Jacksonville, FL.........

I didn't want to hijack another thread, and I certainly don't want to make light of the shooting, but I gotta tell this.

On TV, they showed a beautiful aerial or satellite photo of the drawbridge over the St. John River in downtown Jacksonville. It brought back memories. Therein lies a story.

When I was going to school at NAS Jax, one Saturday afternoon a buddy and I were driving around, with him driving his car with a suspended license. We just started across the bridge when we met a night cop from Orange Park who knew my buddy and knew his license was suspended. We saw his brake lights come on. By the time the cop pulled us over on the other side of the bridge, I was driving. We'd swapped drivers while crossing the bridge at 40 mph.

The cop was OK, though. When he walked up to the car and saw me behind the wheel, he grinned, said, "Nice trick", and walked back to his car.

I never did figure out why that cop put up with us guys like he did. Many times he chose to look the other way when he could have locked us up. One time he followed me home to be sure I made it OK when even I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd have thrown me in the drunk tank.

He probably remembered when he was young, and you reminded him of himself

He had plenty of contact with Sailors and as long as they were not too far outside the lines, he let it go. Probably was a Veteran himself and was "paying his respect" for your service. gobble BTW thank you for serving Goose.

I was based out of Mayport. Seems like the side walks rolled up at six. Mayport was out in the country. Bet it is not that way any more.

I think cops can tell who is really trouble and who is not, they have their hands full with the real ones.

Two aircraft carriers I was on, the USS Lake Champlain and USS Saratoga operated out of Mayport.

I never spent much time on the base, though. Being in the Marine Corps, as soon as we pulled into port, we'd board a plane to our home base at MCAS, Cherry Point, NC. Then fly back down to Mayport in time to get outa town again.

That is the difference of a cop wanting to do his job and still be a good cop and the gun ho cop who has to get In your face bark orders at you like your in boot camp and then latter he is parked In the fire lane of a store getting his wife's list of stuff she want him to bring home. Or like the cop who parks in a handicap place blocking 3 parking places to boot because he answer a call to help a handicapped person. A good cop know when a person is trying to get by but not going out of his way to do a crime but a bad cop which I see way to often doe not care if he obeys the laws or not yet has the job to inforce the laws he breaks. This is a very sore subject to me since I have had many cops break laws that effected me in bad ways

I was on the Saratoga 1968-1972

I did a two week reserve cruise on a tin can out of Mayport in June '59, never lost anything there. Spent my regular four years on the west coast, never lost anything there either.

there shouldn't be any cops under the age of 40.

Times have changed since then.

Used to hear a lot of stories like your's, have even experienced the same myself.

But cops are under more pressure these days, no more forgiveness of DUI, or doing a burn out, or any of the other crazy things we used to do...

Trying to hold people to a higher standard I guess, but money is also a big factor.

Think how much money is generated from making an arrest. Crime fighting is a huge for profit business now!