me vs. license plate reader...not cool! LEO only!

[00slvrL]

I wasn't going to post this up originally as I do not really have any real questions, maybe just interested in hearing what other LEO's think of what happened and more info about these plate readers.

This past Saturday around mid day I was heading to a friends to deliver him some car parts, going thru town and I see flashing lights coming west as I was headed east, it appeared a driver on the other side was being pulled over, which is nothing new in this area as its a 30mph zone.

Ok no big deal till I glance back and see more lights coming up my side, wether it was the same officer I saw on the westbound side I do not know, didn't really matter. I slow a bit to let him pass as normal protocol for emergency vehicles, well until he jumps behind me:shrug:

Here where it went downhill VERY FAST! I pull into a body shop parking lot which was only within 100ft or so of the Officer getting in behind me for the stop. Ok what does he want I'm thinking as I wasn't doing anything wrong that I could think of and I know I'm free of warrants or criminal activity.

No more what seemed to be 10 seconds I see one officer through my drivers side mirror holding his ground approx. 5 ft beyond the back of my truck bed with taser in hand pointing towards my door, I am thinking WTF, glance in the passenger mirror and see officer 2 with shotgun raised in the same manner

By this time I don't have time to think and was just following instruction, hands out the window, open door with right hand, actually not the easiest thing to do, push the door open and get out, face foward hands in the air.

From there get down on the ground, all the way down, the whole time I'm hearing more sirens. A officer comes up behind be grabs my legs and pulls them up toward my butt and ask for my hands and handcuffs me, He rolls me around and assisted me in getting me on my feet and says would like to sit down on your tailgate, sure, and I'm asking what is going on. He says I'll tell you in just a minute.

Well some of our officers here have the plate readers that can read plates as you are going down the road, and just so happens my plate triggered a hit of a stolen vehicle:nono:
I said well its not stolen, and by this time they had came to the same understanding and I was told that sometimes it can read incorrectly, and it read one digit off, or similar to another letter/number, I don't remember the actual description he used, how lovely is this.:fm:

So as fast as this went downhill it went to a friendly chat with the 5 officers that were there, they apologized and each of them spoke there name and shook my hand. I was shocked at what went down then and just didn't know what to say, but now I have had time to really think about what happened.

No hard feelings towards the officers as they did what they thought was a suspect in a stolen vehicle, I didn't get assaulted, just maybe a bit embarrassed as there was alot of buisness' right here where many people were on foot and actually traffic was at a crawl due to firearms being pointed on me, you know how onlookers are...lol. Had dirt and gravel on my clothing and face, got a small abrasion on my wrist somehow.

In the end obviously I was let go, hell they really didn't even know who I was because I was never asked for ID or anything related to my vehicle, which other then the plate showing stolen there was no reason to stop me so that made sense in that respect.

So I guess the only question I may have is how accurate are these readers, I see they are not perfect:kaboom:

What do you think about how they dealt with me, could they not have double checked the plate before stepping out and causing this event to unfold as it did. Seem preventable to me.

Thanks for the time guys be safe!

 

[Lt. ZO6]

Not sure what to tell you, OP. I have no experience with plate readers, but do have quite a bit of experience with stolen vehicles.

Every time I've ever gotten a hit on a plate, I follow through with getting a description of the vehicle to ensure it matches up. Then I make the stop. I have had occasion to stop a vehicle returning as stolen which was later found out to not be the case (most of them were vehicles stolen previously and not cleared from the system).

If I do stop a vehicle believed to be stolen, I will be extremely aggressive in action towards the driver and any occupants (when I say aggressive, I do not mean beating the crap out of everyone, etc., so don't construe it as such). This is done for my safety as well as the safety for the other parties involved.

 

[00slvrL]

Not sure what to tell you, OP. I have no experience with plate readers, but do have quite a bit of experience with stolen vehicles.

Every time I've ever gotten a hit on a plate, I follow through with getting a description of the vehicle to ensure it matches up. Then I make the stop. I have had occasion to stop a vehicle returning as stolen which was later found out to not be the case (most of them were vehicles stolen previously and not cleared from the system).

If I do stop a vehicle believed to be stolen, I will be extremely aggressive in action towards the driver and any occupants (when I say aggressive, I do not mean beating the crap out of everyone, etc., so don't construe it as such). This is done for my safety as well as the safety for the other parties involved.

Thnx for the post, these officers seemed to do as you mention in being aggressive, but not physically, just gaining control of the situation I guess you could say. There was nobody with me but by how they were yelling, they must of thought otherwise. I was in my Lightning, windows down so not sure what they saw or just making sure. I heard them clear the vehicle while I was on the ground.

 

[00slvrL]

at least you didnt do anything stupid

any normal person with any sense will follow instructions when weapons of human destruction are pointed at you at point blank range.:burn:

 

[svtcop]

wow, thats scary. I gotta say I have a cop phobia as it is, I wouldve just about shit my pants if that happened to me.

at least you didnt do anything stupid

LEO's? :read:



OP, Sounds like you got the raw deal on this one.

