[ARCHIVED THREAD] - LE wrong or right question... (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/19/2011 12:21:51 PM EDT
I did L.E. vessel boardings for the U.S. Coast Guard a couple years ago. We had thigh drop down holsters with double locking. A little thumb actuated lock, and a strap across the top that would fold forward, for our SIG 229 DAK in .40 (why they replaced the M9 with that hunk of DA only junk I have no idea  ) anyways, so when transfering over to the other vessel from our 47'er the strap on top of my holster got snagged on somethin and got folded forward. So it looked like to Joe Schmo that my sidearm was ready to be drawn and used. Few minutes into the boarding dudes wife all the sudden gives me the crazy eye and says " why is your gun ready to be drawn" in that real bitchy tone, whoops  . I say calmly and professionally "Oh no mam, it still has a lock I would have to push with my thumb" and I imediatley push the top strap into the upright position and apologise. We get back to our station and I get called into the XO's office... shit. This dude was a really strict E7. He was a very good leader, and I would have gone with him into the worst storms you could imagine with confidense. Anyways, it turns out this woman called our unit, told him that I was very rude and impolite and was ready to draw my gun, he was trying to be intimidating because he had his weapon displayed in an aggresive manner. He asks me why I did these things and I explained the situation to him. He was alright with what happened and beleived me. She shows up at our unit a couple days later, and asks what kind of punishment I got. The XO tried to explain to her what really happened but she was having none of it. She said she would take it further if I didnt get reprimanded in some sort of way. So I get a "page 7" so she would go away. So my question is did I really do anything wrong? It has been bugging me lately. Why would someone get so butt hurt over something that trivial. Any law enforcement officers out there with a similar experience?
sorry about the CSB novel 
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Really man, this was a few years ago. Are you still a Puddle Pirate? If so, is it having a negative effect on your career? No = let it go. People are stupid, and if your Chief was that easily swayed to please this chick then there are other issues above your paygrade. |
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Really man, this was a few years ago. Are you still a Puddle Pirate? If so, is it having a negative effect on your career? No = let it go. People are stupid, and if your Chief was that easily swayed to please this chick then there are other issues above your paygrade. Yea I am still in. Getting a medical discharge cause my back got jacked up. I don't know weird stuff bugs me sometimes and I over think it I suppose. Especially the floaters and burned people, dead kids etc. Felt like typing a story to people I don't know for shits and giggles I suppose. Page 7's are very minor as far as punishments go. They are taken out of your records after a period of time. Thanks for the reply, and calling me a puddle pirate, awesome. 
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XO is a cheese dick for not standing up to the person on a baseless complaint. That shit would last about 1.3 seconds at my PD. He kind of lied to her and made the page 7 seem way more of a punishment than it really is. The question was more of why would she go to such measures about something so insigificant? And if other LE folks have to deal with such people. |
XO should have told her you're the best gunfighter in the Coast Guard so he's not gonna second guess you. 
ETA: Seriously though, he should have had your back. Or at least told her that you scrubbed the boat every day for a month over it to make her go away and simply reminded you to check your gear. |
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XO should have told her you're the best gunfighter in the Coast Guard so he's not gonna second guess you.
ETA: Seriously though, he should have had your back. Or at least told her that you scrubbed the boat every day for a month over it to make her go away and simply reminded you to check your gear. I did scrub the boat every day
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The Coast Guard has some pretty broad search powers compared to civilian police on land. Some boaters resent that and are hyper vigilant during those kind of interactions, so something that seems innocuous to you might seem pretty significant to them.
Not that you did anything wrong, but from her perspective you were ready to draw down while performing an unwarranted search (yeah, I know it was legal, but think of it from her perspective). And, some people are just very insistent on righting a wrong, even if the wrong didn't occur the way they think it did and wasn't really a wrong to begin with. |
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that sucks, your XO should have backed you up. I would have told that lady to take it to the next level. So this happened a few years ago and your still worried about it. Not worried, just bugs me that someone would be that pissy about really an honest mistake. All we were doing was making sure they had all there safety equipment, and legal fishing gear (barbless hooks etc.). I guess I have a weird memory that cycles around stuff that has affected me in certain ways 
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The Coast Guard has some pretty broad search powers compared to civilian police on land. Some boaters resent that and are hyper vigilant during those kind of interactions, so something that seems innocuous to you might seem pretty significant to them. Not that you did anything wrong, but from her perspective you were ready to draw down while performing an unwarranted search (yeah, I know it was legal, but think of it from her perspective). And, some people are just very insistent on righting a wrong, even if the wrong didn't occur the way they think it did and wasn't really a wrong to begin with. This makes alot of sense to me now. Derp, she probably resented the fact that we could just board there boat with no warrant, probable cause etc., and was just looking for something to make a stink about, what a twat. |
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Look at it this way...
