misswired
Absent Comrade
The reflective clothing thread of LEO's reminds me of this all but forgotten story.
Back about 1990 fishing buddy and myself lived to fish, work and sleep... in about that order.
It's a weekend night so we're doing an all night fishing trip on Smith Lake in our hometown. About dusk we hear a siren in the distance that soon turns into several sirens. Telling fishing buddy it sounds like they are coming down old highway 69 that dead ends into the lake. There was only a couple warning signs and a few rumble strips to warn of the upcoming dead end into the water.
As the chase grew closer it was obvious several more sirens had joined in. When the sirens stopped moving I told fishing buddy " I think they have stopped where hwy 69 runs into the water." He said: "lets go see!"
As we rounded the bend into the slough we could see about 20 units with the blue lights blaring. I stopped the boat about 300 yards away while we cracked a beer and watched the action.
Some thirty minutes later, the curiosity had us.... we slowly idled up to the scene. As the boat nudged up on the bank a fellow wearing a white tee shirt points at me and says: "I'm taking that boat!" Foolishly I replied: "Who the hell are you?" ( that's when I noticed the stripes down his uniform trousers)His reply: "I'm Trooper Ronnie ***** , and I'm commandeering your boat!"
Immediately recognizing his name as an old classmate, I shook his hand telling him my name saying sure; what's up?
He was the lead unit when the corvette had plowed into the water at a high rate of speed... he had swam to the car and pulled the kid out quite possibly saving his life.
He wanted the boat to go out and find the car.... here we go out to where he said the car sank and started searching. I'm looking with sonar without any luck when fishing buddy says let's throw our spinnerbaits, we can tell if we bump the car.... no luck with that.
Trooper Ronnie then says let's go back to the bank, the divers are here..... so back to the bank and me and fishing buddy has a state trooper and two geared up divers in our boat, idling back out to find the car. Seeing as this is gonna take a while I asked Trooper Ronnie if me and fishing buddy can continue drinking our beer(we're in a dry county).... he says absolutely, no problem.
We never found the car that night, it had continued rolling a couple hundred yards on the submerged roadway.
Following up a couple day later I asked an officer what had happened. The kid had stolen the corvette up north and driven it to spring break in Florida.... he was out of gas and money when he pulled a gas drive off in our little town bordering the interstate.
The moral of the story: Officers can commandeer your vehicle in Alabama, but, if you happen to know the officer.... you can continue drinking your beer while they use your vehicle
Back about 1990 fishing buddy and myself lived to fish, work and sleep... in about that order.
It's a weekend night so we're doing an all night fishing trip on Smith Lake in our hometown. About dusk we hear a siren in the distance that soon turns into several sirens. Telling fishing buddy it sounds like they are coming down old highway 69 that dead ends into the lake. There was only a couple warning signs and a few rumble strips to warn of the upcoming dead end into the water.
As the chase grew closer it was obvious several more sirens had joined in. When the sirens stopped moving I told fishing buddy " I think they have stopped where hwy 69 runs into the water." He said: "lets go see!"
As we rounded the bend into the slough we could see about 20 units with the blue lights blaring. I stopped the boat about 300 yards away while we cracked a beer and watched the action.
Some thirty minutes later, the curiosity had us.... we slowly idled up to the scene. As the boat nudged up on the bank a fellow wearing a white tee shirt points at me and says: "I'm taking that boat!" Foolishly I replied: "Who the hell are you?" ( that's when I noticed the stripes down his uniform trousers)His reply: "I'm Trooper Ronnie ***** , and I'm commandeering your boat!"
Immediately recognizing his name as an old classmate, I shook his hand telling him my name saying sure; what's up?
He was the lead unit when the corvette had plowed into the water at a high rate of speed... he had swam to the car and pulled the kid out quite possibly saving his life.
He wanted the boat to go out and find the car.... here we go out to where he said the car sank and started searching. I'm looking with sonar without any luck when fishing buddy says let's throw our spinnerbaits, we can tell if we bump the car.... no luck with that.
Trooper Ronnie then says let's go back to the bank, the divers are here..... so back to the bank and me and fishing buddy has a state trooper and two geared up divers in our boat, idling back out to find the car. Seeing as this is gonna take a while I asked Trooper Ronnie if me and fishing buddy can continue drinking our beer(we're in a dry county).... he says absolutely, no problem.
We never found the car that night, it had continued rolling a couple hundred yards on the submerged roadway.
Following up a couple day later I asked an officer what had happened. The kid had stolen the corvette up north and driven it to spring break in Florida.... he was out of gas and money when he pulled a gas drive off in our little town bordering the interstate.
The moral of the story: Officers can commandeer your vehicle in Alabama, but, if you happen to know the officer.... you can continue drinking your beer while they use your vehicle
