I got this e-mail from my mother after their trip home. Attached is my reply to her. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. The Officer's named is retained because he is a big fat liar.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
We traveled through Colorado early Sunday morning, after visiting our son in Avon, Colorado. We were in a van from Minnesota with 4 adults and two exchange students one from Brazil and one from Denmark, showing and teaching them about our big USA and what a great democratic government we have when we met a Sheriff’s officer from Sedwick county in Colorado. We were less than two miles from the Colorado Nebraska border and had our cruise control set at 79-80 MPH. Yep we were speeding and two cars passed us on the freeway.
Then officer D. Poole stops us and comes up to the window addressing my daughter with “do you know why I stopped you?” she answers, “I am not sure why you stopped me, I was going 79-80 MPH I admit I was speeding but two cars just passed me going faster.”
Officer Poole asks for license and registration. Then asks her, “Do you know why I stopped you?” She answers not really. He answers, “Do you know it is against the law to speed?” She tells him it is my parents' van she is getting the registration, as I am digging in the glove box. He then says, “I have a picture of your car doing 86MPH, do you want to see it?” We all tell him that was the cars that passed us, we have both a cruise and GPS set and were doing 79-80 MPH. My Daughter answers, “Yes officer I would like to see it.” She goes back to his car with him and cannot really make out anything through the sunshine and window reflection and he says you cannot go in my car to see it. She tells him she cannot see the picture of our car and he admits it is a picture of the speed a car was going not a picture of the car. She comes back to the van and the officer stays in his car.
We wait about 15 minutes as he calls in the registration etc. He then brings us a ticket for 86MPH. I tell my Daughter not to sign it; she tells the officer again, “I was not going 86MPH that was the two cars who passed me.” Officer Poole says you can come to court if you want to contest it. I tell him “you know we are from Minnesota and know we can not come back to contest a ticket.” I ask him for his superior officer’s name, he will not give it to me. Repeating we need to go to court to contest it.
I ask him if we can refuse to sign it and he states, “I will have you arrested right here if you refuse to sign it.” We all agree my daughter needs to sign it. She signs it; officer Poole goes back to his car.
I got my cell phone out and called the highway patrol; at this point we did not know he was a Sheriff from Sedwick County. I tell them the whole story and they tell me they do not have a patrol car in that area or with the license number 056ABO. Officer Poole then comes to my daughter's window and asks if we have a problem, she answers, “We are trying to figure out where to go.” Really she was shacking, as was I with a wrong doing in our free wonderful country of the United States of America.
The officer’s car speeds away leaving us on the freeway and I see he is a sheriff and tell the Highway patrol who tells me I need to call them and he does not have their phone number. I call 411 and get the number and repeat the entire story to officer #24 Matt who said he was listening to my complaint.
We found out we were less than 2 miles from the state line after we started driving. Officer D. Poole may not have been able to catch the two cars speeding through the state line ahead of us.
I patiently waited for a telephone call all week and of course did not get it.
I called 970- 474-3355 on Friday 9-9-11 and was told the supervising Sheriff was on another line. I left my number with a female answering the telephone. She asked what it was regarding and I answered, “a phone call I made on Sunday, that I did not hear back from.”
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At this point my mother asks me if there is anything I know of to assist in fighting this speeding ticket that jumped from 79-80 to 86 MPH. Here is my reply.
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I wish I could tell you what to do but I wouldn’t know what to do. You should probably talk to a lawyer and send him this story and he may be able to tell you off the top of his head if you have an actionable case here. But a quick Google search makes it sound like you may be out of luck.
http://www.freeadvice.com/law-questions/the-officer-marked-estima-37019.htm
Here is another website with some good advice.
http://www.worldlawdirect.com/article/903/fighting-speeding-ticket.html
Oh, and in the last 10 years after living out here, I don’t know if it is Colorado cops or just me getting jaded with our Government from President all the way down to the lowly desk clerk, but I have really come to despise authority. I now tend to try my best to stay under the radar now and fight against them every chance I get because they are no longer here to protect us but to rule over us. Admit nothing, allow nothing. That is my policy when dealing with authority now.