Are you smarter than a Fort Worth Texas police officer?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

In the below picture, do you see a socket wrench... or a crack pipe?



If you answered Socket Wrench, congratulations - you are smarter than a Fort Worth police officer.

[drm604]

1. Context?

I assume there's a news story about a Fort Worth police officer arresting someone for possession of a socket wrench which the officer mistook for a crack pipe. Hopefully no one was injured. Do you have a link?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. A friend was pulled over,

The above and several other tools on the passenger seat was probable cause to tear their car apart.

[drm604]

9. When you say "tear apart"

do you mean actually damage the car? Cut the upholstery and such? Can he sue them for damage to the car?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. No, just rummage

[drm604]

18. If any common object that could conceivably be used as a pipe is considered to be probable cause

then we have a problem as a society. This kind of nonsense can easily be used for selective harassment.

I carry a small toolkit in my trunk that quite naturally contains a socket wrench. A couple of months ago, I had to change a turn signal bulb. I had removed the bulb and had some tools in the open on the front passenger seat as I drove to the store to get a replacement bulb.

I used the proper hand signals to make up for the missing bulb, but I imagine somebody in my situation being pulled over for a dead bulb and having a socket wrench on the front seat could end up having to go through a vehicle search or worse. In the future I guess I'll leave the tools in the trunk, but I shouldn't have to.

How long before they can stop your car, xray you, and stick their hand down your pants?

[immoderate]

2. It could be both.

I can make a pipe out of anything.

Sorry, officer, I was just leaving.:yoiks:

--imm

[Uben]

8. Okay, make one out of a sliced dill pickle...

...you said anything!

[immoderate]

21. Once you slice it...

the job is done!

--imm

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. That doesn't look like any socket wrench I've ever seen...

And I have 3 1/4" drive, 3 3/8" drive, and 3 1/2" drive ratchets outside in my rollaway.

It looks like there is a socket on the wrench already, but there's a socket laying next to the wrench also. Is there a reason for that?

On the right side, it looks like the shaft has a ball detent on it, but the shaft also looks round, not square like one you'd slip a socket onto.

Maybe if I held it in my hand I could say definitively that it was a socket wrench (ratchet to most of us), but this picture is very misleading on a number of fronts.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. the other socket is just propping it up so you can see the inside of the first socket

[Suich]

11. Since you're posting, I assume you made it through the night!

How's your weather today, cherokeeprogressive?

:shrug:

[cherokeeprogressive]

15. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as forecast. The rain never turned to snow and the winds didn't blow as

bad as the local forecasters said. Snow started this morning. It snowed like mad for 4-5 hours. At times it was white-out conditions.

Every little noise after about 3 a.m. had me out of bed turning on outside lights to make sure no trees were losing their balance and tilting toward the house.

More on tap this weekend, and more on tap next week.

Thanks for asking!

[Suich]

We've had that stupid Pineapple Express here before.

You've got my sympathy!

Good luck and have a Merry Christmas!



:)

[Sinistrous]

16. Try to imagine a right angle adapter for working in tight spaces.

[realisticphish]

4. eh

at first glance, assuming it didn't have a socket in it, I don't know. After holding it, though, I would know what it is

[Dogmudgeon]

5. You can't fool me, Sobchak!

It's a crack pipe cunningly disguised to look like a socket wrench.

In addition, it can be used by cute starlets with washed-up country/western singer fathers to smoke the instantly deadly hallucinodelic drug, Saliva Divingboardia.

As my Uncle Zeke once said, after reading the Tibetan Book of the Very Sick: "Them Fort Worth cops shore are smart fellers! They can see a crime a-comin' from a mile away. Further'n that if it's bein' perpetuated by a purty young lassie."

--d!

[TexasObserver]

10. Apparently the only tool this guy recognizes is his reflection in the mirror.

[sylvi]

13. It doesn't look much like a socket wrench

except for the socket itself. The handle looks odd.

I've got a pipe that looks like an automobile cigarette lighter and a stash can that looks like a can of Desenex foot spray. I can see how a cop might be suspicious. After twisting the socket and hearing it ratchet though, I would know.

