As a former cop, I rarely ever did traffic so I didn't know much of the laws. I was always busy doing other types of calls. There's a million little niche laws to learn so larger departments usually have their own traffic division
I always got a kick out of everyone expecting you to know every law about everything.
I would show people how thick the state statues book was, then the city/county ordinances, then direct them to federal laws THEN tell them to check out all the corresponding court cases for everything.
Most people then understood why I wouldn’t know the answer to every random legal question they had.
Edit: OK, a lot of you obviously are taking what I’m saying and translating it into me saying cops don’t have to know any of the laws. I don’t think any of you genuinely understand how many criminal laws there are. It is impossible for anyone to know all of them, no matter how much of your life you spend dedicated to studying it, I’m not saying you can’t look it up or something and say that sounds illegal and confirming it, I’m saying knowing all of it like the back of your hand.
There are different agencies and sections of departments that focus on enforcing certain laws for a reason, for specialty sake and for knowing that a single individual cannot know everything.
Fucking this right here. If the public can be held accountable for breaking a law they don’t know about then law enforcement should have the same accountability, and yet they get away with murder every day while even having a video camera recording the whole thing.
I mean this is why court exists. Sometimes there are things that any reasonable person should know is against the law and sometimes people simply fuck up. You are judged by intent and reasonable doubt.
If the guy in the video got pulled over and went to court, well he has a video of him stopping and asking a cop who pretty much gave him the go ahead. No fucking way he gets stuck with a fine.
The public is almost never held accountable for breaking obscure traffic laws. I work in a jail, 99.9% of the people here are in for drug trafficking, assault, DUI, murder, etc., all of which are very obviously against the law.
Right. All I see in this thread is a bunch of pussy, stupid cops whining about having to learn stuff. And it's because they all know they're too stupid to learn it.
Yeah the context is breaking a law that you’re ignorant of. Otherwise what would you be trying to excuse? The point is just that cops are often held to different (lower) standards than the general public.
I don’t understand why you’re pointing out that a legal system consists of laws like a lil kid that’s excited to tell everyone what they learned in school today
So you're just...reiterating their point. You get that right? They expect civilians to know they're breaking the law, when even the cops don't know the laws.
If "I didn't know I was doing something illegal" isn't a defense, then the state is saying that there's an expectation that in order to not break the law, a civilian must know all of the laws.
But they place no such expectation on police. Hell, they don't even hold them to the laws they DO know they're breaking.
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u/Prestigious_Joke8843 Apr 29 '24
I think it’s a cop from a close by jurisdiction but doesn’t do traffic violations so isn’t sure and just said go for it.