Honest officer, it's all a big mistake.

[rodelliot]

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

So late, after a gig, I was driving home, and maybe a little faster than the law would allow. It was late and I was tired.

In my trunk I had my trusty old Super Action 80 alto along with a 6M and 10M I had purchased and wanted to try out. These horns, along with some stands, a little PA equipment and various other boxes made my trunk rather difficlut to close, so I bungeed it down with bungee cords.

As I barrelled on down the road I noticed some quickly converging blue lights behind me. Obediently I pulled off to the shoulder of the road. Moments later the officer, after stopping to check out my somehwhat open trunk, approached my window. As I lowered my window, the standard "license and registration, please" command came from the officer's direction. Without hesitation I produced those documents. After handing them to the officer, he asked me "any idea how fast you were going?" I replied with a less-than-certain- "45," which was the speed limit. He corrected me by adding 23 mph to my estimation. "What's the rush" he asked me. I told him that I'd just finished tearing down a house and that I needed to get home. "Tearing down a house?" he asked. I said "yeah, we burned that place up tonight!"

He then asked me what was in the trunk and I explained that I had my main axe, a couple of naked ladies and some equipment.

I was arrested on the spot for arson, 2 counts of kidnapping and 2 counts of terroristic threatening.

The good news? The speeding violation was dropped! :oops:

[DD]

Good thing you didn't volunteer to show him your "gig dust" :shock:

[rodelliot]

Good thing you didn't volunteer to show him your "gig dust" :shock:

Good one! I wrote that hunk of junk on the fly. I forgot about gig dust and "pad dope."

[timobrien]

Well I can tell you a REAL story that happened to me years ago.

My wife and I were riding my new motorcycle (tame cruiser, not a speed bike or harley) into my small hick Midwestern hometown and had blue lights flash on me as I was crossing a railroad track. I pulled over cringing because I knew the officers in the town were not the brightest in the world and figured I was getting nabbed for not "stopping long enough" or some such at the tracks. It was not unusual for them to find little hassles for ticketing.

In the mirror I could see that the officer was running up toward me with his hand on his piece, unsnapping the holster. I kept my hands ON THE HANDLEBARS and sat REAL STILL. When he came up beside me I looked at him calmly and he stopped saying "Ohhh, you're not who we're looking for..."

Turns out a couple of guys had just robbed a gas station up the street on a motorcycle with a sawed-off shotgun, shooting the attendant and we "did not fit the description".

I was a bit shakey the rest of the evening knowing full well that they could have just as easily blown us away and then realized what they had done.

DONT even think about kidding around when pulled over. Stay calm and stay STILL....

[rodelliot]

WOW!!

One more "getting pulled over" story for you, and this one is real, but not real funny.

A friend of mine and I were driving home (completely sober and at or under the speed limit, I might add) in New Orleans one night, where we lived. It was about 3AM and were driving home after a gig. To my complete surprise, the blue lights come on. I figure the cop's trying to get around us so I pull to the side to let him get by. He pulls up behind us.

He and his partner come up to the car, flashlight trained on the back of my head and his partner's trained on the back of my friend's head tells us to "step out of the car." We do as he says (duh!) and, he tells us to assume the position. (hands on car, legs spread. They proceed to search us. After the search, the cop asks me for a license and registration. I ask him why we were pulled over and why we were searched and he told me it's because the car I was driving (an Olds Cutlass) were frequently stolen.

Well, I owned the car and there was nothing suspicious about the car...except for one thing apparently. My buddy (trumpet player) is black and I'm white. Now this whole deal happened only a year or so after the Rodney King deal so I wasn't going to say anything (heck, my name's Rodney) at all about it and my buddy, being the black guy, didn't dare say anything.

After the cops called in the license and reg. and sufficiently felt us up, they left.

I'm grateful for the experience, I really am. Nothing like that sort of deal to give you perspective on what some folks routinely experience.