[JuneyBooney]

I was curious as to what would happen to you in your department if you said on an application for charges that, "A tag check indicated that the vehicle is registered to the defendant", thus making pc and the car was actually unregistered in any state. Would you get fired for essentially kidnapping an innocent man or what would happen to you. I know it is ok to lie in questioning a suspect but intentionally lying in charges seems like a jailable offense to me. Just curious what you guys think.

[4949shooter]

We need more specific information.

Intentionally falsifying documents would result in termination.

Making an honest mistake, well, is just an honest mistake.

[Patchman]

So the car was unregistered in any state... but the person was driving it anyway?

I think if you're looking for some answers, you're going to have to provide a few more particulars.

[ateamer]

Considering that the license plate number is going to be in the report, it is a real stretch to think that an officer is going to lie - in that same report - about who the plate is registered to, as it would take all of about seven seconds to disprove it.

[PROSOUTH]

"A tag check indicated that the vehicle is registered to the defendant", thus making pc and the car was actually unregistered in any state

As stated above an intentional lie will get you fired for falsifying documents.

As for your statement of lieing about registration to obtain PC, I don't think I have ever run a car that was not registered in any state and If it wasn't registered it probably had a tag that's registration did not match the vehicle description and that would be PC in itself.

Now for the warrant issued stating that the registration upon check was registered to the defendant, that is what the magistrate wrote and sometimes they misconstrue your statements and the warrant comes down with a slight error. The officer may have stated upon check the vehicle was not registered to the currant owner.

We have a high rate of "open title" vehicles on our roads. The new owner hangs on his tag and rides, so when i run it it comes back to a VW and is on a Chevy truck. That's PC for a stop. The vehicle will be registered but to the previous owner and that's why I check for ownership by VIN. I can't see an officer making a false statement such as this just to get PC for a stop. PC is to easy to get for a traffic stop to do such a thing as lie.

Did you know that a motor vehicle not registered in your name can not be reported stolen? The legal owner has to report the theft. Without proof of ownership, sorry no report.

[PROSOUTH]

Whoops I double tapped this one

[Cav]

If an Officer lies and uses that lie as his PC to make an arrest, knowing that the PC is going to be public record and used in court, and that the defense, arrested person, and Judge will know about it, they need to be fired.

Not just for lying, but for being that dumb.

I have had a few vehicle that were not registered. CO seems to drop LP's after a set time, where in TX 10 years later or 2 transfers of LP's and we still get a trail. I have run a few CO LP's that had been expired a year or two, and had no return. Even had my dispatch run the VIN thru each state/area to be sure.

A mistake that put a innocent person in jail would be a few days off. A mistake that put a criminal in jail would be a letter in their file.

[CAcop]

If the vehicle is unregistered in any state that is instant PC. I can tow the car for being unregistered and conduct an inventory of the vehicle prior to the tow. In CA is is fairly common to find an unregistered car due to DMV dropping cars after 3 years of not being registered. With 38 million plates they have to prune the tree.

[merlynusn]

Originally Posted by PROSOUTH

Did you know that a motor vehicle not registered in your name can not be reported stolen? The legal owner has to report the theft. Without proof of ownership, sorry no report.

The best part here is that only the registered owner can retrieve the vehicle from a tow yard.

Anyone can report the vehicle stolen if they were in control of it. But the victim would be the registered owner.

[DustyJacket]

Departments are pretty paranoid about use/misuse of tag checks and checks on people.
They track them all.
Lying on a report or affadavit can get you fired. and probably sued.

If used as testemony against the bad guy, in Colorado, it can get you the same sentence and the bad guy faces. (Not perjury, it is an anti-framing law. Can't recall the actual wording after all these years.)

[RussP]

Originally Posted by JuneyBooney

I was curious as to what would happen to you in your department if you said on an application for charges that, "A tag check indicated that the vehicle is registered to the defendant", thus making pc and the car was actually unregistered in any state. Would you get fired for essentially kidnapping an innocent man or what would happen to you. I know it is ok to lie in questioning a suspect but intentionally lying in charges seems like a jailable offense to me. Just curious what you guys think.

To whom did this happen?

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by PROSOUTH

As stated above an intentional lie will get you fired for falsifying documents.

As for your statement of lieing about registration to obtain PC, I don't think I have ever run a car that was not registered in any state and If it wasn't registered it probably had a tag that's registration did not match the vehicle description and that would be PC in itself.

