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Sould I report this to internal investigations, or just let it drop???

I was driving in rush-hour traffic on a under-construction street in Austin, Texas. The road was narrowed down to one lane. I was especially happy, because I finally got my wife to ok me buying a leupold mark4 scope for my deer-rifle. I had the radio turned up, and was weaving back and fourth inside my lane to the music. Yes I was driving like a donkey, but no i wasn't breaking the law, or driving dangerously (about 10-15 MPH). I pulled into the parking lot at a food place to pickup some food. I just got off work so I untucked my shirt, over my IWB holster. (more comforatble than tucked)
I begin to get out of the car. I hear someone yell and look accross my car through the passengert window to see a man with a glock pointing at me. The man is dressed in plain clothes and is standing next to a plain looking red truck. He pulls out a badge, and I put up my hands. This guy is spitting mad, he yells " your getting it now" and "you had better have a badge for that" and comes accross and disarms me at gunpoint. He asks if I am licensed to carry and i say yes. I give him my CHL. He explains that he originally stopped to "tell me to settle down" but he saw my weapon when i was untucking my shirt.

Evidently this guy was having a tough time in the traffic, and was road raging on me... He explained that he had told me ?? to settle down and had honked ( I guess in the car behind me??) and that I had just ignored him...

He asked if i was going to carry into the restraunt and seemed appauled when i told him I was. No 30.06/ no 51%... He said, But they serve alcohol there...

He say's he is going to report the incident to the Texas conceled handgun licensing department. I did not recieve a ticket a piece of paper or anything... He did give me my gun back. he did give me his "busisness card"

Facts:
This guy was in plain cloths, plain truck. Worked in some drug enforcement section of the police. I had not broken any laws, I did seem to have a moment of failure to conceal, but I was in my car, and did not expect anyone to be staring me down. It was not intentional...
This guy was taking his frustration of the traffic out on me. He was not enforcing any law, he was not protecting anyone from harm etc.
He approached my vehicle and pulled a firearm. I never even touched mine.
This guy was yelling at me the whole time/
This guy kept telling me he would have been right to shoot me etc...
All i said was yes sir, no sir, etc.
I stressed my gun was loaded because he ripped it out of my holster and swept about 20 people in traffic with it.

If this guy would have been a worse guy i would have been dead. I need to be more aware of my surroundings and ensure my weapon stay's 100% concealed.

How was I to know this guy was a cop?? really someone pulls a gun on you like that and a badge is going to identify you?? Luckly i guessed right and he was a cop .... didn't try to shoot, and didn't get shot. A badge doesn't prove your a cop... especially in a split second.

Who is this guy to be pointing a gun at me??????

Seems like this guy didn't know the laws at all. I do not think he worked on the streets.



flame away.

jhutto wrote:Sould I report this to internal investigations, or just let it drop???

Definitely begin the formal complaint process.

Who is this guy to be pointing a gun at me??????

Someone guilty of Deadly Conduct, who has zero understanding of the use-of-force continuum, and darn poor judgement (not to mention an issue with anger control).

APD does not need someone like this on the force. Start the complaint process.

1) From your description, the cop was borderline out of control. I would say he needs more training. There's no way he should have pulled a gun on you as you described.

2) You were breaking the law by failing to conceal. He could have written you for it and you probably would have had your CHL suspended. He wasn't all bad. He let you off easy.

3) What made you think that it was OK to be carrying in an IWB holster in your car with a tucked shirt? The shirt is tucked behind the gun, right? So the gun is visible to anyone who looks inside your car, right?

Your car is not a private place. It has windows that anyone can see through, especially any cop who may approach your car in the course of a traffic incident. Also, beware of trucks or big SUV's. They are taller than your car, making it easy for people inside to see in your car.

4) IWB holsters only provide concealment with an untucked shirt. What is so complicated about that? (BTW, an IWB with an untucked shirt is my normal mode of carry.)

5) When you're in your car with other people around, you might as well be standing on the sidewalk.

6) I would not recommend filing a complaint with APD. You were in fact failing to conceal. And if you admit to it in the course of making the complaint, there is nothing that stops them from bringing charges against you for it. As it is right now, you have learned a cheap lesson. Leave it at that, unless you have a ton of money to burn in a journey through the court system.

7) When I am in my truck, I make sure there are no other cars or people around with a view angle into my truck before I holster, unholster, or stash or retrieve my gun from the glovebox. I've been doing this for many years with ZERO problems. I would recommend that others follow this policy as well, unless they want to have surprise "meet and greets" with cops as you did.

Frankie has a very valid point about the failure to conceal and the inside of a car. I am not sure I would agree with him that it is failure to conceal as a general rule, but since the officer did see it, it can definitely be argued that way. Since the law says to intentionally fail to conceal, you might be able to win it later, but do you want that hassle?

On the other side of the coin, you have a cop who is out of control and probably violated several departmental rules. I am not familiar with APD's internal policy, but most municipal departments have rules saying that a non-uniformed officer in an unmarked car may not make a traffic stop (just for the reason you describe about who is this guy with a gun). If the officer really thinks his honking his horn at you is telling you to settle down and drive straight, he is just plain wrong. How would you know it is not an idiot honking at you because of road rage? It would seem to me to be a cause of further road rage.

