticketing business, except for moving violations. :cool:
 
considering it is in colorado that is pretty tame stuff. the really scary stuff is on the front range around Boulder
 
C'mon guys, it's time to make lemonade out of lemons

Apply for yours today. Find out how fast your kid pitches or how fast that ball zooms out of the park. See how fast you can race on your mountain bike. It would really be neat if you can do ballistics with them. :p
 
They would forward license plate numbers to the sheriff's office, which would send out letters asking violators to slow down."
Click to expand...

You guys are so afraid of letters that you're making comparisons to the Hitler youth? LETTERS. No fine. No court. No police. This is essentially the police supporting a community pro-safety group that has no power to do anything all of you couldn't do today.

Lighten up.


...Or I'll send you a letter! :D
 
Domino effects

Handy,

I what the #4 post is thinking is more along the domino effect, what I mean is.
The assult rifle ban was not that big, I mean do you really need one (the gov. view).
Deer rifles and pistols yeah, but machine guns no way. Then go the pistols and semi autos. It just gets bigger and bigger.

Look at the nazis with the jews, first it was just a little yellow star of david, then jew only stores and schools, then the next thing you know there murdering them by the thousands.

I hope you understand that I am in favor with having any kind of gun I want, not just need
 
Ratkiller,

This isn't a "slippery slope". The PD is not granting private citizens powers they didn't already have or even encouraging anti-social behavior.

It strikes me that this program does the same thing as those stupid "Your current speed is __" signs, but cheaper, and more effectively. It also offers the biggest complainers something to do besides bothering the Chief.



I don't know how many times I've read stuff here about gun how responsible gun owners are an aide to maintaining the peace. I fail to see how this is any different.

So if you don't like to obey the laws of your community, you still face nothing more sinister than a letter and a request. So funny how people's attitudes about the law change if it seems like they might be personally inconvenienced.
 
You can also mention how cops who use them complain about health problems (cancer) because of the radiation. There's been a couple of lawsuits but not enough medical research supports sustaining a case against the mfg (yet).

BTW, the folks in Moscow did that years ago and all the radar guns got broken. Must either be poor quality or neglect by the users. :rolleyes:
 
I used to live in KC. Not on the KCMO side though. But it seems that they have had "The Soccer Mom" patrol out there from a couple of years. The most they can do is to report you to the police. They cannot issue any tickets or citations. However, it's a silly idea when you have people running around trying to play traffic cop by calling the police on everyone that they see going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.
 
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