Cops Share Arrests That Broke Their Hearts (r/AskReddit | Reddit Stories)

law enforcement officers over debt is there on the rest in your career that broke your heart to make but it was your duty to make it I had to arrest a juvenile who was on probation the kid had to obey his mother's orders she called us because he was refusing to sleep on the kitchen floor his mother literally was attempting to punish him by making him sleep on the linoleum floor she was a pill-popping junkie who was unfit to be a parent I had to call the kids probation officer Pio and the Pio wanted the kid Lodge in the County Juvenile Detention Facility I was frickin piece it off this occurred the week before Christmas while I was transporting the kid to jail I asked him what he wanted for Christmas he told me I just want to be happy I asked him what he liked to do for a hobby he told me he played a lot of basketball in the park across from his apartment building but his mom took his bull away My partner and I bought a kid a good Spalding basketball for Christmas and he told us he never knew cops could be so nice I think about this kid all the time even though he has moved away to live with a grandparent I consider this to be one of the best things I have done in my career this happened six years ago my father was friends in high school with a guy who was once a police officer but later resigned he was forced to shoot a pregnant woman because she was firing a weapon towards him her husband had drugged her earlier that night in hopes of killing the child but called 911 when she became violent and threatened to shoot him the meds caused to her hallucinate and she used a gun on the officer who arrived at the scene I am NOT law enforcement but the cops in my town had to arrest my mom on Christmas morning I was 17 and my dad was already in prison they knocked on the door and she went with them with no fight they didn't contact anyone because of my age so I was completely alone on Christmas the arresting officer came back to my front door whip says coming down his face he told me what was going to happen and what they arrested her for in bezel meant I could tell the man's heart was broken he kept apologizing saying that it was just his job and he was so sorry it turns out the whole four years she was in jail that officer would look out for me triple time due to the fact that my mom's abusive ex was after me he is probably one of the best cops I've ever met I'm grateful that he was the man that arrested her he also arrested her ex when he broke into my house two weeks after he set me up with a PFA and looked out for me he changed my view on police completely not an arrest but I wrote a 78 year old Vietnam veteran or no seatbelt ticket on Veterans Day as he was driving home from getting a job at the Veterans Affairs hospital I was in training and my training officer wouldn't budge the old man cried I felt about 6 tall and wanted to cry myself worst experience on the job thus far and I've seen some sh t next time just get some info wrong when you're writing the ticket like what model the car is or the color then he might be able to get out of it an officer did that for me once he pulled me over for speeding on the highway but saw all the teaching materials in my backseat and asked what I did when I told him I was a special ed teacher he was so upset that he had pulled me over and that the camera or whatever on his car had already recorded my information so he couldn't let me go without a ticket regardless he came back with only a written warning and the information he wrote down indicating I was a 65 year old male nope and he misspelled my plate record there was some camaraderie about how disappearing pensions he was a nice guy and I got lucky I talked to an officer that had to arrest an 8 month pregnant mother of three after she slapped her husband the husband spent the family's money on booze and other women leaving his family in an impoverished state to the point that the mother was using newspapers as diapers for her youngest children when the wife slapped him the husband called the cops and she spent the night in jail so do any of you have sad or gut-wrenching arrest stories that have stuck with you flip the genders and see if you would still feel bad domestic violence is not okay from anyone for any reason backed when I worked in the legal aid office in our local district court I had an old lady 70-plus knocking at my door on a Friday afternoon she said that she was late with her payments of a penalty order and wanted to know what to do it looked like she got used by some of her relatives in connection with fraud she got a wrist slap in form of a penalty order and was supposed to pay the fine in monthly installments apparently she was late with some payments and asked if she could pay them once a retirement money was due next week I did the routine check and found that she had an outstanding arrest warrant because of her missed payments as it stood then I was supposed to arrest her or give her the option to pay right then but she had not enough money and no way to get her hands on enough on short notice I tried to call the DA's office to ask if they could temporarily lift the warrant but as it was Friday afternoon no one was there what that meant was that this 70 plus year old lady would now have to spend at least the weekend in jail I called the police to have a transport ready to get her there but when the police officer and I talked it through on the phone we both came to the conclusion that we both did not want to send an old lady like that to jail for late payments that would be dealt with early next week and that she never really was in my office that day in the first place so it was my duty to arrest her but I did not my very first arrest here's the back story I'm fresh out of training one of my first shifts on my own I've been out patrolling just trying to get a feel for my sector I work in a major city in the Midwest my dispatcher calls me for a