Everyone's got an excuse for when the cops show up or pull them over. Sometimes those excuses are just flat-out lies. and sometimes the wildest excuses turn out to be true. Luckily, over on Reddit, cops and some of the people who've had run-ins with cops have decided to share with us the times when the truth turned out to be weirder than lies. Here are the 42 wildest "excuses" told to cops that turned out to be true.
1. High Roller
My dad rolls cigars. He uses this white powder called vegetable gum to seal the wrapper. You mix it with some water and it gets sticky and clear. In powder form, it looks similar to cocaine. My dad had a massive bag on him after a rolling event one night and got pulled over for a traffic violation. They saw the bag of powder laying in a box and asked what it was, and my dad told them. I guess they didn't believe him because they called back up.
They had my dad cuffed while they tested it, and sure enough, it came back as not cocaine. They let him go, but it still cracks me up hearing the story.
2. Oh Baby
I once pulled a woman over for speeding. Lady tells me, "I'm in labor." She wasn't lying, she gave birth on the side of I-94.
3. One Man's Trash…
One night I'm out working, and as I go down the street (fairly nice middle-class area surrounded by some high crime neighborhoods) around midnight I see a dude on a bike, no lights on, pulling a lawnmower behind him on a rope. I immediately flip a 180 and light him up. Recognize the guy as a local homeless dude with some prior burglary/theft arrests. I walk up and just open with "Dude, come on..."
Guy holds his hands out and swears he didn't steal the lawnmower. Claims someone just gave it to him. I ask who, and he doesn't know a name. So I demand he tell me where to find said lawnmower owner. The directions he gave were literally "go that way a bit, then right at a stop sign, and take one of those side streets that way. It's about halfway down a street, at a house that has a pickup and a car in the driveway."
By this point backup had arrived, so I leave him in the presence of backup, and drive off in search of his mythical donor of lawn equipment. I made a decent guess as to the first turn, then flipped a mental coin as to which of the next three side streets he would have gone down. I pick the second of the three streets and start down it. Every other freaking house has a truck and car combo...there must have been a dozen houses that matched the description.
Halfway down, I see an average looking house and go, "ehh, I'll try this one." After all, it's midnight and this is a wild goose chase. Go up, ring the doorbell...middle-aged dude comes to the door. "Hello sir, have you been giving away lawnmowers to random sketchy homeless guys at midnight today?" Yes. As a matter of fact, he had.
Homeowner goes on to complain to me that his wife was upset at his continual inability to get the mower running, and had ordered him with some severity to remove the mower from the house or face the consequences. He pushed it to the curb right as homeless guy rode by, and the latter had asked and received his permission to take it.
I drove back in shock and amazement. Apologized to the homeless guy and sent him on his way. A few months later we ran into each other at a nearby gas station, and he told me it turned out just to need a new spark plug, and that he had gotten it running again, before going on to sell it for $150 to someone. For years after, whenever I would run into him, he would always make sure to remind me of the money he made from selling that "stolen" lawnmower.
4. Just Happy to See You
One of the funnier ones that I remember. We got a call for a kid (he was 18 and a gang member) brandishing a firearm. He had pulled up his shirt pretending to brandish a firearm to intimidate somebody. The person calling only saw a holster. After we got there, he kept telling us it wasn't a gun but a sex toy. We took him down at gunpoint and he was right.
He was walking around with a holstered, black sex toy. Why? Because he could. Haha
5. Just a Medical Condition
Not really an excuse but shocked the spit out of me. I’ve always been told a diabetic with high blood sugar acts the same as someone who is drunk. We get a call for a car all over the road, hitting trash cans on the side of the road and whatnot. We stop the car and get the driver out. He’s slurring his speech like no other, can’t maintain his balance to save his life.
Fails all the sobriety tests but blew zeroes on the breathalyzer. He denied he was drinking and swears up and down he didn’t do any drugs, never mentions the has diabetes. We’re all scratching our heads and then I remember the blood sugar thing. We call medical to our location and sure as spit his blood sugar was 550, and he finally remembers that he hadn’t taken insulin in eight hours.
