I heard a thump.....

[Tom W.]

And looked outside the front door. The local Police had a young lady leaning on the front bumper of his car. He looked through the left side of her car, and as I was watching he went t o the right side and found some pills in one envelope and some weed in another, which he dumped on the hood and then scraped off onto the highway.... I'm going to watch some more.....

[danthman114]

and wait till he leaves so you can have some weed and pills? lol

[Tom W.]

The PO made her throw the pills down the storm drain. I hope the feral grey cat that lives there eats them.... Weed got scattered by the wind. The policeman had a smile on his face when he asked her to ruffle her clothes to make sure there was nothing hiding under them. They both drove off. I don't know the drug laws here, but I suspect she'll be getting a notice in the mail.

[DougGuy]

The cop probably had better weed from a previous "customer" and didn't need hers! :bigsmyl2:

[country gent]

Not if he had her destroy the evidence like you described. Now there is nothing to back up or support his claim. If she was going to be charged the pills and weed would have been taken for evidence. She may get a ticket for some traffic violation that was the reason for the stop though.

[am44mag]

I have heard of a cop catching some kids with a bunch of weed. Enough to lock them away for years and ruin their lives. He made them dance on it for their freedom and sent them home.

Maybe the cop was taking pity on that woman.

[Omega]

Certain quantities, while still illegal, give LE the option of a ticket, a warning, or arrest depending on circumstances, and attitude of the perp. If no action, they will just make them destroy it before they leave...I watch Live PD and they do it all the time.

[JBinMN]

More than one time... Long ago.... I have seen LEO pour out, or make the person(s) that had the beer or booze, pour it out right there on the side of the road & let them drive away with a stern warning to "knock that off until you are older" & to "go home, cuz if I see ya later tonite, it will not go as easy on ya.".

Once even, a " I am gonna follow ya home, watch ya park the car & go inside. Don't come back out until tomorrow morning, or ya won't be happy with seeing the judge tomorrow..."

" I know your Mom & Dad", was another one I have heard...

I have also seen beer and booze "confiscated", and the persons who used to have it were allowed to drive away with a stern warning.


I am guessing it was something of that sort in the situation described in the OP.
;)

[Harter66]

I used to know an SO that probably let a guy with a joint or a pill bottle of weed go a couple of lbs worth in 5 yrs . He was also the guy that initiated the suspicious vehicle that resulted in a 12 kilo of weed 2 kilo meth bust .

[xs11jack]

Back in the 70s we would ask the young perp who was his dealer. If he said no he went to jail, if he gave us a name, we let him go. But we kept a eye on him.
Ole Jack

[BD]

The names have been changed to protect everybody's reputation:
In a small town in Northern Maine there once was the first chief of police (for that town ever) in the early sixties. He retired after 20 years and after a while took a job driving a bus part time in the summer. Someone I know very well, that knew him pretty well, got to know him over the course of the next 15 or 20 years. He got older, and knew he would likely pass before his wife. One spring he asked this un-named younger friend, (who may have done some carpentry work on his home over the years), to come over one day. The friend, expecting the usual yearly trade of caribou or moose meat for some of his wife's blueberry and mincemeat pies, came along to find the old fella in an unusually serious mood. The old fella said, "come down here in the basement and give me some advice". In one corner of the basement were about four or five large industrial garbage bags full. They had been there awhile and didn't have a real strong odor, but no doubt about it being cannabis. Oddly, all in small amounts in little baggies. The younger guy asked, "what's all this evidence doing in your cellar?" the old fella replied, "It's not evidence, it's just what I confiscated when I let all the young folks around here go on their way. if I'd have arrested everyone I caught with this stuff over the 20 years I was chief, there'd be no one left in this town today to pay the taxes". "What am I going to do now?" he asked, "What if something happens to me and they find this stuff down here with my wife in the house?" The young fellow thought a minute and then said, " I'll bring you some tires tomorrow and a gallon of used oil. Next week, in the middle of the week and late in the evening, you take this stuff over to the end of the slash pile across the road in that clear cut and put it on the tires, pour the oil over it and burn it up. Just make **** sure you control the fire so you don't have to explain anything to the forestry folks". That next week two moose got killed in one night while wandering zig-zag down the two lane, luckily both drivers walked away without a scratch.

