Does it really take that long for a police officer to run your information?

Seriously! Same thing happened to me last time I was stopped (for running a yellow light of all things). I thought he must be on the phone with his wife or something. I do think they just screw with you.

I was pulled over for being drunk on my bike a few years ago. My Id was expired so I gave him my passport instead. This did not make him happy. I told him I had an expired ID. He was happy to run that.

It was four AM and there was no traffic around. They ran my info and it took about 3 minutes. I could see it taking a bit longer to run your plates. But I am positive that they they do that before they even step out of the car. You want to know if you are walking up to a stolen car.

The times that I have been pulled over, I have had them take less than five minutes. I don’t usually hear about cases like this. But 28 minutes is way too long and I think that you should be able to write them up on that sort of thing. Given that you didn’t recieve a ticket or anything of the sort.

@johnpowell Which confirms my thought that they just scew with you by making you wait forever. It doesn’t make me nervous, if that’s what they think, it just pisses me off.

i feel that they screw with you as well. each time ive been pulled over it has taken an insanely long amount of time for them to run my shit. its annoying. they must not think i have places to be which OBVIOUSLY IS WHY I WAS SPEEDING IN THE FIRST PLACE. ;)

@Sonnerr i actually did get a ticket. Turned out i had an expired registration card with me. Funny thing is the statey that pulled me over 2 weeks ago didnt catch it.

@chyna see i figured this but i wanted to hope that maybe just maybe i was being cynical. I resort back to my previous way of thinking, cops are dicks.

@uberbatman They are dicks. I ran into the cop and his wife at the dog park a few weeks later, He didn’t remember me, however I remembered him. I called him on giving me a ticket for running A YELLOW LIGHT. $165.00. His wife actually got onto him for giving tickets for yellow lights. They left shortly after.

Could it not be that the person running the information has a whole slew of things to do. Perhaps when you got pulled over that person was dealing with something more important so you just had to wait while typically there is nothing else on the plate so it can be done quickly.

@RedPowerLady i was on a college campus. nothing important was going on lol.

@uberbatman You can’t seriously know that. I’ve seen some pretty serious incidents on college campuses and some very non-serious yet time consuming ones. Also campuses have a much smaller staff than city police. I think my response is probably the most logical and reasonable. Believe the cop was screwing with you if you want but I doubt that he really cares enough to waist time doing that. (and believe me i’m not a fan of the majority of law enforcement so this is not coming from some sense of love for the job)

I pull you over, I get your license I go back to the car. The computer is causing problems again, and I have to call another sheriff’s station to run your ID. I pull out a doughnut from the box, and my buddy gives me the coffee – oops, damn – spilt it on my new uniform that Sarge had just put it my locker this morning. Shi, that coffeee’s hot… say, Lady, (while wiping my pants of the burning coffee) what was your name again?

I know I put her damn license somewhere… shit – must’ve fallen on the floor whilst coffee was being spilt. Say – I don’t think like this – what the fuck is this Shakespeare in my mind – and what the fuck is “whilst” anyway? – now where is that fucking lady’ license and she better get back in her car or I’ll have to show her the business side of the 357.

Where were we?

Oh yeah, shit it’s been 8 minutes already?

Yeah, what Zen said. ^^

Cops on college campuses have nothing to do. I got pulled over for going 9 in a parking lot where the limit is 5mph. I argued with him for a bit, maintaining that my speedometer said I was going 7. It was ridiculous.

lol yeah my speedometer doesn’t even begin to move until after you hit 10mph

@RedPowerLady: If there’s something that important/serious going on, why are they even paying attention to anything else? Unless @uberbatman was doing 70 in a 45 or something like that. But in this case, the result was a ticket for an expired registration. Obviously not a person who needed to be pulled over if the cop had important things to deal with.

@MacBean The reason i got pulled over was for rolling a stop sign making a right turn. The registration issue happened to just come up doing the whole thing. But like you said, thats hardly a serious thing if the cop had somewhere to be. It was also late at night so aside from this cop, there were no other cars on the road at all.