When you are in a leadership position (please note that I did not say supervisory or management), you know that it is chickenshit to write people for crap like that. You know what it feels like to be reprimanded for BS and what it is like to work with people who have no spine and will not stand up for their troops. So, don't be that guy. You learned a very valuable and cheap lesson in leadership. Too bad it was negative towards you. |
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Look at it this way... When you are in a leadership position (please note that I did not say supervisory or management), you know that it is chickenshit to write people for crap like that. You know what it feels like to be reprimanded for BS and what it is like to work with people who have no spine and will not stand up for their troops. So, don't be that guy. You learned a very valuable and cheap lesson in leadership. Too bad it was negative towards you. It is kind of interesting because when we would be underway in the shit and he was the Coxswain, you couldn't find a better leader, friend, and roll (pun intended  ) model. Back on land he was a different person, kind of hard to talk to, relate to, real intimidating.
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that sucks, your XO should have backed you up. I would have told that lady to take it to the next level. So this happened a few years ago and your still worried about it. Not worried, just bugs me that someone would be that pissy about really an honest mistake. All we were doing was making sure they had all there safety equipment, and legal fishing gear (barbless hooks etc.). I guess I have a weird memory that cycles around stuff that has affected me in certain ways
Wait, barbless hooks? Fishing with a barbed hook is illegal? What kinda nonsense is that? 
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Quoted: Quoted: Really man, this was a few years ago. Are you still a Puddle Pirate? If so, is it having a negative effect on your career? No = let it go. People are stupid, and if your Chief was that easily swayed to please this chick then there are other issues above your paygrade. Yea I am still in. Getting a medical discharge cause my back got jacked up. I don't know weird stuff bugs me sometimes and I over think it I suppose. Especially the floaters and burned people, dead kids etc. Felt like typing a story to people I don't know for shits and giggles I suppose. Page 7's are very minor as far as punishments go. They are taken out of your records after a period of time. Thanks for the reply, and calling me a puddle pirate, awesome. Don't be mad, I'm a Squid, it's all good man. Your pg 7's are like our pg 13's. The fact that he actually put it in your record to please her though is bullshit. His response should have been something along the lines of, your complaint was handled appropriately, we do not discuss punitive measures with civilians and moved on. Also, why is a Chief the acting XO and not an ENS or a LTJG? |
| welcome to the LE world, its why I left. BS baseless complaints still get flagged in your file. The politicians in charge are all together too happy to appease some liberal limp dick cry baby by reprimanding you without a thought given. Meanwhile you stew over it continuously angry about the whole situation. Its the reason why so many veteran officers at a larger department just dont give a shit about anything anymore. Saw it happen continuously. Go work for one of the local municipalities in public works, much less stress. |
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On the part of the Chesapeake Bay that I frequent, most people only ever interact with marine police, not Coast Guard. Every marine police officer I've met has been disrespectful, had next to no knowledge of the law, even less knowledge of the water, and been down right unprofessional. In response, many people around here tend to take poorly to any authority they run into on the water.
In other words, perhaps some local LEO was rude and now she has an ax to grind. |
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XO is a cheese dick for not standing up to the person on a baseless complaint. That shit would last about 1.3 seconds at my PD. Ops normal. I've been bitched at more times than I can count for following policy. Reason #472 I'm planning on getting out in a few years (will be 12 years of service then) |
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He is technicaly the, XPO, Executive Petty Officer. The CO was a Warrant CWO 3 or 4 I think. Usually they are Surfmen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr6zTiKNxIs&feature=player_detailpage ^this is scay at first, then you realise these Surfmen have like a 6th sense, you loose your fear and really start to enjoy it. When you see things go wrong, like the boat getting knocked over etc. it is usually a newer coxswain being trained. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ibPLFkEpMrM |
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that sucks, your XO should have backed you up. I would have told that lady to take it to the next level. So this happened a few years ago and your still worried about it. Not worried, just bugs me that someone would be that pissy about really an honest mistake. All we were doing was making sure they had all there safety equipment, and legal fishing gear (barbless hooks etc.). I guess I have a weird memory that cycles around stuff that has affected me in certain ways
Wait, barbless hooks? Fishing with a barbed hook is illegal? What kinda nonsense is that? when fishing for salmon off the Oregon coast (not sure about CA, WA) you have to use barbless hooks so the illegal fish you catch that you have to throw back has a clean wound instead of ripping the barb out of there mouth. |
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I did L.E. vessel boardings for the U.S. Coast Guard a couple years ago. We had thigh drop down holsters with double locking. A little thumb actuated lock, and a strap across the top that would fold forward, for our SIG 229 DAK in .40 (why they replaced the M9 with that hunk of DA only junk I have no idea ) anyways, so when transfering over to the other vessel from our 47'er the strap on top of my holster got snagged on somethin and got folded forward. So it looked like to Joe Schmo that my sidearm was ready to be drawn and used. Few minutes into the boarding dudes wife all the sudden gives me the crazy eye and says " why is your gun ready to be drawn" in that real bitchy tone, whoops . I say calmly and professionally "Oh no mam, it still has a lock I would have to push with my thumb" and I imediatley push the top strap into the upright position and apologise. We get back to our station and I get called into the XO's office... shit. This dude was a really strict E7. He was a very good leader, and I would have gone with him into the worst storms you could imagine with confidense. Anyways, it turns out this woman called our unit, told him that I was very rude and impolite and was ready to draw my gun, he was trying to be intimidating because he had his weapon displayed in an aggresive manner. He asks me why I did these things and I explained the situation to him. He was alright with what happened and beleived me. She shows up at our unit a couple days later, and asks what kind of punishment I got. The XO tried to explain to her what really happened but she was having none of it. She said she would take it further if I didnt get reprimanded in some sort of way. So I get a "page 7" so she would go away. So my question is did I really do anything wrong? It has been bugging me lately. Why would someone get so butt hurt over something that trivial. Any law enforcement officers out there with a similar experience?
