You know what was great about the Kansas City Police Department's sobriety checkpoints? They used to send us press releases announcing exactly what day, time and place that they'd be delaying drivers. "Friday night, Midtown Kansas City," the release would say, which usually meant the Westport area, where the drunks pour out onto Southwest Trafficway or Broadway. Or "Saturday night, South Kansas City," which often meant Ward Parkway. If they were going to do one on 71 Highway, they'd tell us.
Not anymore. Srg. Ron Podraza, supervisor of the KCPD DUI Section, sent us this vague release (bold emphasis added):
SOBRIETY CHECKPOINT - The Kansas City, Missouri Police Department will
conduct a sobriety checkpoint on the weekend of February 13-15 at a
location in Kansas City, Missouri that is known for occurrence of DUI
related crashes or DUI arrests. This checkpoint will be preceded with a
briefing at the Agnes Police Facility, 1328 Agnes at 2300 hours.
During this operation there will be signs placed in advance of the
checkpoint site and officers will be on the street directing traffic.
Motorists will be directed to a location where an officer can conduct a
brief check to determine if the motorist should be delayed longer. If
not, the motorist will be delayed only a very brief period of time and
will then be furnished with written material about drunk driving.
"Negative," he typed back. "We gave a general location of the city, not specific. We will now provide a notice similar to what you have received."
Well, that's no fun. Word to your happy-hour posse: It's best to leave the tipsy driving to Grand Theft Auto IV's simulations.
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"We should never drink and drive, but I still like to know where checkpoints
will be in Orange County, San Diego, and LA. I may use calcheckpoint
(www.twitter.com/calcheckpoint) to find out where they are."
This is a classic example of local government using what boils down to an unfair advantage in the game of "cat and Mouse" to skew the numbers of arrests in their favor leading to the a higher conviction rate. However, we really cannot complain they are only doing what anyone who has ever been paid by number of pieces they complete on a job would do if they wanted to move up and make more money.
We The People created the procedures they are following we just haven`t revisited what we are accually doing to socity by continuing this. I was employed by Hill`s Pet/Colgate for eleven years and have never had a DUI or felony conviction I did however, get a speeding ticket for five miles over on the way to work one morning. I put the ticket in the glove box and forgot about it well several months later I was pulled over and the officer told me that my licence was suspended and that I was being placed under arrest. Well that made two Driving on Suspended tickets when I wasn`t even aware I had one. Well guess what? In the state of Kansas three of them is a felony!!! This pattern continued until I lost my job of eleven years due to my incarnation. Only to then be denied Unemployment because it was my fault I was in jail. Humm... Wonder why I paid into Unemployment all those years... Wonder if I had just sat on my ass and not tried to be a productive member of society if I would have ended up in the same boat cuz it kinda feels like it. I can`t believe this is what My father,his father, and his father`s father and myself fought for in time of War. Something went way wrong somewhere does anybody care at all....? Broken Patriot
Why no outrage about the loss of civil liberties? In my day the Red Coats had a habit of stopping John Hancock and I coming back from the pub for no reason but to check our papers and make sure we paid the stamp act tax! We showed them a lesson! I bet the KCPD doesn't chase you when you turn around before the trap to NOT be searched too! Insist on the locations!
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