Railfanning results in Police Encounter

[Tier4GEVO]

[NSSD70ACe]

From what I've seen regarding police officers and railroad property on a thread from 2005 on TO, police officers can go anywhere while investigating an "in-progress" event. His interaction with you would be an IPE and therefore he would not be breaking the law, as he is conducting an investigation.


The situation in the TO thread is a bit different, but it appears that the principle is still the same.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?1,1011790

[Super Chief]

He probably took note of how many mosquito bites you had and entered you in the Zika databases. Jeffery Fieger will call you and want to know if you drank any Flint River water while there too. Good Luck.

[PatAzo]

You could have yelled "citizens arrest, citizens arrest" and see whether or not he's a fan of Antenna T.V.

https://youtu.be/9efgLHgsBmM

[M.D.Bentley]

This is a good time to bring this up . From the T.O. thread above. Arresting a member of a train crew is bad for the cop. Yeah lets arrest the only guy that can move the train. And then try to find another engineer to move the train ( good luck with that ). Before they moved "TM" north on the Sterling Secondary, Sherwood used to get blocked a lot. The local P.D. yells at the engineer to move the train or they will arrest him. The engineer informs the officer that they ( the train crew ) have no authority to occupy the next section of track. The officer states that "he don't care" and orders them to move now or be arrested. Can you see where this is going. Before the crew can contact anyone or tie the train down ( YUP, you guessed it ) the crew is removed from the train! When you as a member of a train crew are a arrested while on duty ,you continue to get paid until released $$$$. Jumping ahead, (about 4 hours) the railroad locates a crew that can move the train (this is a road train and not just any crew can or will jump on it ). Everyone who is anyone knows what is going on by now. The company officials, FRA, law department, union officials (BLE & UTU) as well as everyone in the terminal. The RR law dept. is threatening the city & P.D. with endangering the community and breaking a ton of federal laws ( w/ the backing of the FRA ). Like it's been said before "unless you work there , you'll never know ", this includes the local Gov't & general public. Not a bad thing, just uninformed. Well train gets moved, crew gets unarrested (?) and PAID $$$$. A short time latter TM get moved to its current location. The threats still continue these days ( not by the same cop, not sure where he is these days ). I was going to make a point here but..........................

[Saturnalia]

When approached and they ask for your ID stuff right away, perhaps try to get more details on their inquiry first. If you're kind and courteous, and ask questions without making the cops go on the defense, you can usually have a real conversation without being talked down to. I've had a handful of such basic encounters, and if you keep your manners, the cops will almost always just let you go.

As for taking your credentials, he probably just checked for any background on you - and probably didn't get out on any lists. They're not THAT crazy, especially to young guys!

[hoborich]

Then he walks across the tracks again, probably enters in all my info to those secret terrorist watch lists etc.

He was running a LEIN check, which stands for Law Enforcement Information Network, a nationwide databank, to see if you had any warrants. All you guys with gun permits will be happy to know that if a cop ever runs your info, an "Officer Safety Caution" comes up on your name, simply because you have a gun permit. Cops today are obsessed with their computers and technology, and violate peoples rights every minute of every day. When they make a traffic stop, they demand the identification of all the passengers in the vehicle, and run them all through the LEIN. Legally, they cannot do that, but they all do it. It's like fishing. The more people you run checks on, the closer you are to making an arrest. They would not get on a tour bus full of seniors, and demand identification from 50 passengers, because the driver failed to signal a turn or was going a little too fast. But they always demand ID from everybody in smaller vehicles. However, in a traffic stop for a civil infraction, their only probable cause is with the driver of the vehicle, not with the passengers. Unless you are being arrested or detained, or the officer has probable cause to believe you have committed a crime, you do not have to identify yourself, and you are not "obstructing" him in the performance of his duties, as he has no duty to identify you, absent any probable cause. I know this because my ex wife was a LEIN operator for the state police, and I know how they operate. Of course, refusing to identify yourself raises all kinds of red flags in a cops mind, but the law is clear. Refusing to identify is not a crime in Michigan.

In your particular case, the cop may have had probable cause to wonder what you were doing, and why you were there. In these days of terror paranoia, the cops are always getting updates and warnings of what to watch for from the feds.

[hoborich]

If you're kind and courteous, and ask questions without making the cops go on the defense, you can usually have a real conversation without being talked down to.

What kind of questions can you ask? A CSX cop once started giving me the obligatory "since 9/11, blah blaah, terrorists, blah blah, and I politely asked him if I looked like a terrorist. He threatened to drag me out of my van, cuff me and haul me off to jail. No sense of humor.

[PatAzo]

You're on CSX property, the local PD stops to check you out and leaves with just a "be careful". What is there to be irked about?

[Tier4GEVO]

You're on CSX property, the local PD stops to check you out and leaves with just a "be careful". What is there to be irked about?

Because I was not on CSX property. Then was approached by a cop who saw me. I mean, I doubt CSX property involves a creek with thorn pricks and growing weeds out the side of some gravel at the end of a bike trail.

[Tier4GEVO]

If you're kind and courteous, and ask questions without making the cops go on the defense, you can usually have a real conversation without being talked down to.

What kind of questions can you ask? A CSX cop once started giving me the obligatory "since 9/11, blah blaah, terrorists, blah blah, and I politely asked him if I looked like a terrorist. He threatened to drag me out of my van, cuff me and haul me off to jail. No sense of humor.

Back in the Canadian Pacific days of Plymouth in 2003, I was still a little 4 y/o watching a CSX train with my father on Theodore Street (public property example if there is one) and a CSX cop walks up, demands ID, makes us exit the vehicle. Now I'm not too sure of the specifics, but I believe my dad was being stubborn about showing ID for nothing wrong, and then the cop said he'd get cuffs on him in a instant. That's when my dad called the real 911, and it then became a dispute more focused on a real cop vs. rent a cop.

[Norm]

Don't deceive yourself Tier4. Those "rent-a-cops" as you call them have the same powers as the State Police.

[Saturnalia]

I've met several railroad cops, both while rail fanning and around other areas of the hobbies, like at train shows and tours. They're by and large not out to get you, just doing their job. The CSX guys in particular are far more focused on theft than trespassing, which is somewhere thereafter.

[~Z~]

You're on CSX property, the local PD stops to check you out and leaves with just a "be careful". What is there to be irked about?

Because I was not on CSX property. Then was approached by a cop who saw me. I mean, I doubt CSX property involves a creek with thorn pricks and growing weeds out the side of some gravel at the end of a bike trail.

Based on your description of where you were standing, your pics of the CSX officer and this streetmap view, you were on CSX property. It does extend past the ballast on either side of the tracks.

[SD80MAC]

Typically railroad property extends at least 50 feet from each side of the track.

[PatAzo]

We send the police out to fight crime, not just arrest people after the fact. So the policeman sees something that might be suspicious and stops to check. You could have been a tagger with a bag of spray cans in the weeds waiting to go tag something. He stopped to check, decided you o.k. and left you to video trains. Most average people are a little on edge when they are stopped by the police, even if they haven't done anything wrong. But look to the positives. The Novi police don't see railfans and railroad photography as anything to be concerned about. You had sense about what you were doing (staying off the track) and the cop didn't make issue of where the right of way was.