First , a little background :
This is about an incident in downtown Atlanta on I-75/85 Southbound in
Fulton County , and deals with myself and a Henry County Police Officer .
Henry County is about 30 miles SOUTH of Atlanta and therefor his
jurisdiction is no-where near Atlanta .
The HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane is the far left-hand lane in Atlanta
on the INterstates.
I was driving on the "Connector" , I-75/85 Southbound in downtown Atlanta
at about 6:45PM last night .
I was in the HOV lane as I had my 4 year old neice with me and it was legal
. I was running about 70 .
All of the sudden , I see a new Z-28 in my rear-view mirror with a light
bar on top . No problem as I could tell from the color that he was not from
Atlanta , and the State Patrol has no Z-28s .So I continue at my present
speed of about 70 or so .
So then I see that this car has one (1) officer in it , which is ILLEGAL
when traveling in the HOV lane .
Next , the officer decides that I am not going fast enough in the HOV lane
so he starts tailgating me.....I mean *really* tailgating me . He was so
close at 70MPH that I could not see his headlights , nor the hood , in my
rear-view mirror .
Of course this irritates me , so I let up on the gas a bit and slow to
about 60 .
He gets closer and then starts flashing the spotlights on his light bar at
me (not the blue lights) !
I just continue to slow to about 55 and pay him no mind .
Then finally I grow tired of worrying if this moron will hit my truck , so
I pull over one lane and he pulls up next to me and just stares at me ,
then he darts off at about 80+ .
When he did this , I see taht he is a Henry County Police officer and I am
like "WTF?" !
This really pissed me off !
First , he was breaking the law by being in the HOV lane .
Second , he was also breaking the law by following too closely , MUCH too
closely .
And finally , what about all this talk about "Road Rage" ? This guy was
either going to have a fit of it , or was about to cause another driver to
have it !
So I get home and just now , I have called the Internal Affairs Division at
the Henry County Police Department .
I explained to the officer what happened and although he tried to give
possible explanations as to why the officer did what he did , he also
admitted that he made an error in judgement.......DUH!
So he has invited me to stop by and lodge a formal complaint to be
investigated by Internal Affairs , which I may or may not do .
I also called the Henry County Commisioner's office and tore him a new one
. They will also look into it .
I also called the office of the Chief of Police of Atlanta City Police
Department and talked their ears off for a while and made my point known .
As soon as I get done with this I also plan on calling the Administrative
offices of the Georgia State Patrol and asking them if a cop from another
jurisdiction can operate above the law , even when he is not in his
jurisdiction .
Oh , did I mention that I wrote down the time , location , and plate number
from the guy ?
I wanna make a point with this creep !
I AM CITIZEN.......HEAR ME ROAR!
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Jack Hilton III
http://webpages.charter.net/hemi/jbd1.html
ICQ#: 32611901
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