Phoenix Police train cops to stop people illegallyPhoenix Police training program routinely stops people with out probable causeAfter several events it was interesting to discover that the Phoenix Police have a training program that teaches Phoenix Police Officers to illegally stop people with out “probable cause”.Like most people I used to think the police could stop anybody, anytime for any reason. I found out that was wrong when I got a job were I worked with Jim Forsberg, who in the daytime was a computer programmer like me and in the nighttime was a Phoenix Police Reserve Officer. Jim Forsberg taught me that the police either have to have “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” to legally stop someone. If they stop someone and they don’t have either of those terms then the police are the criminals and have violated the persons who they stopped civil rights. And this sequence of events started because I knew the cops needed probable cause to stop me. I should say that Jim Forsberg is also a crooked cop, crooked police officer or just plain crook. He ripped me off for $100 with one of his fraudulent schemes! I don’t remember the exact date or year this happened. It happened when I was working for Sperry Flight Systems and Honeywell. Probably sometime between 1984 and 1986. And even possibly as late as 1987. I was driving my VW bug south on 7th Street to go to a local topless bar called Cheetah. Some where north of Camelback I got pulled over by two Phoenix Police Officers. Since Jim Forsberg told me that cops had to have “probable cause” to stop you I asked the cops what “probable cause” they had to pull me over. They lied and told me that their “probable cause” for pulling me over was that the year tag on my license plate was in the wrong corner. I thought they were lying so when I went to work I asked Jim Forsberg if that was a law. He said he didn’t know but pointed out to me I could look it up. I looked it up and discovered there ain’t no such law. The law says you must attach the year sticker to the license plate but is silent about the location. Jim asked me about the stop. Was it an old cop with a young cop? I told him yes it was. Was the young cop doing everything and the old cop just watching? Well yes that was true too I told him. He told me that it was probably a training session where the old cop is training the young cop and showing him how to do stuff. I suspect Jim knew at the time that the police routinely do this type of illegal training where they stop suspicious looking persons like me and run them thru the computer looking for warrants. But Jim probably didn’t want to tell me that the police are corrupt so he didn’t say anything. Now I was off trying to discover the name of the cops that illegally stopped me with out “probable cause”. This was one of the few times I met a person that I considered an honest ethical cop. I ended up talking to some cop and he told me it would probably take a very long time to figure out the cops that stopped me and he gave some good sounding reasons. I told him that I was a computer geek and that there is probably a log file that records every time a cop runs a car or person thru the system. I explained that they almost certainly have such a system and it would quickly allow them to identify the cops that stopped me. I was surprised and with in a day or two the cop got back with me and he told me I was right about the log records. And he gave me the information I was looking for. This happened so long ago I don’t remember if he gave me the cop’s names, or the names of the cops bosses. We identified the police station the cops were out of as the Union Hills Station which is up on Union Hills Road, near 7th Street. I went down there to dig up information on how the cops had illegally stopped me. Damn! The cops lie again. This time when I went down to the station the cops boss or some higher ranking cop claimed to look at the records and this time he told me I was stopped because there was mud on my license plate and it was not readable. A total lie. When I was initially stopped I asked the cop what the probable cause was and he said the year tag was in the wrong corner of the plate. Now the story changes to the cause of the stop was mud on the plate. Back then I was too trusting and I accepted the cop’s word that the records said I was stopped for having mud on my plate. If it happened today, I would assume the cop was lying and demand to see a copy of the record my self. But the whole point of this is that it looks like the Phoenix Police routinely train their new cops that it is ok to illegally stop suspicious looking people with out probable cause and run them thru the computer looking for warrants. Free movie tickets for good drivers!Free movie tickets for good drivers. That is another police scam that they use to illegally stop suspicious looking people without probable cause and run them thru the computer looking for warrants.The scam works like this. The police get movie theaters to donate movie tickets which will be given to people that the police say are “good drivers”. To get good police PR, the cops usually send out a press release to all the newspapers and media outlets saying that the cops are going to give free movie tickets donated by the Hawkins Movie chain to people they observe with excellent driving habits. Of course this is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. You can’t pull over someone and scare the crap out of them to tell them they are a good drive, and then give them free movie tickets. You can only pull over people when you have “probable cause” that the person has committed a crime. But the cops use the “free movie ticket scam” as a way to get around the requirement of having “probable cause” to stop a person. The way it works is the cops pull any person they consider suspicious, without the required “probable cause”. They demand a driver’s license; run the person thru the computer looking for warrants. If the person doesn’t have any warrants out for their arrest then the cops play the “good driver you get free movie tickets” game and tell the person they are a good driver and get some free movie tickets. If the person has a warrant for their arrest the cops don’t even tell them about the “good driver you get free movie tickets” game. The person is arrested and taken to jail.
Some other incidents where crooked Phoenix police officers have violated my civil rights:
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