[DocSavage]

The names have been changed to protect everybody's reputation:
In a small town in Northern Maine there once was the first chief of police (for that town ever) in the early sixties. He retired after 20 years and after a while took a job driving a bus part time in the summer. Someone I know very well, that knew him pretty well, got to know him over the course of the next 15 or 20 years. He got older, and knew he would likely pass before his wife. One spring he asked this un-named younger friend, (who may have done some carpentry work on his home over the years), to come over one day. The friend, expecting the usual yearly trade of caribou or moose meat for some of his wife's blueberry and mincemeat pies, came along to find the old fella in an unusually serious mood. The old fella said, "come down here in the basement and give me some advice". In one corner of the basement were about four or five large industrial garbage bags full. They had been there awhile and didn't have a real strong odor, but no doubt about it being cannabis. Oddly, all in small amounts in little baggies. The younger guy asked, "what's all this evidence doing in your cellar?" the old fella replied, "It's not evidence, it's just what I confiscated when I let all the young folks around here go on their way. if I'd have arrested everyone I caught with this stuff over the 20 years I was chief, there'd be no one left in this town today to pay the taxes". "What am I going to do now?" he asked, "What if something happens to me and they find this stuff down here with my wife in the house?" The young fellow thought a minute and then said, " I'll bring you some tires tomorrow and a gallon of used oil. Next week, in the middle of the week and late in the evening, you take this stuff over to the end of the slash pile across the road in that clear cut and put it on the tires, pour the oil over it and burn it up. Just make **** sure you control the fire so you don't have to explain anything to the forestry folks". That next week two moose got killed in one night while wandering zig-zag down the two lane, luckily both drivers walked away without a scratch.
Now that's funny

[smokeywolf]

Some low-grade misdemeanor arrests just aren't worth the paperwork.

[flyingmonkey35]

When I was young I worked grave yard security at a casino. Around 1in the miy I caught a a few teen girls with a unopened bottle of champagne by the pool area.

As they didn't lie to me I admisterd street Justice and made them poor it out on the grass. And sent th back to their rooms with a stern warning.

No need to ruin some kids life for stupid **** if a quick lesson will do better.

Sent from my N9560 using Tapatalk

[9.3X62AL]

I really never gave a hoot about user-quantity of MJ. I offered the possessors two options--1) Cast their cares to the wind, OR 2) speak to Hizzoner about this faux pas. In 28 years, I never had anyone insist upon meeting the judiciary. I also never scratched a ticket for possession of less than 1 oz of the substance--if the courts weren't going to be serious about the matter, why should I get hot & bothered over a 1/2 oz of Mexicali ditch weed? Gotta treat cop work like fishing--throw back the little ones.

My core feelings about marijuana are kind of ambivalent. I worked as a narcotics officer full-time from roughly 1986 until 1993, and again for most of 1996. The same cartels that move heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine from Mexico into the USA also handle marijuana smuggling. They are not nice people. Perhaps a few of the storefront sellers now emerging in the states that allow it only source their merchandise from licensed/permitted growers (they like to call themselves "Collectives--gives it a cold war/Soviet vibe that I find unsettling), but I strongly suspect that some portion of the "legal" MJ being sold in these quasi-legitimate shops is sourced from the people who have been in the business since about forever--the criminal orgs that smuggle contraband and humans into this country. I think the states and counties and cities that sign off on these permitted activities are naive in the extreme--don't give a flip--or got paid off to not give a flip. Yes, I am crusty and cynical. But I also know that after being a case agent or assisting investigator on over 500 drug labs or processing sites--and a like number of clandestine MJ grow sites, I never found a booby trap in or around a drug lab site--but I have located MANY booby traps, punji stakes in foot traps, fish hooks on monofilament fishing line at eye level, and some other delightful ambuscades in and around MJ grow sites. People will pay a lot of money to have their pleasure centers stimulated--and the sellers of those goodies get real nasty when you try to put kinks or dams on their revenue streams, or attempt to undercut their market share with some lame-stream legal distribution network. I don't see this business model ending well over the long haul.