6. Little Bit of Leakage
My dad is an officer, and he pulled someone over for speeding and running a red light. They said their breast implant burst. He called an ambulance to rush them to the hospital. Turned out it did burst, and it’s actually very dangerous if they leak.
7. The Old Owl Excuse
Someone crashed into a tree on their way to work and most people have an excuse as to why they weren't at fault when they crash. In this particular case, the woman said an owl flew into her car and she swerved off the road into a tree. Anyway, said cop gets into the car to move it for the tow truck and sure enough, an owl flies from the back seat past the officer's face and out the front window.
Surprises the cop (scared the spit out of him I imagine). The owl was included in the diagram of the accident report.
8. Don't Jump to Conclusions
Was doing a tour as military police (not my normal job, but that's a whole other story), and we got called on a domestic disturbance. At the house, there is this huge corn-fed guy about 6'4" and 275, and a petite Asian girl about 4"10" and 95 pounds soaking wet. The whole house was in disarray, and the call had come because of yelling heard by the neighbors.
She was crying and talking in a language that none of us understood and kept gesturing toward her huge husband. He wasn't talking. We wrap him up, take him to the station, and are trying to interview him, but he's not saying much. We intend to charge him with domestic assault. We notice somewhere along the way that he has horrible welts all along the backs of his hands and along his forearms.
It took a lot of prying, but we finally got out of him that his wife would beat him with wire coat hangers when she was mad, and apparently that was pretty often. He was too embarrassed to admit to anybody that he was being abused by his wife who was less than a third of his size. We finally got it straightened out, turned her over to the local police, and barred her from base.
Hopefully the guy got the help he needed.
9. And the Award Goes To
I used to work as a military police officer. I was working at the main gate one night and this guy tried to come on base, but he didn’t have any ID other than a driver's license so I couldn’t let him on. The guy told me that a general said he could come on, but he didn’t have any proof of that, and he didn’t know what the general's name was.
It was also super late at night and he didn’t seem to have any answers that would help us identify who he was. Long story short, the dude ended up being legit and was coming on base to be awarded a navy cross the next day from that general.
10. Bugging Out
I have a family friend who was a cop who told me this story. He pulled a guy over who was speeding profusely. Guy was obviously disheveled. He said he was headed to the hospital because he had a tick on his penis. The cop was confused, but he escorted him there, then waited in the lobby to check on him, and see if he was blowing smoke.
After a while, he asked the desk what was going on, why it took so long to take a tick off his penis. Her reply: “It wasn’t on it. It was in it.”
11. Bad Packaging
I popped a college kid for bad driving and pulled a hundred grams of weed off of him. Also, a one-pound glass pipe shaped like a huge nail. No biggie. Also, find weed under the other college kids in the car. Driver falls on the sword and tells me all of it is his and lets his friends walk free. I like this kid. However, during the search, we find packaged Adderall in the cellophane of a cigarette pack with the top melted closed.
<gosh darn it intensifies>. I ask the kid if he's dealing Adderall at school. I tell him I'm aware of the prescription pill epidemic. He says no and spins a huge yarn about how he only carries a few on him because he's had his orange pill bottle stolen so many times. Kid seems like a pretty good dude. I decided to take the X-Files approach.
Supervisor tells me to pursue charges for dealing…blah blah blah. I tell the kid he has one chance to prove he's telling the truth. He shows me the broken glass under his driver's seat from a vehicle burglary. He's gotta do better. I follow behind him back to his dorm; he lets me in and shows me the busted footlocker he kept them in under his bed.
I dunno. Kinda weak. Supervisors telling me to hurry and drop the axe. I tell him to do better. He calls one of the soccer team assistants up and we meet him in the locker room. Shows me the little wooden locker which has a broken lock. Ehhh. Assistant coach tells me they have replaced the lock on his cabinet three times. Campus security has numerous reports of medicine theft from this kid. Nice. I call supervisor up and tell him I have no grounds to pursue delivery charges.
Poor kid just kept getting his Adderall jacked and being the big dumb meatball he was, he started packaging them like that. Later I ended up talking to his best friend breaking up a house party a couple months later. His friend tells me kid is a stand-up guy who only uses weed due to extreme anxiety (totally believable from my interaction with him) and has never sold anything in his life.
