New Jersey justice...

Ah, the cops from MadAnthony's old home state. A poster in the Off Topic section of Fatwallet brought my attention to this story. Seems a bunch of police from NJ were coming back from New Orleans, where they were doing search and rescue for Katrina. They are flying up an interstate in Virginia in the left lane with lights and sirens going 95mph. People called 911 to complain about being forced off the road and a sheriff's deputy pulled them over and asked them to slow down and turn off their lights and sirens.

NJ police then call deputy, tell him he doesn't know what it means to be a cop and look out for other cops, ect. VA sherrif backs them up.

Now, Virgina is the one state in the union that's given Mad Anthony a speeding ticket, so I don't usually have much love for them. But I gotta side with them here.

I have a lot of respect for police officers. They deal with a lot of nasty stuff, and risk their lives, to do a job that doesn't pay all that well. But I have a problem with police who abuse their power, who think that it gives them the right to do things that other people can't. If speeding is so bad that I should have to pay a fine and a huge insurance surcharge for doing it, then cops shouldn't be able to do it either, unless they are responding to an actual emergency where their presence makes a difference. Going home, no matter how noble what you were doing in the place you are coming from, doesn't count as an emergency.

Here in Baltimore, I've seen cops throw on their light to blow intersections, then turn them off - the city will issue tickets to emergency vehicles that the red light cameras catch, unless they are responding to an emergency - which means have their lights on. A while ago, I saw a cop do this - and then saw him in the parking lot of Dunkin' Donuts a few minutes later. Now, I'm a coffee addict, but a craving for java does not constitute an emergency. If I can't blow red lights because I'm running late to work, you can't run them to get a Boston Kreme.