@MacBean Because that is their job. Perhaps what is going on only takes 3 officers and there are 4. However there is only 1 dispatcher. See what I mean?

The three officers are dealing with the ‘issue’.
The fourth officer is on traffic duty.
The dispatcher/person running ID has to deal with both.

Also on college campus the idea of computer failure or other non-issues coming up is very possible.

Of course I’m assuming it takes a third person to run a name. It could just be a computer. In that case we know how reliable computers are. I assume they run on a similar network and during busy times it would get backlogged etc..

@uberbatman So you got pulled over by a statey for speeding? Two weeks ago? I’m just saying, you may have a bit of a speed issue there, son.

@andrew no sir. i was pulled over by a statey for being on my cell phone. Which i wasnt, i was just resting my hand on head. He thought i was on my phone. So i pulled my phone out of my pocket and showed him my last call times and text times to prove i wasnt. He let me go. So there! :P

@RedPowerLady the college cops are actually stateys. They have plenty of resources, but they just deal with college affairs.

@uberbatman My points are still valid IMO. I think assuming they are ‘out to get you’ or anything similar is a bit silly.

@RedPowerLady: Well, I don’t know about the state troopers where @uberbatman is, but here they have the stuff in their cars to run plates and licenses and registrations and what have you without needing a dispatcher. So it doesn’t matter what any other cops on duty are doing. And I was under the impression that cops are supposed to “protect and serve.” IMO, they’re not doing that if they’re spending a half an hour running info on someone who did a rolling stop late at night. They’re just wasting time and being a dick.

@MacBean And there computers are never slowed down?

okay i’m going to a cop forum and asking

Okay not a cop forum but still some very legitimate answers so far. Check it out:
http://community.babycenter.com/post/a19425595/ot_anyone_a_cop_or_have_a_cop_family_member?cpg=-1#c2088484882
(if you can’t access I can copy and paste)

@RedPowerLady: If their computers are so slow that it takes a half an hour to get information that normally would take seconds, is it really that much of a hassle to walk twenty feet back to the person waiting and tell them so? Still a dick.

i couldnt agree more with MacBean. And i find it quite hard to believe if every time ive ever encountered a cop their computer was on the fritz

further more. RedPowerLady way to be a dick over on the other forum. ” It is a totally horrible question. ” “Oh i can’t wait to show those guys, hehe ;) ”

@RedPowerLady Oh, often it’s a busy dispatch it seems. Makes sense.

You look very nice in the pregnant pictures.

@MacBean Well I guess there is no changing your opinion, lol. I would just chalk it up to it’s all part of their job. The less contact they have with you the better because you could be some psycho with a weapon.

@uberbatman Well it is a horrible question if you consider that they are cops or wives of cops (you know in terms of you all calling them “dicks”). I just wanted to prepare them for that. I do not however by any means think it is horrible for Fluther or unworthy of asking. In fact as you can see I’ve stuck around quite awhile on here and went through an extra effort to get some information. I apologize if I hurt your feelings, I think you misread what I meant. And I could have worded it much more appropriately. Also you can go back to link and see I took a step to clarify what I meant.

@oratio Thank you!! :)

gosh if I told you the horrible experiences that I have had, and my family has had, with law enforcement you’d wonder why I am on this side of the discussion, lol

sometimes their computers are down .

28 minutes may have been a long time for this traffic stop and this may be the reason.

Sometimes, the laptop computers in police cars, go down just like any business. there could be any reason for this, like updating criminal records, etc. if this was the case, the officer is going to have to go to a different radio frequency and ask a live person in Central Records to request your information, by hand. in other words, manually look for your record and any outstanding warrants. this will take time, especially if the officer has to wait in line for his turn.

The officer should have given you a reason for the long delay.

john: i guess a good question would be, since you would know, do they ever intentionally take a long time just to fuck with people?