The friend thanked me and told me his buddy spoke well of me. The friend also tells me he had to drive his buddy to the hospital a few hours after I left from a panic attack due to the whole incident. I felt bad for the kid. So now, whenever I see him smoking up in his car in the mall parking lot I just wave.
12. Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover
I'm a defense attorney, and this is a story about one of my clients. The guy got pulled over for impaired driving and charged later with DUI. My boss gets the criminal complaint and the guy shows up for his initial appearance and tells her he hadn't been drinking despite horrifically failing the sobriety test. She's literally sitting next to him and he's obviously wasted again, disappointing but not uncommon for alcoholics.
The deputies arrest him for bail jumping because he drove himself to court that day and while out on bail he's not supposed to drink. He adamantly denies drinking. Blood tests come back. He didn't drink. Dude's diabetic and didn't know it. The cops charged him because sometimes when it goes untreated, diabetes can cause symptoms that look just like intoxication.
Got him some insulin and the charges dismissed.
13. Checking Assumptions
I was doing security at an event one night where alcohol was being served. My partner and I found someone laying in an alley who had fallen and was cut on her forehead. I am ashamed to say that partly because she was Indigenous Canadian, I figured she was just drunk. In the totality of the circumstances with it being at night where alcohol was being served, it just added to the whole idea.
BUT as my partner and I helped her to her feet we found her insulin kit on the ground beside her. She was unable to speak clearly but seemed fixated on it and we helped her walk down the alley to an ambulance. The paramedic also assumed she was just a drunk until we were able to finally convince him that we thought she was in a diabetic emergency. Turned out it was!!!
Like I said, it was a real eye-opener about the inherent racism that sometimes we carry with us that can change how we see people. Yes, in the totality of the situation it wasn't completely unacceptable to expect that she was just drunk, but I do now recognize the racist component of my view of her when I first saw her.
14. Grows on Trees
I am an attorney. I had a client who agreed to cooperate in a criminal matter. He was charged in a drive-by shooting. As part of the cooperation, he had to divulge where his gun came from. He told the prosecutor that he found it in a tree. The prosecutor got angry at the response. He began to lambast my client, when the detective said, "Wait! I had a case where the shooter claimed to have hidden his gun in a tree, but it wasn't there when we went to get it."
He asked my client where the tree was located. Same tree. I was as surprised as the prosecutor that he had told the truth.
15. Taco Break for It
I once got stopped by a cop for eating a taco. I worked at a community college in LA that had a high school right next to it. Well, there were a lot of drugs sold through the fence at the high school, so there was always a cop driving up and down the street between the schools. I couldn't get a parking pass since I just worked at the school, so I always parked on that street.
I hit up Taco Bell for lunch and was sitting in my car eating my double-decker tacos when a cop drove past. Next thing I know, he's flipping a U-turn and heading right for me. He slides to a stop, driver window to driver window, and yells at me, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Stunned I just said, "Eating my lunch." Well, he isn't buying it, and says I'm hiding something. I just hold up my taco and looked so confused. He burst out laughing and pealed out.
Saw him a few times after that and he always waved and had the biggest grin on his face.
16. Evil Twin
I have a very common name and got pulled over for driving across the median. Turns there was a warrant out for me for rape and assault or something. As it turns out, a guy with the exact same name and birthday as me—who was born in the same city as me!—did it, and it took me about 20 minutes of pleading to get the officers to realize I did not match the description.
I deal with this dude every once in a while, as it turns out our socials are off by one digit. If I ever see him, we are going to have a long talk.
17. Ants in his Pants
My first ever real call was for a flasher at the local park, when I got there, and finally found him it was a mentally impaired young man who had his shirt on, but his pants off. I said, "Hey man come here what the hell is going on you know you have to keep your pants on especially at the park." He goes on to tell me he had bad itching down his pants and couldn't take it anymore, so he had to rip his pants off and was running home to get help, I said, "C'mon you couldn't make it home first?"
He said, "No I had ants in my pants." As sure as spit according to more than one witness’s account, he had been sitting in a sandbox playing at the park, and accidentally sat on a nest of red ants that had crawled up his pant legs.