[abunaitoo]

Here, there have been a few cops that did something similar to that.
They caught some gals speeding, drunk, whatever.
Would fallow them to a secluded spot for some barter.
Some cops in IAD ran a sting, and caught a bunch of them.
A few lost their jobs. Most got a "time out". I know a few are still working.
That's the kind of cops we have here.

[osteodoc08]

I agree with the fishing theory. I remember dad telling me plenty of stories about “small fish” as an MP.

abunaitoo, sorry to hear of overall poor morality of the “bartering” however I’d like to think 99% have a good moral compass. All of the local LEO I know are stand up citizens and are good, honest, hardworking folks.

[Love Life]

Myself and several friends are thankful that the police gave us a 2nd chance instead of throwing the book at us, lol.

[Thumbcocker]

The amount of discretion built into the US criminal justice system is not often appreciated. The patrol officer has discretion to make an on the scene arrest or send the report to the prosecutor for further action. Often a word from the patrol officer to the prosecutor can make a big difference in the charge filed. The prosecutor has discretion on what charge to file (misdemeanor or felony) and the judge often has pretty wide discretion in sentencing,

An example. In Illinois an uncased loaded accessible handgun is a felony offense. More than a few out of state folks, some with CCW permits in their home state, have gotten caught with loaded accessible handguns in their vehicles during a traffic stop. In Illinois prior history is a very important determining factor on what is charged. Many experienced patrol officers will run a criminal history on the person and proceed accordingly. So a person with little or no criminal history with a loaded handgun in the vehicle who is respectful to the officer may be issued a citation under the conservation code for a misdemeanor offense of having an uncased firearm with a notice to appear.

Often a word is passed to the prosecutor to the effect that the defendant was polite and unaware of the consequences of the violation. That can result in the defendant being given a disposition on the case that results in no conviction with a fine and court costs. The weapon can be returned. While not a perfect outcome it does prevent a law abiding citizen from getting a felony conviction. This type of outcome is pretty common in the southern third of the state I would not want to be in this position in the Northern third of the state.

[lightman]

Myself and several friends are thankful that the police gave us a 2nd chance instead of throwing the book at us, lol.

Ain’t that the truth!

[DCM]

A distant family member is a LEO for a big city near me. One of his work stories is about a college student stumbling down the road. He put this underage student in the back of the squad and asked him a few questions. The student started crying and told him where the party is. He let him go but they busted the party. They let the little fish go and caught the big one.

[skeet1]

I, myself have done this same thing on a number of occasions. The way the drug laws are enforced in most of the courts makes it not worth the effort.


Ken

[Land Owner]

THANK GOD for good manners and discretion in LE. It SAVED my sorry teen aged behind a time or two, probably keeping me from ruining my life and helping to pave the way for me to be a lawful Taxpayer today.

I am thankful, though a little chapped, that LE have to view We The People through the calloused eye of the Mean Street in nearly every situation. Perhaps that is naive on my part as I have not experienced LE in "every situation". This is not contradictory to being thankful for their discretion. What I mean is, I am NOT the ENEMY but have been pulled over a time or two and treated as if I were. I suppose it is a "situational" thing.

I have had several LE neighbors. They could not (would not?) decompress with us in the neighborhood. They were ALWAYS on guard, never being "real", or "down to Earth", or "likable", or "friendly" and kept all of us in the neighborhood at arm's length. These LE's didn't "work" our sector of the County either, so it wasn't like they needed to say aloof in the case of needing to do their duty toward one of us. OR maybe it was in some way for them. I just didn't get it. How can you take the job home with you every day and not decompress. That'll kill you!

[Tom W.]

My wife's son was on the SWAT team here a few years ago before he moved to Nashville. He still stays on guard when visiting and is always watching.

[KCSO]

Here the cop would have been just a nice guy. Possession of under an ounce is a citation and prescription pills in the wrong bottle also a low grade offence. She probably got a ticket for traffic and a nice warning.