[krispos42]

14. Looks like a flashlight to me n/t

[Corey_Baker08]

17. If There Was Brillo In It Or Burnt Marks It Is Most Definitely a Crack Pipe

Yet if it showed no signs of burn marks or residue or brillo or a push rod found with it, it could simply be a weird looking socket wrench.
Yet I have seen first hand an old friend of my fathers smoke crack rocks out of a socket wrench before, yet if there is no residue or anything to connect it to being a crack pipe, or no drugs or any other drug paraphenelia was found with it, I suspect the case will not stand in court, yet if it is a crack pipe trust me they will test it and they will find out...

I wish your friend the best of luck though and if it truly doesn't have anything to do with crack cocaine I believe it will be dropped and perhaps an apology from the arresting officer is in order, which usually won't happen.

If it was what the police suspected it was, I would say the best thing to do is get a lawyer even if its a court appointed lawyer and plead not guilty to the charge because with the lack of evidence the prosecution has they will be more than likely to offer a nice plea bargain usually meaning a couple of days in jail at the most and a couple years of probation.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. He wasn't arrested,

No apology, but after rummaging for about half an hour they let him go.

[rasputin1952]

19. I've never seen a ratchet of that design...

however, after 3 seconds after picking it up, I'd know exactly what it was, regardless of design.

I was pulled over once years ago for a cracked windshield, the trooper said he smelled "something sweet" and my car was then "examined". After he and his back-up buddies found nothing, I asked them if they would replace the items they took out of the car, (inexplicably, they had removed the battery of all things in their search for anything that might be illegal). The rear seat was on the ground, as well as the groceries I had purchased, they did a fine job looking through the produce I had bought. The answer was a resounding "no", they were not obliged to replace anything they had removed in their search. (For the record, I already knew this, but figured I'd be a PITA anyway).

All of this cost me 2 hours of my time, and when I initially brought up getting a warrant, and asking about probable cause, (this is what prompted the call for back up), and when they were ready to leave w/o even giving me a ticket for the broken windshield, I mentioned that in 2 hours messing with me, 4 troopers were not in their cruisers and statistically, 4 drivers that would not pass a breathalyzer had passed by on the main road they pulled me over on, and those 4 people posed a far higher risk to motorists than I did, one of them stated, "Who are you, Clarence Darrow?"...that made my day.

caveat: I am not a lawyer, but I'm no pushover either.

Just another little quip. A man and his wife were pulled over in GA years ago, for the apparent "crime" of driving while black. He produced the documents requested, and when asked to get out of the car, he asked for probable cause, this prompted a call for back up and the individual was arrested for "obstruction of an investigation". At the police station, a Sgt made a routine background check for warrants and criminal activity. As soon as the information on the driver came up on the screen, the Sgt called the chief over to the computer...turns out that the "suspect/accused" was a federal appellate judge, and had been on the bench for over 15 years. He was released immediately. He had done everything legally, never once mentioning his status, and observed the entire process; when asked later by the news what he thought of how things were handled, he was moot on most of it, but did say that the officers were polite and did their jobs; but he did have questions about why he was arrested and would forward suggestions to the the state as to try and make sure others would not be subjected to a police officer's whims.

[HopeHoops]

20. Good luck smoking ANYTHING out of that. I had my car searched once because there were film canister

I told the officer they were for holding coins for the toll booth and showed them to him - masking tape on the outside marking them 5, 10, 25. He opened them, saw the coins, gave them back and still wanted to search the car because "people put dope in those things". It was 3 a.m., in the middle of nowhere, and in the fog (which is why I got pulled over - I had trouble telling where the entrance to the ramp was in the fog so he figured I was drunk (wasn't).

So he searched the car for a while (checked the ashtray first, like I'd be dumb enough to put pot in there). He didn't find anything and sent me on my way. The really funny part about it is that a friend had just given me a bud of some REALLY good weed. I didn't have any before heading home, but it WAS in the car. It was in a sticky note pad folded over and at the bottom of an empty fast food coffee cup with tissues stuffed in the top. The entire passenger side floor was covered in trash (mostly used tissues and fast food detritus) so I guess he didn't want to rummage around in that shit. Joke's on him!

[Jim__]

22. What makes you think the Fort Worth police officer wasn't smart?

He wanted to search the car. By claiming that the wrench was a crack pipe, he got to search the car. The scary part of this is that I would expect today's courts to uphold the search.

[47of74]

24. I was going to say sideways lightsaber.