CHP pulls over Britney Spears' tour bus

[xraodcop]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/02/news/sandiego/12_73_085_1_07.txt

By: North County Times -

CARLSBAD -- Papar***i chasing Britney Spears' tour bus created a hazard on a North County freeway briefly Tuesday, prompting a California Highway Patrol officer to pull the bus over, a sergeant said.

Some 30 to 35 papar***i also stopped when the bus pulled over shortly before 2:40 p.m. on southbound Interstate 5, CHP Sgt. Kirk Van Orsdel said. The photographers crowded around to take pictures, and were so distracting that Officer Eric Flynn had to step inside the bus to talk to the driver.

The officer was told the photographers were driving all around the bus on the freeway trying to get pictures of Spears through tinted windows.


The incident began after the Highway Patrol got several calls from motorists reporting that vehicles were driving recklessly around a custom bus, and Flynn went to check on the report, Van Orsdel said.

Van Orsdel said no citation was issued for the registration issue, and CHP officers gave the tour bus a head start on the papar***i and escorted them to the southern limits of North County to discourage further unsafe driving.

[Contact]

"I was so distracted by all the attention that I had to go inside the bus to possibly meet a celebrity."

Right! I bet he's catching a good ribbing from the other officers now!!

[ateamer]

I would have cited all the photographers for making a nonemergency stop on a freeway.

[Redders]

I would have cited all the photographers for making a nonemergency stop on a freeway.

+1

[Fëanor]

I would have cited all the photographers for making a nonemergency stop on a freeway.

Thank you.

I wasn't there, but it seems to me that the officer spent the traffic stop dealing with the innocent bus driver, rather than dealing with the photographers who were causing the problem.

It's downright STUPID AND IDIOTIC to swerve around on the road in hopes of snapping a single crappy picture of some bald woman. It's also VERY STUPID to crowd around an on-duty cop who doesn't want you there.

There must be something the photographers could have been arrested for. They were in the way too much for the officer to conduct a traffic stop properly. Doesn't that qualify for "obstructing justice" or something similar?

[SgtCHP]

I would have had the officer and responding units to start writiing each of the Papar***i drivers a citation for 225220 CVC - Non-emergency stop on the freeway and each of the pedestrian papr***i for being unlawful pedestrians on the freeway in violation of signs. It has been done before and with great success.

[Fuzz]

I would have had the officer and responding units to start writiing each of the Papar***i drivers a citation for 225220 CVC - Non-emergency stop on the freeway and each of the pedestrian papr***i for being unlawful pedestrians on the freeway in violation of signs. It has been done before and with great success.

I was thinking the same thing myself. The tour bus would have had a great head start while I was holding all of their licenses writing one ticket at a time. The traffic in that area is bad enough without those idiots screwing up traffic and placing everyone in danger so they can make a buck (there was just a DUI TC last night with a vehicle flying into the nearby lagoon at that same spot)

[firestone88]

I would have had the officer and responding units to start writiing each of the Papar***i drivers a citation for 225220 CVC - Non-emergency stop on the freeway and each of the pedestrian papr***i for being unlawful pedestrians on the freeway in violation of signs. It has been done before and with great success.

Excellent idea! Probably would have been a bit of a manpower issue, though.

[SgtCHP]

Excellent idea! Probably would have been a bit of a manpower issue, though.

Not at all: One gathering of papar***i, one Highway Patrol Officer!!!