18. Send in the Turtles
My wife's dad was a fire investigator. He was investigating a house that burned down. The homeowner said they sent a turtle with a candle on its back under the house as they were trying to locate a noise. Later my wife's dad found a burnt-up turtle with wax on it.
19. Joe Camel
I had a call one night for some teenagers trespassing on one of the large properties in the more wealthy part of my patrol area. Get there, partner and I found the kids and ask them what they're doing. They said they heard a school rumor there was a camel kept on the property...this is in the Southwestern US. Ain't no camels here.
We tell them to get out of there and they didn't even try to argue. My partner looks at me and goes "You know I kinda want to see if there is a camel..." So, we're wandering around the property with our flashlights when all of sudden I turn and my flashlight reveals an actual, live, untethered camel just hanging out and chilling!
We talked with the property owner, who wanted to press charges on the kids for trespassing but my partner was able to talk him out of it when we started asking if he had the required permits for the camel and if the city knew about it because if he wanted a report they would. Was an interesting night.
20. Bigger Fish
I'm running booking one night; guy gets brought in for possessing a truly stupendous amount of drugs. I'm talking like, two Rubbermaid totes full of shrooms, a huge bag of weed, and enough heroin to overdose half the county. "Well," says he, "I'm a DEA informant and they told me to make the drop so they could be there and raid the crap out of everybody and let me go for helping." Uh huh...Right. Face left, please.
Guy is like, "I'm tellin' you dude, they're gonna be super mad that you country cops messed up their bust!" Whatever, get in the holding cell and shut up. About three hours later three guys show up, DEA agents, they're super upset that our deputies messed up their bust. I go back to the holding cell to let the guy out, and he's just like "They're super upset huh?" Yeah. "Told you so."
21. Is That a Legal Document in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
I had a run-in with a cop that was really funny once. When I was 18, I was on a double date with a friend, and we stepped out of a restaurant to smoke. A cop came up and started harassing us, telling us there had been break-ins into cars in the area. Eventually, he said he needed to pat us down, and he pulled a brown paper bag out of my friend's pocket.
He got a smug look on his face and asked, "So, what's in here, huh?" My friend said, "The Emancipation Proclamation" with a completely straight face. The cop opened the bag, pulled out a small booklet, got embarrassed, and let us go. My friend had been to the Lincoln Museum earlier that day and did actually have a small copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in his pocket.
22. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
I'm a former Park Ranger. First week on the job my field training officer and I pull up and see a couple of kids smoking in their car with the windows down. The city has an ordinance against smoking on park property, but it is too petty to give them a ticket. We approach the car and they are visibly nervous. My field training officer looks through the windows and sees a couple of beer cans in the car. Bingo.
We get them out and start running their info, they are all underage but old enough to smoke cigarettes. My field training officer asks them where the beer came from- the driver says he recycles. He laughs and begins to search the car. I'm finishing up running their info, and these guys are being really respectful. The field training officer finishes searching the cab and goes to open the trunk.
All of a sudden, I hear him bust out laughing. He is laughing so hard he can barely breathe. He waves me over to look at the trunk of the car and it is level with crushed cans and bottles. My field training officer said that he has heard that excuse for 20 years and this is the first time it was true. He walked up, uncuffed the driver and let him go.
23. The Dog Died
Mid-July in like 2008 I pulled over a young kid going 93 in a 55. Approaching the car, his first words before I can even start speaking, "My dog died, he hung himself! I gotta get back before my mom gets home!" What? Anyway, he calls other family members, his aunt, uncle, and two cousins come out to the stop, and between all their sobbing, they verify that the dog had actually hopped over the fence on a leash/runner and couldn't get back over.
Everyone's crying now. They showed me a photo on their phone. Apparently, they found the dog and called the kid at work and he just left. I didn't even bother verifying further than that. Cousin drove the kid's car back so they could take care of the dog and prepare for Mom. Some said that I should have written him up, but losing an animal sucks enough, he knew he messed up, and adding financial burden to him wasn't going to help him or me.
24. Wait Til My Daddy Gets Home!
I'm a former US Coast Guard and actually did law enforcement. For those unfamiliar, the Carolinas in the states and especially Wrightsville Beach, Myrtle Beach, New Topsail, Lockwoods Folly along the North Carolina and South Carolina border are overflowing with drunk and/or stupid boaters during the summers. Especially with the University of North Carolina nearby, drunk college kids on the water everywhere doing reckless stuff.
