The trooper involved in my initial case (Alfred Weiss III) was completely clueless as to how the radar gun he was using even operated. He could not even answer simple questions as to what could cause a false reading and how to discern between true and false readings, information that is right in the owner’s manual for the GHS radar gun he was using! He objected to every question related to radar or simply stated he “did not know”. The magistrates and judges simply did not care. His word against mine. He even lied about where his car was parked, which was on a small access road in a corn field marked with a private property/no trespassing sign.

This story is even better. A couple years later I was pulled over again by another state trooper. A car had passed me at a high rate of speed towards the end of the Cross Valley Expressway coming into Trucksville on my way home from work. A state trooper was sitting right at the end where it drops from 45 to 35. The car that passed me slammed on their brakes and cut in front of me while I proceeded to slow down in 3rd gear. The trooper pulls out and starts following me, weaving with headlights and trying to get me to speed up or go over the lines while the car that passed me keeps speeding off. Finally the trooper passes me and goes after the other car. They were far enough ahead of me by now that I could no longer see them going through the rock cuts. I start coming up to the light at Alan Duke’s Garage and the trooper has the car pulled over in Alan Duke’s lot, but the trooper is stopped in my lane. As I’m coming up to the trooper I’m looking behind me and signaling to get in the other lane to go around, but cars are coming so I have to stop. Here is where it gets great! The trooper signals for me to pull over into the lot, so I do.

The trooper (Joseph J Parsnik) comes up to my car and I have all my papers ready. The first thing he says is “What’s that guys name in the car I just pulled over?” I told him I had no idea and how would I know? The trooper said “Well you have books on your seat and they have a Wilkes University license plate…you sure you guys didn’t just get out of class and are racing? I just clocked him going over 70MPH”. I proceeded to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about and that I was going the speed limit and that other vehicle had passed me and then slammed their brakes on. I then asked him if the radar gun he was using was GHS? He told me that he was using GHS and I then asked him if he knew about the reported problems with that radar gun? That was a bad move as it really set this trooper off.

The trooper proceeded to do a full inspection of my vehicle. He made me turn on all my lights, flash all my signals, wipers, etc. He then proceeded to tell me my license plate bulb was out, which I did not know and verified with him. He then gave me a ticket for speeding and for the light being out. I plead not guilty and went to court.

In court I was prepared to fight this ticket the same as the last, but when we went up to the magistrate the trooper wanted to cut a deal. Knowing the outcome would probably be the same as the last (me losing and having to pay a fine and get points), I decided to settle. The trooper brought up the radar accuracy issue which I initially questioned him about when he pulled me over. He stated that he was aware of problems with the particular GHS radar unit but they were problems reported in other troops out in Shickshinny (something I had never even heard of). He then dropped the speeding charge and just gave me the license plate ticket.

The real kicker is when we were leaving the magistrate’s office he told me to “never question a cop again because they are always right.” I put my serious face on and said yes sir…obviously just to appease him.

Last time I had to go through a check point, a young town officer did not like how I didn’t roll my window down all the way (isn’t half way enough?) and sent me to another area to take ALL of the field sobriety tests including a breathalyzer, which I passed with flying colors. Cops don’t care about your rights and they will abuse their powers even more if you let them know that you know your rights. Even the officer giving me the field sobriety tests (older cop) told me I shouldn’t be taking the tests unless the other officer had a valid reason such as smelling alcohol. When I told him the only reason was because of the window he told me I could file a complaint with the DA, who was in a tinted trailer video taping the tests. These types of injustices go on daily and the police constantly get away with it. It’s a shame there aren’t more good cops out there. The bad ones really make all cops look bad.

He was pulled over by a police officer, something many motorists have experienced. He quickly did so. His window was down and his driver’s license was ready when the officer got to the car. He could not find his insurance and registration cards due to the bags he placed in the front and back seat and the two loveable geriatric dogs in the car with him (who he loves to call “Exhibit A” and “Exhibit B”). One card was later found under the bags in the back seat and the other was in the passenger side door panel. Even so, the officer had enough information to run through the system and find that the motorist was a law-abiding citizen. Instead the motorist was pulled from the car, searched and thrown to the ground. There were no fists, no resisting arrest, no attempts to escape custody. But he was in the middle of nowhere on a rainy night with no cars or people in sight. The police car did not have a video camera either. He was held overnight without the availability of a single phone call to his wife, 3 month old daughter, and grandmother at home to say he was alright.

There were two initial reports written by the arresting officer. The first one, written by the officer immediately after the arrest, portrays the officer demanding the motorist’s information and pulling the motorist from the vehicle. The second report, written hours after the first, omits such aggressive words, and instead portrays an obstinate and angry motorist. In the middle of the report, the officer politely asks again if the motorist knows where the pertinent documents are, and the motorist retorts, “Where do you think they are? They’re in the glove box!” The officer went on to say that the he feared there may have been a handgun in the glovebox. When the motorist read what the final police report was saying about him, he thought he had received a gift! For there was no glove box to be found in the old Jetta at all. This seemed like a tale told to explain why an ordinary law-abiding citizen would be extracted from his car, tackled and arrested for a supposed speeding ticket. Yet, the truth is a funny thing to prove, and everyone from the officers at the station, to the folks at the courthouse, to the DA, to the judge seemed to have an assumption that there had to be some good reason that the motorist was arrested. And the motorist was treated as such.

