One night while patrolling my beat I saw an older car with a headlight out. These are usually just quicksand routine traffic stops. I let the driver know why I stopped them. Of course I have to check their license just to ensure that everything matches up before I let them go. So I pulled this car over with a Georgia license plate which is far from unusual.
I went to the driver and told him why I stopped him. He looked a little nervous but that isn’t out of the ordinary. Some people get nervous when stopped by the police. The driver was an older gentleman of small stature.
I asked for his license and went back to my car. I realized that the driver’s license was issued by the state of South Carolina. It is a little bit of a red flag when a driver’s license is from one state and your license plate is from another state. Still I wasn’t concerned by that and I also didn’t look too hard at the picture on the drivers license. The database check of the driver’s license did come back as suspended. In the state of Georgia a suspended license will get you into jail. I sighed and went back to the driver named Steve with the bad news.
“Hey man, please hop out of the car. Your license is suspended.” I told Steve. Steve began to stutter and said, “uhh are you sure.” “Yeah. I’m sure. C’mon, let’s go.” Steve looked like he was about to cry but he got out of the car and put his hands behind his back. “Steve, don’t worry. You will only be in jail for a few hours if everything else is ok.. Honestly, you will probably get home before I finish my shift.” in hopes of calming him down. Steve just continued to look nervous and said “oh … ok.”
I put Steve in the back of my squad car and began to do the required paperwork. All of a sudden Steve asked me “are you going to expedite me to South Carolina?” “What?” I asked him in confusion. “Are you going to EXPEDITE me to South Carolina?” he said again. He made sure to stress each syllable by speaking slowly as though I did not know what he meant by the word expedite. I sighed and said “you mean extradite. And no you won’t be extradited.”
At this Steve seemed to be very relieved and became very friendly. We had a nice conversation. Once we got to the jail I continued to work and finalize the arrest paperwork.. That’s when I noticed something out of the ordinary. Steve was about 5’2. His license said he was 6’1. I l reached again for his driver’s license to look more closely at the picture. I then looked at Steve and I realized that the picture wasn’t of him.
Steve was already in a holding cell but through the glass that separated us I said “bro what is your real name?” Steve said, “that’s me…” “No, it’s not. You aren’t 6’1.” I responded. Steve just went quiet for a few seconds and then said; “Fine .. my real name is “Jeffry Xxx.” Then Jeffry walked up to the glass separating us and said “yeah so what you got my real name I don’t care. You are lucky I’m behind here.” I couldn’t make sense of his sudden change in speech and replied; ‘Jeffry we have been alone for hours. If you wanted to fight me you had plenty of chances. Stop acting tough now.”
I ran a check with the correct name in our system and again the results showed a suspended license . As It turned out, Jeffry took a license from someone with a similar facial structure to his and he had no idea that this person’s license was also suspended.
I went on to finish the paperwork a few minutes before ending my shift and left Jeffry in his cell to act tough all by himself.
Posted here first [https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/2022/02/15/random-traffic-stops-2/]