Boating While Intoxicated (BWI), illegal charters, messing around outside of the channel, cutting bows, speeding, ignoring no-wake zones, and even the odd drug trafficking/illegal firearms trafficking charges. Suffice it to say, combined with hurricane season, we were quite busy from May-Sept. One Friday afternoon our dispatcher gets a call-out on channel 16 (Like 911 for boaters) from a captain calling in a pontoon boat that has flipped and 20 young, intoxicated males in the water.
We arrive on scene with another 47’ from a nearby station and are fishing these drunk idiots from the water. They packed 24 people onboard a 14-person pontoon boat and of course it flipped. As we’re pulling them out, literally ALL of them were drunkenly threatening us with their daddy’s law firm. It was like a bad 90s teen MTV rom-com come to life.
We just rolled our eyes, zip-tied em (didn’t pack enough cuffs and 90% of them were combative/drunk even seeing the pistols on our hips/rifles/shotgun slings). Turns out it was an entire frat of future lawyers studying at Elon whose fathers were all lawyers as well. Still didn’t save them from the local US attorney and reckless operation of a boat, BWI, unlicensed captain, etc. charges.
Still was surreal with dozens of drunk 20-year-old dudes wailing and telling us their daddy would sue us.
25. The Drugs Aren't for You
I was driving with my fiancé and we went through a roadblock where they checked registration and stuff, and we get to the cops and they ask for our registration. I’m sitting in the passenger seat, so I open up the glovebox and right there is a clear, unmarked baggie filled to the brim with catnip. I completely forgot it was there and just froze.
Wide-eyed, I turned to look at the cop shining his light through my open window and he’s frozen too, just staring at the baggie with this look on his face like “Really?” I just started immediately professing “Oh my God, I swear to god this is catnip, you can take it and smell it or test it or whatever like I swear." And at this point, it’s just so ridiculous that I start cracking up, and the cop takes it and reasonably deduces I’m telling the truth, and he starts laughing and calls his partner over and tells her what happened and they both just cackled away for a minute and sent us on our way.
26. Sugar Sugar
During a search of a person I pulled out a bag of a sticky dark substance consistent with the look of heroin. The subject had multiple drug priors and is a known heavy heroin user. He immediately tells me it is burnt sugar and he is mad someone sold it to him. Long story short, when I tested the substance it did not test positive for heroin.
27. Covered in Crystal
This was my favorite story from my teacher. She went to a cousin's wedding in mid-July. The cousin had overestimated how much champagne they would need at the reception and was giving away bottles to anyone who was interested, so my teacher took three and put them in the backseat of her car. Again, this was a hot summer day in July. After saying their goodbyes, my teacher, her husband, and her parents piled into the car and pulled out onto the highway—where two bottles burst open, spraying champagne everywhere and causing quite a ruckus.
Of course, while this was happening, the car was swerving as the driver was also getting bathed in sparkling champagne. So, it came as no surprise that as soon as they collected themselves, they saw the familiar flashing lights of a state trooper and pulled over. According to my teacher, the first thing the cop said was, "I'm not gonna ask if you've been drinking because I can smell it from here." My teacher tried explaining what had happened, but the cop wouldn't hear of it and ordered everyone out of the car.
That's when the cop saw that everyone, both drivers and passengers, were dressed in their finery, but soaked with champagne, and looking quite shaken. A cursory search showed the open bottles, but the cop still insisted on a quick sobriety check just to make sure.
28. Tea Baggie
So, it's the holiday season a few years ago. I work at a coffee shop at the time and go to a co-worker's New Year's ugly sweater party or some stuff. I have a few drinks until 10 PM then switch to water. My one friend gets to talking to me about tea because we work with coffee and tea—gives me a teabag in a plastic baggy. I put it in my pocket.
2 AM rolls around and I leave but I am tired as heck. I want to get home and get to sleep, so I'm blasting music to keep me awake and probably going a little too fast but not drastically so. Anyway, the party lights kick on behind me and I pull over. We go through the questions. Where you coming from? Where you going? You been drinking? Doing anything else?
