21 True Police Stories Of Traffic Stops Gone Horribly Wrong And Hilariously Right

Not a cop. I’m a dispatcher. One of my units pulled up to an apparent disabled motor vehicle. Just as he gets out of the car one of the subjects exits the vehicle and runs across a busy interstate. A foot pursuit began and the driver of the “disabled vehicle” drove away. Madness ensued with officers from all departments in bordering towns showed up as well as tracking dogs and multiple helicopters. The guy got surrounded in the woods 10 minutes later and arrested. The driver drove right up to the gaggle of police cars looking for the other party and was arrested as well. Turns out the running subject thought there was a warrant out for his arrest. There were none…

7. This Officer Has Seen It All

Scariest pullover: It was a cool, crisp weekend night. I work graveyard shift in a large city so I am usually kept very busy. Except this night was different and so it was calm I was just cruising around not expecting much. Then I see it. The small brown pickup swerving from left to right like a cheesy nerf gun bullet. I stop the truck and approach the driver. He’s frightened looking and statuesque. His knuckles are white from squeezing the steering wheel. His gaze is straight and unrelentingly forward. As I pursue a battery of questions relating to his sobriety I realize he is not sober, nor is he aware I exist. I politely request that he remove himself from the vehicle, in which his no response was a refusal. I then demand it and get no response. His Nissan b-model truck’s door rattles when I open it and the man doesn’t stir. When I reached for his wrists to pull him ajar he struggled briefly. All my strength was focused on his left hand just as his right hand went down to the seat. His dirty skinned arm returned into my sight too quick for me to retreat and I stared, a millisecond, down at a syringe jammed into my forearm and dangling in the breeze. This was a long millisecond as it took me that long to divert all of my strength and adrenaline to removing him from his vehicle and proceeding to shatter his jaw with my fists during one of the shortest but craziest fights of my career. He had hepatitis C and HIV. Today he is eating blended foods as his jaw lost 95% range of motion. I am disease free 8 years after my rookie mistake if not checking his surrounding area visually. He managed, by my luck, to grab the only unused syringe among 5 sitting next to him. Yeah. Lucky me. Unlucky for him I am a MMA trainee and had been for years previously.

Weirdest moments, or should I say awkward: this happens frequently, but ends the same way every time. Some women expose their breasts to get out of tickets. That’s what this hot dirty blonde milf did one day in her Mercedes. She asked if I was gay when I didn’t react. I said “ma’am, not only am I not gay, but you are bribing a police officer through sexual means. If I except this bribe and do not write you a citation, I would have broken my oath as a law enforcer to hold everyone as equally accountable as another. I could very likely lose my job. You will also go to prison for bribing a law enforcement officer. So I will instead save us both the time and write you a citation as your actions have guaranteed yourself to earn. Also, my wife means much more to me than your much older breasts. You have court on…” She was pissed, complained on me and my sergeant told her “shut the fuck up.” Sometimes you don’t want to talk to the sergeants.

Funny: I pulled over Chewbacca on his way to a convention. It’s illegal to drive with masks as it interferes with your perception of the road. It was funny seeing him drive opposite while I sat at the longest red light ever. I looked at him in awe, then turned to see if anyone else had witnessed this. My eyes were met by those of a middle aged man in a corvette next to me. We laughed real hard before I flipped a bitch and tracked him down harder than Boba Fett does. Chewie did not get a citation.

Hardest mentally: during a code run (lights and sirens) to an alarm call I pass a car that’s hovering among the lane divider lines. It was a white Toyota SUV. I thought “fuck they’re drunk as I passed”. I was cancelled before I went on site thanks to my swift backup so I backtrack to find the SUV. It was now sitting among a ditch bank with the lights on. As I casually pull up and shine my million candle watt spot lamp in its direction, out jumps a woman in a night gown. She disregards me and runs for a bridge on the river. I didn’t notice at first, but as I gave chase and quickly caught up with her on the bridge I see that she’s holding rope. Among the rope is a poorly fashioned noose. In her feeble attempts to tie this rope to the bridge I begin talking to her. I realize that she is completely sober, but during the course of our brief conversation she has shed enough tears to fill a beer mug. Her gown is now drenched in tears. I politely take the rope from her and throw it aside. Her only words to me before I hugged her tight were “my husband is not coming home from Afghanistan…”. That was not a fun night, but I made a friend. I met Ashleigh in 2006, during a warm summer night. She’s an amazing person.