Now for the warrant issued stating that the registration upon check was registered to the defendant, that is what the magistrate wrote and sometimes they misconstrue your statements and the warrant comes down with a slight error. The officer may have stated upon check the vehicle was not registered to the currant owner.

We have a high rate of "open title" vehicles on our roads. The new owner hangs on his tag and rides, so when i run it it comes back to a VW and is on a Chevy truck. That's PC for a stop. The vehicle will be registered but to the previous owner and that's why I check for ownership by VIN. I can't see an officer making a false statement such as this just to get PC for a stop. PC is to easy to get for a traffic stop to do such a thing as lie.

Did you know that a motor vehicle not registered in your name can not be reported stolen? The legal owner has to report the theft. Without proof of ownership, sorry no report.

You wrote what I believed to be correct. My neighbor got popped on a warrant after a dirtbag who was harassing him went to the magistrate and filed charges. The charges were referred to a detective who allegedly investigated. But he failed to check out the man who told the story..he had an open warrant at the time and the car was unregistered but they had an old plate on it to take the car to a repair facility. So the old plate on it could have been the pc for a driving offense charge like a 250 dollar ticket etc but I don't see how he has gotten away so far with the making of the statement about the tag when the car was truly not registered anywhere because it was brand new and he had lost the certificate of origin from the dealer. The funny thing is that the "defendant's address" also had a wrong zipcode so it may have been shoddy detective work on something that could have as stated in another post "checked in about seven seconds" I think I could give a street cop more leeway on a mistake because the decisions are made more quickly and under more stress than a detective sitting in an office with plenty of time to ponder the information found. The guy allegedly ran a guy off the road, beat him with a pistol etc but of course they were made up as a revenge warrant. I guess this kind of stuff can happen but I know my neighbor was really ticked off. The tag they had displayed came up to a Trans Am and the car it was on was a family sedan. Kind of like comparing Pam Anderson to George Lopez. They look totally different. Thanks for your info.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by RussP

To whom did this happen?

It happened to a close friend and he is trying to get the detective arrested for kidnapping by the feds. So we will see what happens. The man had never had handcuffs on him in his life except for his police friends showing him how to cuff etc. He has claustrophobia so I think that freaked him out too.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by DustyJacket

Departments are pretty paranoid about use/misuse of tag checks and checks on people.
They track them all.
Lying on a report or affadavit can get you fired. and probably sued.

If used as testemony against the bad guy, in Colorado, it can get you the same sentence and the bad guy faces. (Not perjury, it is an anti-framing law. Can't recall the actual wording after all these years.)

That is interesting. I did see a lady cop get fired for running checks for a drug dealer she was dating and then she faced jail time. There are so many different charges that they can levy upon anyone including the cops.. I know all the computer checks are logged on the computer. I just can't imagine a detective taking the chance on something that is pretty simple to check.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by 4949shooter

We need more specific information.

Intentionally falsifying documents would result in termination.

Making an honest mistake, well, is just an honest mistake.

The neighbor had a new car that he lost the certificate of origin. He needed to take the new car to the shop so he displayed an old tag from a trans Am on it with a different address. A man who was harassing the family went into a magistrate and filed false charges and they were referred to the detective who for some reason "lied". The address given was not correct because it did not have the guy's dmv address and the statement about the tag was way off base. I can only figure that what happened was the the detective thought the man who had a clean record was honest and that the car simply was not in the system but I would have never said a car was registered to a defendant if it wasn't. But from what I was told I think the guy did intentionally lie but we will have to see what the prosecutors decide to do. the charges were dismissed against my neighbor but he is still ticked off and wants some justice.

[MeefZah]

WTF, over.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by CAcop

If the vehicle is unregistered in any state that is instant PC. I can tow the car for being unregistered and conduct an inventory of the vehicle prior to the tow. In CA is is fairly common to find an unregistered car due to DMV dropping cars after 3 years of not being registered. With 38 million plates they have to prune the tree.

They do that here on the East Coast too. They normally tow cars with different plates and charge the owner with a 250 dollar fine or so for driving and unregistered car. From this guy's story the old tag had to be hand searched because it was a "dead" tag from the pruning you have described. Aren't there like three cars for every person in CA? The neighbor even mentioned he would have not minded a 250 or so ticket..but hated being popped on a lie.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by Cav

If an Officer lies and uses that lie as his PC to make an arrest, knowing that the PC is going to be public record and used in court, and that the defense, arrested person, and Judge will know about it, they need to be fired.

Not just for lying, but for being that dumb.