sorry about the CSB novel .Use of the word "Anyway" in the plural form is worthy of any and all punishments available to your CO. Do they still give floggings in the CoastGaurd? Or have they downgraded to SPANKING? |
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Who in the blue fuck would even notice a retention strap on a holstered weapon? If someone made this complaint on land I can only imagine the amount of laughing that woman would receive. Its borderline psychotic and obsessive compulsive to even notice the strap is off, much less to feel threatened.
If you want threatening, you place your hand on the butt or even draw it. Let me guess, either from the New England coast or a transplant and very, very rich? |
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Your CO should have told her to FO before he shot her for not FOing.
ETA: It's not that I don't understand where shes coming from, I just think that after getting an explanation, twice, she should have understood. I almost went "hands on" with one of the mall-cops they use as campus security around here - first he grabbed me instead of the guy he was supposed to grab, then he refused to accept any of the ID I presented that indicated I was not the guy they were looking for (We only had totally different names and, with the exception of being "tall", look nothing alike  ), and finally when I held the door open for him I turned around to see the thumb-break on his holster is open and his hand on the grip.
So while I understand how she felt, shes still wrong. |
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I did L.E. vessel boardings for the U.S. Coast Guard a couple years ago. We had thigh drop down holsters with double locking. A little thumb actuated lock, and a strap across the top that would fold forward, for our SIG 229 DAK in .40 (why they replaced the M9 with that hunk of DA only junk I have no idea ) anyways, so when transfering over to the other vessel from our 47'er the strap on top of my holster got snagged on somethin and got folded forward. So it looked like to Joe Schmo that my sidearm was ready to be drawn and used. Few minutes into the boarding dudes wife all the sudden gives me the crazy eye and says " why is your gun ready to be drawn" in that real bitchy tone, whoops . I say calmly and professionally "Oh no mam, it still has a lock I would have to push with my thumb" and I imediatley push the top strap into the upright position and apologise. We get back to our station and I get called into the XO's office... shit. This dude was a really strict E7. He was a very good leader, and I would have gone with him into the worst storms you could imagine with confidense. Anyways, it turns out this woman called our unit, told him that I was very rude and impolite and was ready to draw my gun, he was trying to be intimidating because he had his weapon displayed in an aggresive manner. He asks me why I did these things and I explained the situation to him. He was alright with what happened and beleived me. She shows up at our unit a couple days later, and asks what kind of punishment I got. The XO tried to explain to her what really happened but she was having none of it. She said she would take it further if I didnt get reprimanded in some sort of way. So I get a "page 7" so she would go away. So my question is did I really do anything wrong? It has been bugging me lately. Why would someone get so butt hurt over something that trivial. Any law enforcement officers out there with a similar experience?
sorry about the CSB novel .Use of the word "Anyway" in the plural form is worthy of any and all punishments available to your CO. Do they still give floggings in the CoastGaurd? Or have they downgraded to SPANKING? Putting a period at the beginning of a sentence is worthy of me not caring what you have to say 
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I'm looking at it from the point of view that I am a law abiding citizen and am doing nothing wrong. Now, all of a sudden, LEO, CG, whoever, wants to board my boat and interrupt my life, vacation, etc, for no reason. They are inconveniencing me for no reason. You guys (LEO, CG, whoever) are intimidating to begin with, especially to someone who has done nothing wrong and doesn't know why you are boarding their boat. Now, said person is powerless to do anything about it without being royally screwed by the .gov so when she saw your gun with the retention strap folded down, that made it that much worse in her mind. She focused in on that and that's how she can retaliate against the .gov. You are representing the .gov in this instance so you get to be the scape goat for her retaliation. Not saying it's right, but that's the way it is.
