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02-10-2008, 07:22 PM
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<b>Kid tries to pull over cop</b>
It was monumentally stupid. You'll get no argument there.
Was it deserving of two felony charges? That depends on where you're sitting.
It was shortly after midnight Jan. 20 when an off-duty Mercer County Sheriff's deputy and his wife pulled onto the Milan Beltway from Airport Road in Moline. Suddenly, flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror.
But something wasn't right. The deputy did not pull over. He called 911.
A female officer from the Milan Police Department happened to be nearby and responded. She pulled over the car with the flashing lights and found 17-year-old David Leib behind the wheel.
"He had the strobes and the red and blue lights, which are representative of the colors of an emergency vehicle," Milan Police Chief Mark Beckwith said. "Probably anybody else would have pulled over, thinking it was an emergency vehicle.
"It's an odd case, and we're fortunate the individual he attempted to stop was an off-duty police officer."
And what did Leib say when he was arrested?
"He just made the comment that it was a stupid idea," the chief said.
Still not arguing.
Now the teenager faces a felony charge of impersonating a police officer and another for having red/white/oscillating/
flashing lights in use in his personal vehicle. That's pretty hefty.
There are a couple of ways of looking at this thing. One is from the perspective of the victims. Beckwith said the officer was especially shook up when his wife said that, if she had been alone, she would have pulled over.
If it had been my mother or one of my sisters on that particularly dark stretch of road, just after midnight, being pulled over by a non-cop, I would be enormously unhappy.
And then there's the perspective of a parent of a 17-year-old kid who made a mistake.
Leib had no weapons in the car. He had no badge -- real or fake. He was wearing street clothes.
It can be either terribly frightening to consider his motives, or it can be merely exasperating. Surely it is possible the young man was simply going to keep on going, maybe laughing to himself for getting over on somebody.
"To go to the extreme of having those lights mounted in your car ... that makes it more disturbing," Beckwith said. "Maybe the kid was just thinking, `I want to be a law enforcement officer, and I can't wait.'
"The thing is, an incident like this might preclude his eligibility. It's unfortunate."
It most certainly is unfortunate.
Nobody knows what Leib was planning to do when the car in front of him actually pulled over. I would imagine his parents have nudged it out of him by now.
Since he's an adult in Illinois, his case will be handled in adult court. And it was, after all, an adult-sized mistake. It was not a childhood prank.
But how much should it cost a teenager with nothing in his past to suggest he's trouble?
Tough call, isn't it?
Maybe regret will account for something.<ul><li><a href="http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/02/05/opinion/columnists/barb_ickes/doc47a553cb52bfd851230389.txt">http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/02/05/opinion/columnists/barb_ickes/doc47a553cb52bfd851230389.txt</a></li></ul>
It was monumentally stupid. You'll get no argument there.
Was it deserving of two felony charges? That depends on where you're sitting.
It was shortly after midnight Jan. 20 when an off-duty Mercer County Sheriff's deputy and his wife pulled onto the Milan Beltway from Airport Road in Moline. Suddenly, flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror.
But something wasn't right. The deputy did not pull over. He called 911.
A female officer from the Milan Police Department happened to be nearby and responded. She pulled over the car with the flashing lights and found 17-year-old David Leib behind the wheel.
"He had the strobes and the red and blue lights, which are representative of the colors of an emergency vehicle," Milan Police Chief Mark Beckwith said. "Probably anybody else would have pulled over, thinking it was an emergency vehicle.
"It's an odd case, and we're fortunate the individual he attempted to stop was an off-duty police officer."
And what did Leib say when he was arrested?
"He just made the comment that it was a stupid idea," the chief said.
Still not arguing.
Now the teenager faces a felony charge of impersonating a police officer and another for having red/white/oscillating/
flashing lights in use in his personal vehicle. That's pretty hefty.
There are a couple of ways of looking at this thing. One is from the perspective of the victims. Beckwith said the officer was especially shook up when his wife said that, if she had been alone, she would have pulled over.
If it had been my mother or one of my sisters on that particularly dark stretch of road, just after midnight, being pulled over by a non-cop, I would be enormously unhappy.
And then there's the perspective of a parent of a 17-year-old kid who made a mistake.
Leib had no weapons in the car. He had no badge -- real or fake. He was wearing street clothes.
It can be either terribly frightening to consider his motives, or it can be merely exasperating. Surely it is possible the young man was simply going to keep on going, maybe laughing to himself for getting over on somebody.
"To go to the extreme of having those lights mounted in your car ... that makes it more disturbing," Beckwith said. "Maybe the kid was just thinking, `I want to be a law enforcement officer, and I can't wait.'
"The thing is, an incident like this might preclude his eligibility. It's unfortunate."
It most certainly is unfortunate.
Nobody knows what Leib was planning to do when the car in front of him actually pulled over. I would imagine his parents have nudged it out of him by now.
Since he's an adult in Illinois, his case will be handled in adult court. And it was, after all, an adult-sized mistake. It was not a childhood prank.
But how much should it cost a teenager with nothing in his past to suggest he's trouble?
Tough call, isn't it?
Maybe regret will account for something.<ul><li><a href="http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/02/05/opinion/columnists/barb_ickes/doc47a553cb52bfd851230389.txt">http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/02/05/opinion/columnists/barb_ickes/doc47a553cb52bfd851230389.txt</a></li></ul>
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