domestic dispute and progress I arrive and radio for another unit as I approach the area before I can even get to the door a man comes out bloody as all hell and just looking like a wreck he starts telling me that his girlfriend hit him in the head with a baseball bat and she did some serious damage I was in disbelief that he was standing I had him sit on the ground and after I called for medical units I went inside come to find out this lady had been beaten by her boyfriend regularly for around the last five years but she had never reported it when he started yelling at her on that day she had enough she smoked him with a baton he called the police the boyfriend even confirmed that he had beat her before that I couldn't do anything about it I had to arrest the woman for domestic violence and I hated it I was so angry it was almost unbelievable I still think about if I could have done anything different and had eventually I just had to move on TL DR I had to arrest a woman for basically defending herself from domestic violence my first year as a solo officer I responded to a medical call at a bar where a woman was having a seizure I arrived shortly after medical units and found the victim's husband fighting medical staff he was pretty intoxicated and trying to get to his wife I tried talking to him and explaining that he had to back away so the medics could help her I tried pulling him away but the more I tried to calm him down the more he fought me medical staff was having a great deal of trouble aiding his wife and he was much larger than I I am a female officer and was in my early 20s at a time I ended up having to engage him physically he kicked and punched me while I just tried to keep him occupied with fighting me and not a medics other officers arrived and together we were finally able to hold him down so the medics were able to load up his wife she passed away that night the officer assigned the call chose to Lodge the man in jail for resisting arrest I protested but was ordered to place him in jail he spent the night in jail while his wife was dying all charges were later dropped and the officer who made the decision was later fired for other reasons I still feel terrible for having to be a part of what is sure to be the worst night of that man's life I'm from the Yukon Territory in northern Canada no I don't live in an igloo or have a pet polar bear but I wish I did because a pet polar bear would be frickin awesome , and the cops are usually super cool one night a cop pulled over because we were walking and drinking a beer he lets us finish the beer and he took the cans after since we were not near a trash can another time my buddy was being cheeky and asked a cop what would I have to do to get tasered the copper replied something very stupid to which my buddy thought about for a second then proceeded to slap the cop the cop took the slap and Carmy backhanded my buddy to ground and said you are a ballsy motherfrakker but I'm still not going to taser you probably the funniest thing I have seen I'm not law enforcement but I did work as a store detective for a high tech adept store the Friday before the Mother's Day weekend I had to arrest a guy who got out of jail 36 hours before he was stealing over $1000 in clothes when we searched his bags he had bought his mother a card into dressing-gown at another store this one tore me up because of his mom no matter what mistakes he had made her son just spent five years inside and got out just in time for Mother's Day I know she would have been excited that she could see her son on Mother's Day and now she wouldn't I was so angry at him for doing bad he could have fronted up with nothing but prison fatigues and flowers he picked on the way and she would have been happy seriously flick that guy my dad's a retired cop so I'm not only oh and the guy in this story didn't get arrested but I think it's worthy to repeat it was Christmas Eve 1977 I think and when dad told us the story he said he had told himself that he wasn't going to take it or arrest anyone after unless he had to so he gets a call at about 8:00 p.m. about a man prowling behind the dirt Mint store and drives behind to check it out he finds the guy and restores dumpster his coat pockets full of broken crayons and a man's Melling of alcohol the guy had went to the dog track and got drunk and spent his kids toy money on the races my dad called over a couple of other officers and they took him to the coffee shop and sobered him up and all chipped in for some presents then delivered him and his car home my dad said the man was very grateful and promised to get help for himself I like to think he turned his life around to so many people see cops is just someone who likes to hassle people but I love that my dad had such a compassionate side to him I'm not sure a cop today could get away with something like that now go I was once part of an undercover sting to bust up an armed holdup gang who had been targeting local banks being relatively new to the detail I got to know the ringleader pretty well despite there being all kinds of regulations to the contrary he was a cool guy and I came to appreciate his laid-back attitude and worldview in the end we dropped the net on them whilst they were trying to hit another Bank cool guy makes a run for it and he gets cornered and refuses all verbal instructions to stop I have a valid reason to fire my weapon but in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it I think I wound up shooting into the air out of frustration man I got chewed out for that last I heard cool guy had drowned off a beach somewhere in rough seas cuts me up just thinking about it even now I had to arrest an elderly man who had been harassing young women who he kept referring to as his kittens he was definitely suffering from some sort of mental condition and he meant no harm from it but after several warnings by some other officers over a period of weeks we just had to do it he started screaming about how