I blow clean on the breathalyzer. I walk the line fine. Balance on one leg. Then one of the cops pats me down and reaches my pocket.
Him: "Son. What do you have in your pocket?"
Me knowing how ridiculous I'm about to sound: "It's tea, officer."
Him, about as dubious as you can expect: "You expect me to believe you have tea in your pocket."
Me: "My friend gave it to me."
At this point his partner looks to be trying not to laugh at the absurdity of this situation. The cop in front of me looks over his shoulder at his partner in a "You believe this guy?" sort of way then back to me.
Him: "Get it out."
He holds out his hand while I fumble around and withdraw the plastic baggy from my pants pocket, complete with the single serving of tea neatly labeled, and hand it to the suddenly bewildered officer.
Him: "Why the heck do you have tea in your pocket??" he asks.
Me: "I like tea, officer..."
I respond in probably the most matter of fact way possible. His partner finally gives up on restraining his laughter. The other cop gives me the tea back and tells me to go home and sleep. I never could bring myself to try that tea—I still have it in the same bag on my shelf.
29. Shocking
My mom was driving home from work. She was swerving on the road and was eventually pulled over. The cops that pulled her over assumed she was drunk and decided to just dump her on her doorstop since the car was only right down the street from where she got picked up. At the time my brother was only 10, so needless to say, the cops left my mother with a 10-year-old.
Her neighbor happens to see the cops drop her off and drive off. The neighbor just so happened to be a nurse at the local hospital. When she saw how my mother was behaving, she immediately called 911. The same cops came back and made the claim that she was drunk, and they didn't need to be there. It turned out that my mother was going into shock and was rushed to the hospital.
Prior to this, my mother had gone to a chiropractor who had done an acupuncture procedure on her neck that caused damage to her nerves. She actually ended up in a coma for two weeks. When she did come out of the coma, she basically forgot everything. It took three years for her to make a, thankfully, full recovery. She still doesn't remember some things from her past but I'm glad that someone was there for her when this happened.
30. It's a Hot One
I once got pulled over by a firetruck. It was Orlando, in August 1990. It was close to 100 outside. I worked for a computer rental company. We would rent computers to companies in town for trade shows, or for a lot of other situations. The "company van" was a ragged-out Chrysler minivan with 180k miles on it. The A/C didn't work so the windows were down. I was coming back to the office in heavy rush hour traffic. And I found myself in a right turn only lane and couldn't get out in time.
So, I was forced to make the right turn. I hit the gas to speed up and get in front of people making a left turn into my same lane. I had to get all the way over to the left side to make a U-Turn. So, I cut off a firetruck to do it...one of the big squarish fire trucks with the flat front. I cut them off and got in the left turn lane to wait for the green arrow.
I looked out of the window to my left and saw a Dixie Chopper lawnmower mowing the grass on the side of the road maybe 15 feet from me. It was already hot. But this tremendous wave of heat came in through the driver's side window. I thought, "Man, that is one hot lawnmower." The light turned green and I started my U-turn.
Halfway through it, this cloud of (I thought) steam came out of the hood and covered the windshield so I couldn't see. The power steering also failed. So, I fought the car, trying to get back to the gas station at the corner so I could find a payphone (Yes, that's how old I am). But because I couldn't see, I missed the turn and ended up turning into an apartment complex.
About this time, the cloud stopped, and I could see again. Still no power steering. So, I fought the car to do a U-Turn so I could get back to the gas station. At this point, the firetruck I had cut off turned into the apartment complex, full lights, and blocked me in. Two huge firefighters got out of the truck holding fire extinguishers like beer cans. "Excuse me sir, did you know your van was on fire?"
Turns out while I was cutting them off, I had been shooting flames out from under the passenger side of the van. They hit the lights, did a U-Turn, and came back to me. The wave of heat wasn't from the lawnmower. They checked out the van and let me go. The cause turned out to be a damaged power steering line. It sprayed power steering fluid all over the exhaust manifold and caught fire.