When the trial was over, the motorist was interviewed for a CNN story which aired, a Carlisle Sentinel article and a Philadelphia Daily Post article, but he then declined further interviews for the safety and privacy of his family. He resumed a very respectable life as an upstanding citizen, and he will always do so.

As a general rule, if you like to abuse people become a cop. You’ll get away with it with impunity. Your lucky you didn’t get tasered to top it off. Cops and police departments know that if they intimidate complaintifs they lower the desire by others to file complaints against abusive behavior.

We had a case here in OK last year between a out of state driver who filed a complaint against a Highway Patrolmen allegedly for using violent and foul language on her during a traffic stop. OK turned around and wanted to have her extradited back to OK to file perjury charges against her. The attempt to intimate this lady didn’t fly. Fortunate for her the Louisiana Attorney General decided that OK did not have sufficient reason to extradite her. She filed a civil lawsuit against the officer too. She had several witnesses because there were two vehicles involved. Again this was veteran trooper who had a couple of awards for bravery or something and was held in high astem. There’s no telling how many other drivers he had done the same fowl way. This lady just decided not to take it. Although it was in the paper around here a couple times, it quietly disappeared off the radar. Many believe it was quietly settled out of court.

Mark, there are smarter people on here then me but my guess is that you need to be able to document this offending officers’ actions somehow. If he’s driving past your residence you should be able to get this on video as a good first step. If there’s a video in his patrol car, that should also be available….if he didn’t destroy it already. I’d get an attorneys’ advise too. We all should be greatful for people like you who will take the heat and intimation to fight such. Any one of us could fall into your shoes some day and suffer the same or worse consequences. These bad officers MUST be dealt with for everybodies benefit.

You might want to take a look at this; http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/19/1961.asp and see what one person went through and how he documented all of it. He suffered a lot of intimation also.

You may have heard on the news about this arrogant retired police officer up in Illinois who is alleged to have killed his last two wives. It’s pretty well been established that the first murder wasn’t investigated because he was a veteran police officer. His last or most recent alleged murder almost slipped past anybodies scrutiny if it hadn’t been for the victims family’s persistence.

Cops hold a tremendous amount of authority. Good cops protect bad ones. Bad cops exist in many if not most departments. Problem is there just seems to be no way to get rid of them. It’s one of my pet peeves about law enforcement. They’ve been given all this authority and little responsibility not to abuse it. Police departments are one of the few organizations I can think of who get to investigate their own employee’s and their actions. Human nature being what it is, what would you expect to happen? If my company has an accident or an incident there would be a swarm of federal investigators sweep down on us. Why are they treated different? It’s just insane to me that we don’t have better control over these powerful people. Good luck and keep us updated on your situation.

I urge you to get video of these actions, complete with detailed notes of dates, times, names, locations, etc.

I once had a chippie force me off the road into the median, slightly damaging my car. Another chippie saw it and told where to complain. I did but the matter was settled “administratively,” which means they had a good laugh about the crazy citizen who was trying to correct a wrong.

I recently had the opportunity to find this out first hand.A state police trooper recently threatened to make me lose my job,my wife asked the trooper why he was threatening my job and the trooper told her “shut your mouth whore, if you open your mouth again you are going to jail”. I tried to call his supervisor and was told by another trooper that the officer in question “did nothing wrong and his word was golden around here”.I then called their internal affairs division and they mailed me a formal complaint form. I then filled out the form with dates times and witnesses that were present and mailed it to them.

About two weeks later my wife and I received fines in the mail for using foul language towards the officer.”We” used foul language? A few weeks later a I received a letter in the mail saying internal affairs talked with the trooper and he denied any wrongdoing.This trooper is now harrasing me and my family whenever he passes my house he slows to almost a stop and turns the siren on in his car.

I’m guessing its retaliation for me filing the complaint form that went nowhere. Case closed! My point is that the Pennsylvania state police are left to police themselves.They can do what they want when they want because the ordinary citizen is left with no place to truly report any violations whether it be ethics violations or something more serious.

What was the result of the inaccurate speeding fines issued. Will there be refunds? And what about the officers involved in the cover up.. has there been any prosecutions?

A news story in the Press here has a guy who pinged a speed camera. He organised a fake death certificate to get off the fine but was caught. He’s got a £200 fine, banned from driving and 1 year in prison for “perverting the course of justice”.

Damn right you may say but this Pennsylvania State Police cover up has similarities. Covering up wrongful fines on my books involves fraud (theft of money by deception), perverting the course of justice and contempt of Court.. and that’s before examining the issue of a laboratory test on the radar guns which doesn’t establish the truth of its accuracy in the field but still propogating a press release to say they’re accurate.

And the entire system has spat out a whistleblower who represents the only sane and hopnest part of this entire shabby story. What a way to represent the people!!

Come on folks, it is up to us to make this kind of stuff stop. It will be very difficult and the entrenched powers will fight like crazy to protect their turf but keep in mind that we ultimately control them, not vice versa.