Justice Served

[J.T.]

So today I had a trial date in San Antonio for an offense I allegedly committed on June 22nd. Cops pulls me over around 1:00AM around San Pedro & Isom Rd. I was in town for my best friend's birthday, and we had gone to Dave and Busters and a few other places to celebrate. I hadn't been drinking (since I had to make the trip back to Round Rock), but he had and so had his girlfriend. Anyway, here's the situation. I turn off 410 and stop at a light just off the exit ramp over by North Star Mall. Light turns green and I turn onto San Pedro and I see the next two lights ahead of me are green, so I start accelerating so I can get through them. I'm about three or four seconds away from the light when it turns yellow, but I keep going because I know I have more than enough time to make it. I pass the light but the second light turns red so I stop. Well, unknown to me there was a police cruiser stopped about four or five vehicles back at the adjacent street in the intersection (it's like right before Isom, the exit ramp of 410 coming the other way, so the intersection is like this: |-). His light turns green and he pulls up behind me, then once my light turns green his lights come on. So I turn on Isom and park it in the Circuit City parking lot. Dude comes up to my vehicle and tells me I'm being pulled over for disregarding a red light, which from the get go I tell him is total hogwash and what probably ruined my chance of getting a warning. He also does a more than thorough job of making sure I'm wearing my contact lenses. So he takes my license and insurance and goes back to write me a citation. While my friends and me are discussing the ridiculousness of it all, Mr. Cop gets on his speakers and tells me to step out of the vehicle. He asks me my age, which I thought was kind of funny and ironic since he still had my license. Then he asks me where we've been and if I'd been drinking, and I'm sure if it was earlier than 1:00AM it wouldn't have happened, but he makes me do the stupid "follow the pen with your eyes" bullshit. I was actually insulted by that since I knew he was just trying to bang every little fucking offense he could out of it. So I skunk the sobriety test and he gives me the ticket, which very curiously was marked as in a construction zone with workers present (I'm pretty sure Isom is past the construction zone but even so there weren't any goddamn workers there at 1:00 in the morning), which ends up as something like a $260 ticket.

So I come back in a week or so for my court date and the city attorney says the best he can do is knock off 30 dollars since it was in a construction zone, or he says I can take it to trial, which I do. So today I barely make it to the courthouse for my 8:00AM trial and the fucking cop doesn't even show. :smokin Case is dismissed, but I find it ironic that the prick that went out of his way to give me the highest dollar value ticket he possibly could for that situation doesn't even show for the trial. Apparently he was just doing it to be a dick.

Anyhow, do any of you have ticket/court stories to tell? Would be interesting to see how many people something similar has happened to.

[sa_butta]

So today I had a trial date in San Antonio for an offense I allegedly committed on June 22nd. Cops pulls me over around 1:00AM around San Pedro & Isom Rd. I was in town for my best friend's birthday, and we had gone to Dave and Busters and a few other places to celebrate. I hadn't been drinking (since I had to make the trip back to Round Rock), but he had and so had his girlfriend. Anyway, here's the situation. I turn off 410 and stop at a light just off the exit ramp over by North Star Mall. Light turns green and I turn onto San Pedro and I see the next two lights ahead of me are green, so I start accelerating so I can get through them. I'm about three or four seconds away from the light when it turns yellow, but I keep going because I know I have more than enough time to make it. I pass the light but the second light turns red so I stop. Well, unknown to me there was a police cruiser stopped about four or five vehicles back at the adjacent street in the intersection (it's like right before Isom, the exit ramp of 410 coming the other way, so the intersection is like this: |-). His light turns green and he pulls up behind me, then once my light turns green his lights come on. So I turn on Isom and park it in the Circuit City parking lot. Dude comes up to my vehicle and tells me I'm being pulled over for disregarding a red light, which from the get go I tell him is total hogwash and what probably ruined my chance of getting a warning. He also does a more than thorough job of making sure I'm wearing my contact lenses. So he takes my license and insurance and goes back to write me a citation. While my friends and me are discussing the ridiculousness of it all, Mr. Cop gets on his speakers and tells me to step out of the vehicle. He asks me my age, which I thought was kind of funny and ironic since he still had my license. Then he asks me where we've been and if I'd been drinking, and I'm sure if it was earlier than 1:00AM it wouldn't have happened, but he makes me do the stupid "follow the pen with your eyes" bullshit. I was actually insulted by that since I knew he was just trying to bang every little fucking offense he could out of it. So I skunk the sobriety test and he gives me the ticket, which very curiously was marked as in a construction zone with workers present (I'm pretty sure Isom is past the construction zone but even so there weren't any goddamn workers there at 1:00 in the morning), which ends up as something like a $260 ticket.

So I come back in a week or so for my court date and the city attorney says the best he can do is knock off 30 dollars since it was in a construction zone, or he says I can take it to trial, which I do. So today I barely make it to the courthouse for my 8:00AM trial and the fucking cop doesn't even show. :smokin Case is dismissed, but I find it ironic that the prick that went out of his way to give me the highest dollar value ticket he possibly could for that situation doesn't even show for the trial. Apparently he was just doing it to be a dick.

Anyhow, do any of you have ticket/court stories to tell? Would be interesting to see how many people something similar has happened to.He might have been more lenient with you had you not argued. Ive gotten several tickets for various things and if you just cooperate with them they are much nicer and more likely to give you a break. I got a ticket for expired registration about a month ago and did not have a copy of my insurance card. I did have insurance just did not have the updated card. I explained it to him and he wrote tickets for both. I think he could have towed my car for the insurance thing. Anyways I got the registration fixed in time and showed proof that I had insurance at the time of the citation and I only paid $10 court cost.