31. Many Forms of White Powder
I’m a Deputy (cop but we work the county/unincorporated areas) me and a few sector partners (second-smallest county in the state, fourth-highest population so we have a lot of deputies in a tiny area) were hanging out at a gas station at about 3 AM to get some coffee and a snack, outside chit-chatting waiting for the next call to come in.
Guy pulls up in a pewter colored Oldsmobile with a hubcap missing, hops out of the car and starts pumping gas. One of us noticed he had a gun holster on his right side but couldn’t see a gun because his shirt was over it. We were an open carry state, no big deal, however, the gun was concealed by the shirt so we just stopped to talk with him. Explain to him that he can’t conceal the gun, he said no problem it was a mistake from him getting out of the car, understandable.
Other partner looks in the passenger side of the car and there’s a fist-sized Saran Wrap bag of white powder with multiple $20 bills underneath it sitting on the passenger seat right in plain view. Now to us, a gun, large size bag of white powder, good bit of money underneath: this appears to be drug-related. Start asking the guy like, "Yo what is this crap and why is it just on your seat?" He says, “Oh it’s powdered wall plaster, I just got it from my grandma” (It’s 3 AM, at a gas station).
I mean come on, we’re cops so by all means, we aren’t the smartest people on the planet, but we ain’t stupid. Or so we thought. Turns out the dude is 100% telling the truth. Gun was legal and legally obtained, his only history we could dig up was speeding tickets and a simple affray charge from years ago. Grandma gave him the plaster so he could fix a hole in his wall and he didn’t have cash to buy it himself, so she spotted him some moolah.
Needless to say, he’s got a funny story to tell and I guess now I do too. He was super understanding and even himself said it was hilarious because it absolutely looked like pure cocaine.
32. Breaking and Entering
I forgot my keys at friend's place before going out drinking that night. Get home at 2 AM, no keys. Only one of our windows didn't have ghetto bars so I took the screen out and I start pushing/smacking it up (locks were on the sides only providing friction). As I'm halfway in, I just feel "WUMP!" Got tackled into the house, the officer was still outside, holding onto my ankles.
I look up and just said, "I'm astonished by your response time! I actually live here, let me get up, unlock the door, and give you my ID." So, I did, and he stares at it for a second, then says sorry and sprints off to look for the person they were actually in the area looking for.
33. Define Cat
This excuse turned out to be a lie, but the truth was so crazy I've never forgot it. I'm not a cop, but EMS. Go to a woman who had been attacked by her cat. Her injuries were crazy, COVERED in blood, her scalp is literally shredded, huge lacerations etc. I know cats are known to do some damage, but the story wasn’t making sense, and she was so sketchy about anyone going in her house.
She adamantly refuses to let anyone inside because she thinks they’re going to take away her cat, “He didn’t mean to, he was just excited by the birds." Her cat was a lynx.
34. Picture This
Okay, so I'm going to tell my crazy story as the person on behind the wheel. My uncle was divorcing his terrible wife (he was no saint but definitely on the right side of their divorce). The wife was still on the paperwork to take their two kids out of the school even though my uncle had temporary custody while the courts did their thing. She had previously threatened to take them both and just run away, so I don't know why she was still on the paperwork.
On picture day that year, she showed up to the school and signed both kids out and disappeared. I was not involved in the crazy process of calling the police and tracking the kids down, but I was pulled from school that day because I had my driver's license and could be an extra pair of hands. They manage to find the kids and they were turned over my Grandmother and Mom, but my cousin was DISTRAUGHT that she would be missing picture day.
It was her first time away from her terrible mother and she was finally allowed to be a cheerleader, a dream in her tiny eyes. So, me having my car and nothing else better to do, offered to take her back to the school. My Mom got the school to agree to keep the person there a little longer, but it was going to be by the skin of our teeth that we would make it as this was rural Oklahoma.
We got in the car and I BLASTED down those dirt roads doing approx. 70 in a 35. Not a good decision on my part, but I was an anxiety-ridden 17-year-old dealing with a nasty divorce and kidnapping for the first time in my life. We, of course, get pulled over. I'm freaking out because I can't afford that bad of ticket and all the crap that was coming in that day.
The cop listened to the story, and ignored my barely held in tears, and said he would let us off with a warning because he believed the story. And the only reason he believed the story was that he had just pulled over my uncle going the same speed the opposite direction on the same road, and he gave the exact same story.