I have had a few vehicle that were not registered. CO seems to drop LP's after a set time, where in TX 10 years later or 2 transfers of LP's and we still get a trail. I have run a few CO LP's that had been expired a year or two, and had no return. Even had my dispatch run the VIN thru each state/area to be sure.

A mistake that put a innocent person in jail would be a few days off. A mistake that put a criminal in jail would be a letter in their file.

I have seen cops get "retrained" and I think the detective was transferred but the victim wants him in jail for kidnapping and to lose his pension. I think it is fair if the detective knowingly lied because the neighbor was diagnosed with ptsd and has nightmares about the arrest and humiliation. It sounds like you do your job correctly and the detective here flew by his pants. I guess we will see if it was an innocent mistake for a conspiratory lie in the next few months.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by ateamer

Considering that the license plate number is going to be in the report, it is a real stretch to think that an officer is going to lie - in that same report - about who the plate is registered to, as it would take all of about seven seconds to disprove it.

What I found interesting is that states like Virginia allow people to have a car registered to an address that is different than their driver's license address and each car can have a different address but other states like Maryland only allow the address to come up to the certain address that is on the person's driver's permit. It is interesting how each state is different and I can only imagine the computers maintained by the states. The detective had a hand check done and the old address was on the neighbor's old tag and his new address was twenty miles away and the new address was on his driver's license but the address given on the charges was the old address. I just don't see how something so simple got messed up so badly.

[Patchman]

Originally Posted by JuneyBooney

What I found interesting is that states like Virginia allow people to have a car registered to an address that is different than their driver's license address and each car can have a different address but other states like Maryland only allow the address to come up to the certain address that is on the person's driver's permit.

New legislation with regards to MVs that I've suggested:

- Cars can only be registered to those who have a valid DL;
-Both the DL and the registration must have the same address;
- All license plates must be accounted for (either currently registered on a vehicle, or turned in to DMV for destruction) before a new set of plates will be issued or a newly acquired car will be registered. Yes, this would put the onus on the motorist to account for all his license plates.

The detective had a hand check done and the old address was on the neighbor's old tag and his new address was twenty miles away and the new address was on his driver's license but the address given on the charges was the old address. I just don't see how something so simple got messed up so badly.

[old_pigpen]

Departments are pretty paranoid about use/misuse of tag checks and checks on people.
They track them all

+1

I know two people who were sentenced to state prison for running unauthorized 29 checks on friends and coworkers.

[Whitey1]

Sounds like the neighbor wants him found guilty so he can sue for a easy payday.

[steveksux]

Originally Posted by JuneyBooney

I was curious as to what would happen to you in your department if you said on an application for charges that, "A tag check indicated that the vehicle is registered to the defendant", thus making pc and the car was actually unregistered in any state. Would you get fired for essentially kidnapping an innocent man or what would happen to you. I know it is ok to lie in questioning a suspect but intentionally lying in charges seems like a jailable offense to me. Just curious what you guys think.

There's no way in hell you can enter a tag incorrectly and happen to pull up the guys name you just pulled over.

So that can't be an honest mistake. Odds are like hitting the lottery.

If the car is unregistered in any state, its pretty easy for someone else to rerun the tag and find out.

So you have an obvious lie, easy to find. I can't imagine too many cops being that stupid, and dishonest, and willing to throw the career away.

I don't see how this hypothetical is even possible.

Randy

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by Whitey1

Sounds like the neighbor wants him found guilty so he can sue for a easy payday.

He took it personally because it was not a traffic stop or an accident. He is still asking the state and the feds to prosecute the detective. I am sure his attorney fees ticked him off as it would anyone.

[JuneyBooney]

Originally Posted by steveksux

There's no way in hell you can enter a tag incorrectly and happen to pull up the guys name you just pulled over.

So that can't be an honest mistake. Odds are like hitting the lottery.

If the car is unregistered in any state, its pretty easy for someone else to rerun the tag and find out.

So you have an obvious lie, easy to find. I can't imagine too many cops being that stupid, and dishonest, and willing to throw the career away.

I don't see how this hypothetical is even possible.

Randy

I looked at the carfax the neighbor has and it shows what he said..never registered until after the incident. I can't explain how the det lied or came up with the info. I think what happened was that after the man filled out an application for charges that the det got a "hard on" for the neighbor and didn't do his job but I can't fathom a trained leo being so careless.

"So you have an obvious lie, easy to find. I can't imagine too many cops being that stupid, and dishonest, and willing to throw the career away. "

I fully agree with that statement.