his momma was gonna beat him when we took him in sad stuff not a cop but ex 911 dispatcher want to know what pieces me off people that get P FAS on someone and really freaking play dirty they will know where a person hangs out et Cie and we'll specifically go to that location knowing that the person is going to be there and then have the freaking balls to contact the police because a person has violated their PFA orders in many cases people get P FAS on each other so that if the other one violates it they can rat them out the entire PFA situation is way out of hand nowadays and don't get me started on child custody and sire involvement got called to a retail theft security caught a young teen girl stealing clothes from a store when I walk in I see her crying her eyes out I asked her why she was stealing and she says her sister which is some sort of medical condition that made her use those arm crutches things just got asked out on a date for the first time in her life when she wanted to make her sister look beautiful because she was so happy she got asked out I got a lump in my throat from her story I tried to plead with the managers to let me pay for her but they refused had to arrest her but I let her sign a promise to appear and gave her $30 and told her to go to another store and buy her something recently had a fellow pulled a gun on me walking out of a gas station I should have been nowhere near I assumed he thought I was someone else or he was on the GS not sure which one is I've done my fair share never did me like that my initial thought was that I was dared why go down standing still I tried talking to him while I slipped my small browning knife out of my pocket apparently the clock inside saw and called the police which luckily the station was only a block away the officer arrived gun out initially at me with the knife but be immediately to the real threat he was arrested but the cop knew I was shooken up I had P said my pants embarrassingly enough but he ended up taking me down the street for a burger and we sat in his car until I calmed down so he could drive me to the station to give a report and receive a clean pair of pants really really nice guy to this day I also hope I will run into him so I can give him a thank you in the proper mindset and without urine running down my leg I am NOT a law enforcement officer that I have a friend who was he retired and got a job working at the same place as I did it was about an hour drive to work and we were both from the same town so we started carpooling he was about 20 years older than me and he was everything you think about when you think of a policeman he was a big guy about six feet - and very boastful he was very intimidating to me even though he didn't mean to be come to find out that we both liked the same type of staff so we would go to electronic conventions and stuff together I ended up getting a divorce and he gave me a call my ex took everything I had and he said that him and his wife decided that it was time to get new furniture he brought my older living room furniture they had and it was nice stuff we are still friends 15 years later and I have never forgot what he did for me law enforcement officers are for the most part just that they have a job to do and most of them are just doing their job it sucks to get a speeding ticket or whatever but it is really nice when they are there when you need them they risk their lives every day for little money and no fame next time you get a speeding ticket apologized to the officer for making his job harder don't just eyes him for giving you the ticket he deserve just my two cents worth there was this nice old lady in the community who held free art classes and maintained a neighborhood vegetable gum her husband had passed away and it was just her and her four foster children she also ran a GLBT Outreach Center and ran an atheist charity for homeless everyone in the community loved her in any event he came down with cancer and someone had called in a tip that they had been some drug activity in the house a warrant was obtained and we headed in she had three marijuana plants she had been using it for her nausea from chemo however she had enough in her possession for it to call Fyers intends to deal and she wound up getting 20 years in prison the garden withered and her foster children were all relocated she ended up dying in prison a few years later I was on FTO which is in the field training my FTO was your stereotypical [ __ ] cop who had a zero-tolerance policy for everything well it was my second weekend I called this lady over for an expired tag turns out she had a suspended license for a failure to appear which is an arrest able offense where I work she had three happy meals in the front seat she was just trying to run out and get dinner for her children she was just a block away from home when I stopped her I was going to give her a ticket but my FTO insisted on me arresting her and threatened to fail me if I didn't follow his order ended up arresting her and impounding the car with the kids dinner still in the car I seriously thought about quitting that night he wouldn't even let the lady call her boyfriend to pick up their only means of transportation i frickin hated that man working the highway and was heading back to the station toward the end of shift when the car in front of me started driving a little erratically halfway on the shoulder and about 10 miles per hour under the speed limit so I hit the lights the driver slowly turned onto a side street and continued for about a quarter mile 15 miles per hour before he finally stopped I could tell he was thinking about running or fighting both of which he later confirmed passed his mind so I was on guard I woke up to the car and see that it's a male and female face taps and baggy clothes your typical gangster looking dude I take his ID and information and run it he's got a warrant for animal cruelty and failure to appear she's got a PPO out against the driver