The Officer whose plate reader caught your plate may not have noted if it was a plate or VIN hit. When the plates are read the VIN number associated with the vehicle the plates are on is checked through the system as well. The system will pick up on partial VIN Hits at times. When this happens we check (run) the plate through our dispatch center (LEADS) who will get a little more info back. This is where they will be able to tell us that it is only a partial VIN hit, not stolen, or if it is confirmed.

When we get hits we always double check through our Comm Center before making a stop. This gets us a little time for another unit or so to start towards the area before we make the stop and keeps things like this from happening.

If it was the officers error then I say he may have been a little over zealous and thought he had a good one. :nono: on him if that was the case.

If it was equipment error then I say it doesn't surprise me as the systems are not perfect and shit happens. Sucks for you either way.

Sad thing is that most of our recovered stolen vehicles are when the owner reports them stolen, finds his own car six blocks from where he left it, drives it away and doesn't notify the police that he recovered it. Still shows in our system as stolen if we check it.

Needless to say the owner gets a little surprise similar to your own.

Sorry you had to go through that, at least they weren't assholes in the end and apologized.

 

[cemeflybyu]

The officer was accurate in his explanation of the ability to somewhat mis-read a plate. the experience I have had with training and use of our tag reader is that while it does an excellent job of reading the plate which is done off how the light reflects from the raised portion in order to process an image, it cant tell the difference between states. For example if you have AZ plate 123-XYZ listed as stolen and the officer passes FL plate 123-XYZ then it reads and runs that number and gets a hit.

Even at low speeds...your 30mph...driving towards one another we have a 60mph relative approach speed...not exactly conducive to determining a STATE of a plate. Especially on any type of divided or multi lane highway.

Cant say if he did a 2nd check or just got a bell and went to work or what. Whenever possible I agree with Lt. a second check is the way to go before putting people on the ground.

Glad it all ended smoothly. Look at it this way, you will be in top running for story of the year at Thanksgiving dinner!

 

[silver03svt]

The plate readers we have do not read the state the plate is issued from. It only reads the characters on the tag itself. It is up to the Trooper operating the plate reader to verfify the plate, state, and making sure it's still an active stolen hit before stopping the vehicle. I am not sure how other plate readers and agencies operate though.

Thanks for understanding that it is a LEO performing an official duty, and even though you may have had some embarrassment ad inconveniences, at least you weren't a real car thief. It is nice to know that the LEO was doing his job and was professional with you the whole time.

 

[00slvrL]

LEO's? :read:



OP, Sounds like you got the raw deal on this one.

The Officer whose plate reader caught your plate may not have noted if it was a plate or VIN hit. When the plates are read the VIN number associated with the vehicle the plates are on is checked through the system as well. The system will pick up on partial VIN Hits at times. When this happens we check (run) the plate through our dispatch center (LEADS) who will get a little more info back. This is where they will be able to tell us that it is only a partial VIN hit, not stolen, or if it is confirmed.

When we get hits we always double check through our Comm Center before making a stop. This gets us a little time for another unit or so to start towards the area before we make the stop and keeps things like this from happening.

If it was the officers error then I say he may have been a little over zealous and thought he had a good one. :nono: on him if that was the case.

If it was equipment error then I say it doesn't surprise me as the systems are not perfect and shit happens. Sucks for you either way.

Sad thing is that most of our recovered stolen vehicles are when the owner reports them stolen, finds his own car six blocks from where he left it, drives it away and doesn't notify the police that he recovered it. Still shows in our system as stolen if we check it.

Needless to say the owner gets a little surprise similar to your own.

Sorry you had to go through that, at least they weren't assholes in the end and apologized.

If I wasn't so much in shock at the time I may have questioned a bit more into the whole situation. I just chalked it up to error on the part of the tag reader and the officers doing what you would expect them to. No harm no foul, a quick double check to confirm is all i would ask though.

 

[00slvrL]

The officer was accurate in his explanation of the ability to somewhat mis-read a plate. the experience I have had with training and use of our tag reader is that while it does an excellent job of reading the plate which is done off how the light reflects from the raised portion in order to process an image, it cant tell the difference between states. For example if you have AZ plate 123-XYZ listed as stolen and the officer passes FL plate 123-XYZ then it reads and runs that number and gets a hit.

Even at low speeds...your 30mph...driving towards one another we have a 60mph relative approach speed...not exactly conducive to determining a STATE of a plate. Especially on any type of divided or multi lane highway.

Cant say if he did a 2nd check or just got a bell and went to work or what. Whenever possible I agree with Lt. a second check is the way to go before putting people on the ground.

Glad it all ended smoothly. Look at it this way, you will be in top running for story of the year at Thanksgiving dinner!

My front plate is at a slight downward angle, which could have caused it to be read incorrectly. I was just so unlucky that what it thought it saw was a hit for the stolen vehicle
Good story none the less for the family:beer:

 

[svtcop]

If I wasn't so much in shock at the time I may have questioned a bit more into the whole situation. I just chalked it up to error on the part of the tag reader and the officers doing what you would expect them to. No harm no foul, a quick double check to confirm is all i would ask though.

Situations like yours is why I double check things like this. Not everyone is as understanding as you.