His reaction on pulling his gun when he saw yours would be a reasonable reaction IF he were on duty making a traffic stop in uniform. Even walking up to you like this, it might still be a reasonable action. I don't know how the APD will take that part of it.

So, while I think APD needs to know about the officer trying to make a traffic stop, you have to balance it against their interpretation of the failure to conceal. I don't think their IA would file the charge on you, but it is possible.

And thinking about it, the officer might try to claim that he thought you were weaving because you were intoxicated. Most agencies let their officers make that type of stop any time due to the danger of drunks on the road combined with the social pressures to be hard on DWI.

Overall, it might not be a bad idea to make an informal call to the APD IA and let them know the basics and see what their policy on off duty or unmarked car traffic stops is. If they sound interested, you can tell them all of the details. If not, you can decide how in depth you want to go.

Where was the deadly threat for the officer to pull his weapon?

I might have reacted very differently than jhutto did - exiting my car at a VERY high rate of speed and engaging the guy with the gun.

Concealed means to a reasonable person. A LEO coming to you looking you over is not a standard reasonable person. And if the LEO is really irritated and is plainclothes, then he is a definitely an unreasonable person.

I personally agree with the advice given by srothstein. I would also like to point out to frankie that there are tuckable IWB holsters on the market, infact my favorite (read most functional and comfortable) holster is a cheap tuckable IWB that cost about $50 less than my other holsters. If this guy was an officer, and not someone with a CHL badge, or similar, playing cop probably violated his department's procedures. If this guy was not an officer then APD needs to know about it ASAP.

I think you should take this as a learning experience and go from there. The LEO MAY have been out of bounds slightly, but, you were also........

Mark it up as lesson learned and leave it at that.

yes I carry in a tuckable iwb....
yes it was covered by my tucked in shirt... but like I said it ls more comfortable un-tucked..... I just pulled my shirt out... must have gotten a brieflash.... thanks for the input so far.. anyone else??

AEA wrote:I think you should take this as a learning experience and go from there. The LEO MAY have been out of bounds slightly, but, you were also........

I disagree. The officer is the one who needs a lesson. If a non-LEO did this and was prosecuted he would be wearing orange scrubs and flip flops for a long time.

Equal treatment under the law. Did this LEO not swear to uphold the law when he pinned on the badge?????

Anygun

It's just not worth it to mess with someone's career on a single incident.

If you think he was yelling at you for the stop and your gun,......what do you think he might do after he gets a reprimand or worse from his department? Some people hold grudges and I certainly would not want to be on the receiving end of this Guy over getting your feelings hurt on one occasion.

Words were said, nobody got shot, leave it at that.

I say file a complaint. If he saw your firearm briefly when you exited your car, then that is not intentionally failure to conceal. So get his attitude checked quick.

By the accounts given that could have gone from aggravating to deadly in a split second. LEO pulled a gun before identifying himself which is a bad move. What if said CHL thought the plain clothes LEO in an unmarked truck was a BG trying to rob him at first glance and went for his weapon. What if by chance the CHL holder was faster to the trigger than the LEO who do you think they would believe.

You might want to take a brief look around before you do something that could potentially cause some one to see your weapon. That could have make this incident a little less volatile.

For the record weavin side to side in a lane is not a good idea in itself. Someone such as above LEO might think you are drunk or something. Something like this can result from it.

Also for the record I have a tuckable IWB. They are not all designed to be worn under an un-tucked shirt.

Wildscar wrote:By the accounts given that could have gone from aggravating to deadly in a split second. LEO pulled a gun before identifying himself which is a bad move. What if said CHL thought the plain clothes LEO in an unmarked truck was a BG trying to rob him at first glance and went for his weapon. What if by chance the CHL holder was faster to the trigger than the LEO who do you think they would believe.

You might want to take a brief look around before you do something that could potentially cause some one to see your weapon. That could have make this incident a little less volatile.

For the record weavin side to side in a lane is not a good idea in itself. Someone such as above LEO might think you are drunk or something. Something like this can result from it.

Also for the record I have a tuckable IWB. They are not all designed to be worn under an un-tucked shirt.

+1

AEA wrote:It's just not worth it to mess with someone's career on a single incident.

How do you know it is one incident? There could be a bunch on file but I have no way of knowing either way. I file the complaint.

Hell, with the way it went down (as described here) I probably wouldn't let the guy take my gun. I wouldn't think it was a LEO - and things end badly. I'm glad that didn't happen!

At bare minimum, LEO could have called his hotline and got a patrol over there faster than we could, if he had concerns about 1) a guy with a gun, or 2) a possible drunk driver.

But he failed to observe SOP, and rushed out of his truck to "A KNOWN GUNMAN" with no backup. Now how many police depts teach and ENCOURAGE that tactic???? He could have given his sworn statement like everyone else when the uniformed patrol arrived. But No, he wants to be rougher than Rambo. Jumping out of trucks like an APD Commando.

Then, suppose the poster had "MECHANICAL" difficulties with his car and was trying to stare it safely of the road and pulled into the nearest parking lot. Broken/ loose tie rods from dropping in large pot hole from the construction. That explain why he was weaving in the lane at slow speed. How does the plain clothes guy explanation look now??