Me and Milan were out patrolling one night. It was the Summer of DUIs and even though we weren't really looking for them, it was on our minds. We were just cruising around getting a feel for what was going on in the town. I liked to do this when I came on duty. Just drive around a lot of the main roads and the perimeter of the town to get a sense of the energy. It may sound weird but it's what I used to do. One of these days I'll tell you about my experience at a propane company so you have a better idea of how weird I am.
The city limits of Tinytown is best described as "+" sign or like the cross for the Red Cross. You can drive out to the edge and then left and right a little, and then you are out of the city. If you drive a bit and take a turn, you'll end up back in town. If you drive in a square, you'll go in and out of the city limits. It's not odd for cities to have jagged city limits but the fact that this one forms a cross is a bit strange.
Depending on our moods for the day, officers would either make a U-turn and stay in the city or they would go out to the corner of the square and come back to the city limits on of the other legs. This night, I decided to go the corner route.
We were almost into the city limits when we encountered a vehicle. I don't mean that we saw one or that something about it caught our eye. We encounted a vehicle. A van. It was driving toward us. Not in our direction but toward us. I slowed down a little thinking that it would go back into it's own lane once it realized that it was going to be in a head-on collision with a cop car. In my years of experience, most drivers try to avoid crashing into cop cars (not all, but those are different stories).
No luck with this guy so I swerved off the road onto the shoulder.
"Oh helll no," I said. Yes, for those of you that read all the posts in this blog, I used to say this a lot. But really, what do you say when you're a cop and someone forces you off the road? That's contempt of cop and something that just can't be tolerated.
I hit the lights and flipped around on the guy. I told dispatch that I was going to be making a stop and I told the agency that had jurisdiction where the violation occurred. In Utah, cops have statewide authority but are generally limited to taking official action in their own jurisdictions. There are several exceptions to the rule and one of those is if the crime happens in your presence and you notify the agency of jurisdiction as soon as is reasonable. For those of you familiar with the recent Trolley Square shooting, this gave the Ogden cop the authority to intervene even though he wasn't in his own jurisdiction and is a great example of why the exception exists.
I approached the driver and found that he had been drinking. I had him get out of the vehicle and I waited for the agency of jurisdiction to arrive. Satan arrived and I told him what had happened. I asked him if he wanted it or if he wanted me to take care of it (part of that exception rule). He told me to go ahead and take care of it. I did the field sobriety tests and arrested the guy while Satan watched.
His attorney tried to fight it based on the fact that I had made the arrest outside of my jurisdiction. He said that I didn't have any authority outside of my jurisdiction. He acknowledged that he knew that Utah cops had statewide authority but that I couldn't make the stop outside my city. You must have to spend a lot of time in lawyer school to contradict yourself in a way that other people might believe you.
This was the first of the DUIs for that summer that I didn't have to go look for. There would be more. In fact, there was one the next night. Tomorrow.
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