LEO, .gov, CG, etc. have a lot of power over normal run of the mill US citizens like me. Even if we are doing nothing wrong, you guys can screw us over with no repercussions. This was her way to get back at big brother. Saw in a later post you were boarding to check for safety equipment and barbless hooks. She didn't know that and it wouldn't matter even if she did. It still shows that you had authority over her and she wasn't able to resist. They probably had everything in order so it was a waste of their time and an inconvenience. Some people are more offended than others. If it were me, I would be annoyed but I wouldn't care about your retention strap being undone. I'd probably let you know and see how you responded. My attitude toward you from that point forward would depend on how you responded to my notification. |
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The best defense is a good offense. So the complainant was "offended" over this and complained like a royal bitch. Then anything that came up with regards to a citation would look like good old fashioned Jack Boot Retaliation. That's how some people play the game. Technically, she was right. The strap should have been fastened. So she took the issue and ran with it. Think about the events of that boarding. You missed something on that boat. |
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The Coast Guard has some pretty broad search powers compared to civilian police on land. Some boaters resent that and are hyper vigilant during those kind of interactions, so something that seems innocuous to you might seem pretty significant to them. Not that you did anything wrong, but from her perspective you were ready to draw down while performing an unwarranted search (yeah, I know it was legal, but think of it from her perspective). And, some people are just very insistent on righting a wrong, even if the wrong didn't occur the way they think it did and wasn't really a wrong to begin with. My mom freaked when we were boarded once. My dad told her to STFU and that was end of it. I guess from someone's perspective that has never had any dealings with law enforcement it is a little imtimidating when a CG vessal pulls along side and announces over the PA "prepare to be boarded" and four guys with pistols and rifles jump on your boat. I was 13 at the time and thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen but mom wasn't impressed. The lady in the OP took it too far though but you'll have that from time to time. |
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A friend recently got nailed with a minor punishment (verbal counseling) for a citizen complaint that he was speeding in his patrol car. Citizen complainer demands the same thing. Wants to know in detail what kind f punishment he's getting and when. Chain calls him in and smacks him around for a little for it, he protests that it was not him and gets told to shut up about it and man up. He found the guy who really was the one complained on, took it to the chain and they told him it was done now, and there was nothing could be done about, so just man up and go back to work.
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Quoted: I see now. He is technicaly the, XPO, Executive Petty Officer. The CO was a Warrant CWO 3 or 4 I think. Usually they are Surfmen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr6zTiKNxIs&feature=player_detailpage ^this is scay at first, then you realise these Surfmen have like a 6th sense, you loose your fear and really start to enjoy it. When you see things go wrong, like the boat getting knocked over etc. it is usually a newer coxswain being trained. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ibPLFkEpMrM And while I realize those rigs are self righting, I still wouldn't want to be caught in the surf zone in one. |
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that sucks, your XO should have backed you up. I would have told that lady to take it to the next level. So this happened a few years ago and your still worried about it. Not worried, just bugs me that someone would be that pissy about really an honest mistake. All we were doing was making sure they had all there safety equipment, and legal fishing gear (barbless hooks etc.). I guess I have a weird memory that cycles around stuff that has affected me in certain ways
Don't sweat that part, I'll take every grudge I ever had to the grave with me.
Your Chief should have had your back. Like I've always said, a good CPO is worth his weight in gold - there is nothing worse than a bad Chief. Unfortunately, all the bad ones think they are awesome. |
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Ewwwwww. Guns?!   Quoted: Quoted: All we were doing was making sure they had all there safety equipment, and legal fishing gear (barbless hooks etc.). Why are guns needed in the first place for something like that? And some people wonder why a citizen might get a little upset.. |
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One of my coworkers got a complaint for simply having his hand on his holstered gun. He was there assisting two other officers on a probation search of a felony probationer and her adult sister, mother and father were all present and upset about the probation search of the probationers vehicle. The father complained about my co-worker having his hand on his gun.
Meth addicted daughter who stole from her employer = good Cop with hand resting on grip of holstered gun = Bad
Some people will find something to be pissed about no matter what you do. |
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welcome to the LE world, its why I left. BS baseless complaints still get flagged in your file. True. They stay in your jacket for 7-years in my department. Even if the complaintant is proved to be a liar by video or independant witnesses. You still get the hit just for getting a complaint. |