To interfer, or not to interfer...

[Praetorian]

...that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the minds of...sorry...

Anyway, so here is the story. I was spending a few days at my cousin's girlfriend's apartment (this story happened last night). Basically, it is set up like a hotel, so there is a line of doors about six feet from the parking lot. There are three doors for each apartment--main door, door to room 1, door to room 2. I was in room one, so my wall was the external wall. Anyway, around 2:30 am I hear this yelling in the parking lot. I ignore it for about 20 min. They are literally about 3 feet away from my wall, so I can hear everything and there is no way I can go back to sleep. Then I get up and go outside. I acted like I was going to my car to get something. There was a young lady and a man near the driver's side of a car, and another woman was on the other side of the open door, yelling at the woman. Basically, it went like this:
KEY
Woman on other side of driver's door-- "state trooper" (Also known as JC)
Woman getting into car--Woman
Man next to woman getting into car--Man

"state trooper" : (getting in the face of woman) "I am a state trooper. I can slap handcuffs on you right now!"
Man: "Go back inside, JC."
"state trooper" : "No! I am a state trooper! You don't believe me!" (gets in face of man) "I will show you my badge tomorrow!"
Woman: "We believe you. Okay, you are a state trooper."
"state trooper" : (getting back in face of woman) "No! You don't believe me! I have a breathalizer. I can test you right now! Drunk, sober, whatever, I am still a state trooper!"
*At this point I am returning from my car. I give them a friendly smile and ask them if everything is alright. Woman smiled and said yes. I went to the main door of the apartment and hung out just in case it got nasty*
Man: "Go inside JC! Let me handle this."
"state trooper" : "No. You don't let her leave this parking lot! I mean it! I'll slap the cuffs on her right now. I'll do it."
("state trooper" turns and goes back into apartment which is nextdoor. I go back inside)
All three were obviously intoxicated, and the "state trooper" was kind of ****ing me off because she was acting very confrontational. At one point she asked the other woman if she could use her phone, I guess to call and "confirm" she was a "state trooper".
Not much later I hear them arguing again. I contemplate going out there and calming the situation down, but I didn't. 10 minutes later I just hear a car peel out of the parking lot.

Okay, now to the question portion.
1) Should I have said something. Possibly something to the effect of if any of them leave if anything other than a taxi, I will call the police myself.
2) Should I have called the police for that. It wasn't a violent confrontation, but it had the potential if this drunk "state trooper" decided to exercise whatever power she thought she had--perhaps with her weapon.
3) If you do believe I should have interferred, what do you think I should have said?
4) If the police had been called, what would they have done with the "state trooper"?


This "state trooper" was pretty much the inflammatory member of the gang. If she didn't want that lady leaving, she should have just called the cops instead of getting in her face and making the situation worse. The other lady seemed to be the calmer of the two, and the man was just hanging back, pretty quiet. Like I said, she got in both the man and the woman's faces and even asked to use the lady's cell phone. They acted like they all knew each other, and the way the "drunk lady" was talking to the "state trooper" seemed more like the way the "state trooper" should have been talking--calm and non-confrontational.

[Duke]

I'd call just because I was ****ed they interfered with my sleep. State Trooper or not, the girl sounds like a bozo.

[Creeker]

I'd have called the administrative line about a noise complaint involving a domestic and let the arriving on-duties quell the situation.

You have the right to enjoy your tranquility in the middle of the night when normal people should be sleeping and not drunk on a power trip.

Blue line brotherhood ends when you are an Arse in my book. Let the on-duties figure out what to do about it. She was making a mockery of the rest of us.

Your ruse of going to your car was fairly transparent, btw. There's nothing wrong with transparent, but don't play coy about it later.

[Praetorian]

I'd have called the administrative line about a noise complaint involving a domestic and let the arriving on-duties quell the situation.

You have the right to enjoy your tranquility in the middle of the night when normal people should be sleeping and not drunk on a power trip.

Blue line brotherhood ends when you are an Arse in my book. Let the on-duties figure out what to do about it. She was making a mockery of the rest of us.

Your ruse of going to your car was fairly transparent, btw. There's nothing wrong with transparent, but don't play coy about it later.

Alright, thanks.
I didn't really care if it was transparent, because I hung around outside my door to make sure they didn't come to blows or anything. I didn't live there, so I wasn't just going to just start telling them to shut up or anything.

[bigcop97]

I would have just called the "real" police. You dont have to be up at night having to listen to people arguing and being idiots.

[PhilipCal]

To interfer, or not to.

No citizen is required to endure unneccessary noise or other B.S. in a motel room or other location he is lawfully occupying. It makes no difference whether or not the principal "noise maker" was a State Trooper. Best thing would have been to notify the local law enforcement agency on their administrative line, and reported a disturbance at your location. BTW, this can be an anonymous call. If an off-duty trooper was involved, and if it were my agency, I would not want to be that Trooper.

[nacorbier]

(Self Deleted)

Damn, wrong sub-forum.

[cst.sb]

I'm just disappointed there was a man in the story!!!

Honestly, you should have just made the call. It sounds like someone was going to drive off drunk and that the trooper was trying to do the right thing by preventing the other intoxicated person from driving home.

The yelling and threatening to handcuff the person sounds a bit much. Being out drunk in the middle of the night is not the time to be yelling to the world that you are a cop.