Posted on 08/12/2009 7:58:17 PM PDT by marktwain
SPOKANE, Wash. -- When Donald Ross's sister passed, more than 100 people attended her funeral mass in Spokane.
The burial was scheduled for a nearby cemetery, but Ross and his family only made it a quarter of a mile when flashing lights forced them to the side of the road.
"Harold, his (my husband's) brother, said, 'You pulled us out of a funeral procession,'" said wife Shirley Ross.
But the deputy kept them there, writing up five citations because the driver and the passengers were not wearing a seat belts. And the sheriff's department says he had every right.
"We're out here trying to prevent funerals, not disrupt them," said Dave Reagan of Spokane County Sheriff's Office.
Those five tickets took 12 minutes to write. By the time Ross and his family members got back on the road, the burial was over.
The family members admit they weren't wearing their seat belts, but say it shouldn't have cost them the chance to say goodbye.
"It's a stage in our life where you want to give your last respects and hear the final prayers and the closing of the ceremony," Shirley Ross said. "We missed that and it's something I'll remember for as long as I live. And I think it was just uncalled for."
The deputy, who was a part of a special emphasis group, was only giving out tickets, not warnings. Donald and Shirley Ross plan to appeal theirs.
"I think it was unjust. It was totally unbelievable," said Shirley Ross.
Too late. utahagen has already lifted his leg and left his mark.
Whatever happened in that incident?
One Freeper says the guy was suspended for a week and returned to duty ~ presumably to try to beat down the local Indians whose reservation is right there ~
Now, I just don't drive at all without expecting to have some money extracted from me for some sort of infraction or another.
If I arrive at my destination without having to deal with a selective tax of one sort or another, I feel lucky.
They should just turn every dirt path, county road, state highway, interstate into a toll road and leave us alone to peaceably travel.
When it is a stupid, unjust, selectively-enforced law you have an obligation to ignore it.
The law is an ass.
The fastest way to get tuned up and locked up these days is to cite the law to a "LAWWWW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER".
I think the only state that still doesn’t have a primary seatbelt law is New Hampshire, and even thy may have succumbed by now.
Haven't you heard? Cop work is difficult and dangerous - slightly less dangerous than landscaping.
It's a stupid-ass seatbelt violation.
I spend the majority of my life riding around in vehicles that weren't even EQUIPPED with a seatbelt.
Sheesh!
Excellent point. There is a least one seatbelt violation in every funeral procession.
The State is leaking revenue. This must be corrected.
Then don't be surprised when even more cops start getting shot or run over for this kind of crap.
Some asshole cop disrupted it. That's all you need to see.
There are so many laws on the books today that they certainly broke several others on the way to the cemetary.
Wonder why he didn't stop them for those?
I have a retired NYPD bro ... most of whose career was spent at Ft. Apache ... so I know for a fact that police work can be difficult AND dangerous. Pulling part of a funeral cortege over isn’t police work, it’s meeting quotas for the jurisdiction’s coffers.
Once I was pulled over for speeding on my way to the hospital to see my father. When I explained to the officer, he let me go with a warning.
This police officer should’ve done the same for these people. Who ever heard of a car in a funeral procession being ticketed for seatbelt violation... Delaying them so that they missed the burial was so wrong.
Me being the smart person i am. I looked it up.
The fastest way to get tuned up and locked up these days is to cite the law to a “LAWWWW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER
You wanna lock me up for knowing the law. You better have a DAMN good reason.
There isn’t any direct indication in the article that the officer KNEW he was breaking up a funeral procession. We presume he must have known, the family tells reporters that they TOLD the officer, but we can’t really know.
Yes, it is much harder to defend the police officer because most of us despise the law involved.
What if the car had just run a red light, or blown through a pedestrian crossing on a pedestrian light? What if the car had driven on the wrong side of the road, or the driver was drunk? What if the car was driving without proper equipment, or cut off other drivers?
Would we forgive ANY infraction by the driver short of an actual accident if the driver was going to a burial, or is it just because the particular infraction was so “minor”?
Suppose the officer ignored the infraction, and at the next light the care isn’t paying attention and runs in front of a truck, and all the people are killed because they aren’t wearing seat belts?
Every day that goes by and this doesn't happen, I'm suprised.
I agree that this officer was a jerk.
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