35. It's a Sex Thing
Former marechaussee here (look it up, it is a Dutch thing, police but also military). We also had jurisdiction over the American soldiers stationed here. One day we got called over to a possible case of domestic violence. We arrive at the house and the guy opened wearing only underwear. He told us he and his wife were roleplaying.
Of course, we didn't trust this and asked to see his wife. After denying us entry we told him would come back with a warrant. He reluctantly agreed to let us enter. So, we go in and he opened the basement door and inside was the freakiest sex dungeon. I mean chains, whips, things I couldn't identify hanging on the wall.
And in the middle hanging in chains was his butt naked, gagged wife. We asked her but she told everything was okay. Turned out they were really into some kinky stuff. Asked them to keep the screaming part in the basement and to a minimal. We did the whole thing with a straight face but as soon as we were in the car......
36. No Place Like Home
I had a run-in with the cops a few years ago and I wonder exactly what they thought when they first stopped me. I had taken a cab back from a work party and I was pretty drunk. My friend and I had just moved to this new apartment, so I accidentally gave the cab driver the wrong address. I ended up on a block that looked very similar to mine and a building that looked like mine.
There were two doors before getting to my apartment door, which was on the first floor. Like my apartment building, they left the first door unlocked and locked the second door. I kept trying my keys to open it, but I couldn't and was confused. I went outside to look for my car and it wasn't parked there. That's when I realized I was on the wrong block.
I started walking in the direction I thought my apartment was when a cop car pulls up. They ask me what I'm doing, and I tell them, "I'm really drunk and I just want to go home," which was the honest truth. They told me they got a call about someone trying to get into an apartment building. I guess the people in that apartment building woke up and thought I was trying to break in.
They were super suspicious of me at first, but eventually it became clear I was just some drunk idiot and not a burglar. They ran me through to make sure I didn't have warrants or anything and when I checked out, they offered me a ride home. The ride back was hilarious because when we were getting to my apartment, I tried telling them that it was a bit complicated to get to because of all the one-way streets.
The officer driving was like, "Who do you think you're with?" and then turned on the lights and went the wrong way down the street to get me home faster. It honestly felt like I was with the two cops from Superbad.
37. Late Start
I got pulled over for driving to school at 10 AM. The cop wanted to know why I was skipping school. I explained that our little town's girls' basketball team just won State and since the game was so far away, they let us start that day at 10:30 AM. He followed me all the way to the school so he could ask the principal.
38. Gut Feeling
Former cop here. I was behind a vehicle that couldn't stay in the lane, kept swerving, etc. It was one in the morning, and I think, "another drunk idiot on the road." I pull him over and the guy is a straight-up jerk to me. Cursed me out, yelling at me, and I notice his speech is slurred. I get him out of the car and I can smell a fruity smell on his breath. He has to lean against the car for support. I ask him how much he had to drink, and he tells me to screw off.
By this point, I'm ready to bring him in for a DUI, but I just had a feeling something wasn't right. I called EMS to come check him, blood sugar was at 40. Not drunk, just a diabetic. If I would have arrested him, he probably would have died before I finished the paperwork. Go with your gut if something doesn't seem right!
39. Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Destructive
I had a domestic in progress that I responded to on Christmas Day and the excuse for them fighting was, "We're not mad at each other, we're just upset because we wanted to surprise the kids for Christmas, we got some deer, dressed them up, now they're destroying our house." Turns out, there were literally three fully grown white-tailed deer in the house somehow dressed in full bell harnesses like Santa's reindeer.
I had to call the game wardens down who were then able to help me remove the deer from the property without injury to us or them. How they managed to get the deer and dress them up is still a mystery to this day.
40. That Darn Swedish Furniture
Cop here—I got a call for a domestic dispute that sounded very heated, and a lot of banging was heard. I get to scene and I can hear someone yelling and swearing and brawling, it doesn’t sound good at all. The guy answers the door, shirt off and angry, but seems bewildered as to why police had been called. He told me he was building Ikea furniture—sounds like the most BS thing. But, we enter, see the new IKEA furniture half set up and no one else is home. Color me surprised.
Sources: ,