8. The Day The Puns Died

I had this funny little pun I always wanted to crack when someone was speeding.

So there I am, shooting with my laser and pulling over this guy in a Volvo. “That was a bit fast, may I see your pilot license?”

So the guy in the Volvo responds. “Sure thing”, and provides a pilot license.

At that moment I decided to stop making that joke, but I let him go with a warning. “Everything seems to be in order, drive a bit more careful from now on, will you?”

9. Suspicious Activity

Not a cop, but this happened to my dad’s good friend who got pulled over(who’s not a cop). Late at night my dad’s friend (George) is driving north from Florida to go to Chicago. Pitch black, no cars around. Suddenly he see the flashing red/blue lights and pulls over. The flashlight from the car is shining in his mirror and as the cop approaches he keeps his flashlight in George’s face, he cant see the cop’s face at all. The first thing the cop says is, “sir step out of the car.” George has this weird feeling something isn’t right and says, “sure, no problem, but do you mind if I see a badge or something first?” The cop says, “just get out of the god damn car.” George freaks out, hits the gas and books it, speeding to the nearest exit.

The cop didn’t come after him.

10. Perfect Answer To The Perfect Question

Not a cop but a volunteer firefighter. I once was driving in my brother’s car (so no emergency lights) when I got paged out to a house fire. I fly past a cop and he comes after me. When he pulls me over he comes up to the window and says “where’s the fire?” I took out my phone showed him the text with the address and said “here”. He let me go on my way.

11. Monkeying Around

I’ll tell this story on behalf of the cop that pulled me over. It’ll be from my point of view. So back in high school a few of my buddies were at the beach trying to think of stuff to do after the sun went down. Well we had this gorilla costume with us(always interesting to bring it out at random parties) and decided to jump out and chase people walking past the pier. It worked alright but not too many people were out that night so we decided to drive back to the house. On our way home we pass a police check point on an adjacent road that led off the island. The cops at the check point figure we are intentionally avoiding said checkpoint and two cop cars proceed to quickly pull me over one car in front of me and one behind me. A cop rushes to my driver’s side rear door, opens it and is startled and confused as a gorilla hand flops out. The other cops are now shining their lights in the back of my car and find our other random stuff including an absurdly large knife and a large net(for catching the gorilla). The cop ask me what the heck was I doing with a gorilla costume to which I replied,” Just monkeying around”.

He didn’t find the weed so he sent us on our way.

12. Convincing Evidence

I was running Radar and stopped this lady in a convertible for speeding. As soon as I walked up to her door, she apologized for speeding and said that her period had started and she was rushing to the store to buy some tampons. I was skeptical until she pulled up her skirt and I saw the blood stain. She was immediately sent on her way.

13. Teenage Humiliation

In a past career, I was a park ranger for the county metro parks. In our county, rangers are fully sworn officers so we were a police force, not just security guards.

One fall night I was sitting in a parking lot just listening to the radio when a car pulls in. As usually happens, as soon as the headlights hit my cruiser, they slam on the brakes and 3 point turn out of there. (No…. Not at all suspicious)

So, I watch the headlights go down the road and through the trees (fall, right? No leaves) I see them pull into another lot and park. I wait about 15 minutes, then without turning my headlights on, go after them.

I pull in the lot, then hit the car with my hi beams and spotlight. All the sudden a head pops up and the car wiggles. Ok, no big deal, just some kids. I approach the car and get the ids and all that, but while I’m talking to them I can see a wet spot start spreading on top of this kid’s thigh. Seems that he put his junk away a little soon and popped while I was talking to them. It was all I could do to keep a straight face and told them to get out of there.

14. Lost In Translation

My friend is a cop and told me this story from his rookie year. He pulls over a guy in a shitty car for a busted light. The guy is Hispanic and doesn’t speak English well. He’s acting all weird (probably because he’s illegal) so my friend starts searching him. He pulls out a bag from the dude’s pocket and its full of white powder. My friend is pumped because it’s his first big bust. He tells the guy something like “You’re in big trouble!”. The guy starts freaking out and says “QUESO! QUESO! QUESO!”. My friend doesn’t speak Spanish so he’s confused. The guy starts making hand motions to describe what he’s talking about. My friend decides to open to bag and sniff the contents. The bag was full of powdered parmesan cheese. My friend feels like a total idiot and sheepishly hands the man his cheese back and tells him to get his light fixed.

15. The Drunks At Whataburger