her husband and a warrant Phil Gill mystic I called for another car and we arrested both the male started crying immediately saying that they were on their way to pick up their daughters from elementary school to have one last afternoon together before their kids moved across state to their grandparents because of all of the issues the couple was having he said he was driving poorly because they were wrapping a couple of presents for the kids which was true to give to them before they left I was pretty heartbroken immediately because my kids are the same age and I really felt for this guy even though we were on different ends of the social spectrum turns out the animal abuse charge was dropped because he was falsely accused and the PPO was set to be dropped a couple of weeks later and everything that they were arrested for was nothing big in the end they were all felony warrants though so I had no choice we had to call a social worker to get the kids from school guy cried all the weight of the jail and I couldn't talk to him otherwise I would have cried too I have no idea when the next time he got to see his kids was and I think about it all the time I'm not an officer but this is the story that we were both involved in I was working second shift when three boys walked in there were eight six and five years old each of them stole a candy bar and tried to walk out my coworker caught them and brought them back in I called the cops and their parents phone numbers the officer took the call nodding a few times he hangs up sighs and tells the boys of their parents are not picking them up and they have to spend a night in jail that officer came back the next day for his morning coffee telling us how horrible he felt and how he would do anything for his eight year old why wouldn't they just pick the bombs up I got arrested for possession when I was 18 leaving for college a few weeks later for a few years I let myself think I was smooth enough to talk myself out of it when after about one stroke to are in the back of the car he took the cuffs off smashed my pipe and told me he was disappointed and I should make better decisions and let me go in my agent wisdom I realize he let me go because a little pot isn't worth ruining a life for Thank You random cop who probably changed my life imagine how many people that didn't get as lucky as you pretty sad I'm not a cop but I worked for a lawyer as an assistant for six years and this is the one case that absolutely killed me an elderly gentleman around 75 - 80 maybe older went to a grocery store did his shopping and left on the way home a cop calls him over and arrests him for stalking apparently he went into several aisles at some psycho b-tch that thinks everyone is obsessed with her was in he happened to check out behind her and obviously left the store shortly after she did Wendy got into his car she called the cops and told them she was being stalked by this guy the cops didn't believe him at all because apparently she was married to someone with let connections I don't think it was another cop but definitely someone connected to her we were his defense counsel he ended up pleading out and taking a criminal charge on his record and probation for five years just so he wouldn't have to go to jail my son is in college preparing for a career in law enforcement he's a good kind intelligent young man yes he's a redditor I worry not just about him being short but more about all the heartache and min tricks that he will witness those life-changing events Opie was referring to in his original question keeps me awake at night and I hope that he has more affirming experiences than negative backed when I was a cop my colleague and I stopped a car driven by an old lady no insurance no license we had the car confiscated and towed as she collected her belongings out of the car pretty sullen faced she pulls out a cake from the backseat turned out she spent all of her days looking after her severely handicapped daughter and had run out in the car to buy her a birthday cake during writing her up and waiting for the tow truck to take away the car said daughter calls her up and asks where she is cue the most depressing phone call I ever had to over here felt bad man i arrested a father on Christmas Eve this was one that will always stick with me I was never a fan of DUIs DWI is MTX but it's part of the job it was around 10:30 p.m. and I was on patrol and turned off a side road onto a major highway this guy was all over the road I pulled him over and after all of the sobriety tests he knew he failed he began pleading that he had to win three years and they would be crushed if he wasn't there on Christmas morning to open presents he was about 25 miles from home I told him no he started crying like crazy I'm not talking regular I am talking Niagara Falls snot bubble crying I didn't budge I told him that having him alive to see another day would be worth it and I took him in I got to the jail and noticed on his criminal record that there was the prior arrests for intoxicated assault meaning he already had a drunken wreck so that made me feel instantly better I am NOT a copper but I do have a story about some nice ones I had just started University and went out clubbing with my friends I had started drinking about 4:00 in the afternoon and I was smashing down double vodkas in the club not wise I can how I ended up staggering home alone at 4 a.m. without my friends about as drunk as I could get without blacking out I ended up lost just standing in the middle of a dual carriageway roundabout completely the opposite side of town from my flat and a police car pulls up and stops next to me the officer shouted get in the car and I got into the backseat they said I was a drunk and incapable and they were taking me to the cells and asked me what the hell I was doing I explained to them I was from a tiny countryside village and I really wasn't used to the city at all they asked me what I was studying and where my flat was and they asked why I didn't get a taxi I told them it was because I didn't have my card and gave the last of my cash to a homeless guy true we sat talked for a minute with me pretty gutted but then they carried straight on past the police station and dropped me home to my door really nice officers just shows they're actually human too even if they look a tad scary always be polite I don't take taking people to jail lightly so I can't think of any times off the top of my head at taking someone to jail was heartbreaking the only arrests that are mandatory no discretion a domestic violence complaints which I've never really felt sorry for there have been tons of times where I can certainly relate to how the person's feeling and how upset they are and can even agree that maybe they're getting a raw deal and feel bad for them but it never excuses whatever they did against their spouse partner I've been a cop for four years but the closest incident that answers the question was when I was a private security guard at an amusement park in college we got reports of a man beating and screaming at a young boy we caught up to them leaving the park and could clearly see one of his three children had red marks all over his back it was completely covered they were leaving the water park part he had no shirt on normally we would walk the guide to the office or at least out of the way before handcuffs or not even use them and just have him wait for the police to come do their thing but he started getting pretty vocal and then tried to walk away from us so we ended up having to somewhat wrestle him into custody in front of his three young kids who are now bawling hysterically the guy was ultimately charged and convicted for the assault and it was hard to feel bad for him but damn those kids he's their dad and they don't see him as we did in that one incident bad decision one moment of lost control plenty of people have their sob stories or are going through pretty rough times that make you kind of feel for them but you just sort of get numb to it to the point where nothing really stands out now that I'm trying to think of examples when I was in high school my best friend and I were part of a police sting where an officer would drive us around and we would try to buy alcohol without getting carded I went to all the gas stations in town while he went to most of the restaurants a waitress at a Mexican place served him a beer when he ordered it so the officer came in and wrote her a ticket we found out later that she didn't have a visa and ended up getting deported she also had two young children my friend felt so bad that he tried to track her down and send her the money he made from the couple of days we spent doing this but he couldn't find her he's a police officer now and every time I see him his proudest work stories are ones in which he has a chance to help someone my father is in law enforcement and he has made it a very dangerous but heartfelt commitment to handcuff people before they enter a beating room with their kids and he will not cuff him again until out of children's sight my dad believes that no child should see their parents in cuffs I'm really glad I read this post it's changed the bad habit about making sweeping generalizations about cops I'd imagine these guys have had a lot more instances where they broke their heart by not being able to make an arrest I coached a youth sport when I was in college and there was the kid I dreaded sending home you could just see the happiness sucked out of him when his father came to pick him up the guy was in Ashley in public I can only imagine what he was like at home bonus he later crossed the line by making fun of one of the weaker kids in front of everybody including the parents my tough as nails scarred up bad yet assistant coach took him off to the side and nicely recommended he not show his face around here again we ended up giving the kid a ride for the rest of the season sports were his escape I gather though I'm not a psychologist this is probably going to be pretty far down but I had to arrest a father who had just given away his only daughter at her wedding who was her zero-nine back who was driving three blow from the winery to the hotel cop story from Russia a cousin is a cop in Russia and some students from the US were on school trip to Russia one of the kids actually a senior who was 18 was back home a little suburban gang member wannabe was arrested a bunch of times back home with real consequences he was busted for trying tag a war memorial and was caught by our groundskeeper the kid pulls out a smaller knife cuts the worker and runs shortly afterwards my cousin catches him while my cousin is transporting him to the station the kid was laughing thinking it's all a huge joke and brags how he will be back in the hotel before my cousin went back home the kid did not go back to the hotel but was in prison for five months until his trial my cousin was in court to testify after five months in prison the kid went from being a little thug and looked like a scared deer caught in the lights in Russia the defendants sit in cage while in court while wearing a prisoner's uniform the judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison for attempted murder slashing the groundskeeper criminal desecration of grave and criminal vandalism of a historical object when the translator told him the sentence in English the kid fainted my cousin felt bad for him since he had no idea that he would be punished so severely and he really felt bad for him because he was going to go from a from a fairly easy prison in the city to an actual harsh prison that is going to be in the middle of nowhere and his only contact with he friends and family will be a one-page letter per month 2-3 5-minute phone calls per year and one visit per year [Music]

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Id: A5WM2AZPEMI

Length: 32min 35sec (1955 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 01 2020