Date

Saturday night I was driving home from a friend's house around 11 PM. I get off I-71 at SR18 like usual and then cut in to a neighborhood that leads me around to Smith Road so I can bypass all the stoplights on 18. A few seconds later I see headlights gaining on me rapidly which are clearly a Crown Victoria, and as I come to a stop and the car behind comes up to me, I can see the 800-GRAB-DUI plate up front indicating it's a police car. I turn on to Smith and the car continues to follow me at a very close distance down a fairly steep hill that I have to ride my brakes on to stay at 25 MPH. Obviously no one ever does 25 MPH down that hill unless they have a cop riding their ass waiting for them to speed. (by the way, if I was to have followed as closely behind that cop as he did behind me I'd have a ticket for tailgating. why does he get a free pass?)

At the bottom of the hill there's a stop light, I continued on straight and the officer behind me turned off back towards route 18. About that time I get a call from a friend of mine who had seen the cop pull in behind me. Apparently he had flipped his lights on and cut across three lanes to follow me, so my friend thought I had been pulled over. I had made a bit of an aggressive turn in to the neighborhood and it was late on a Saturday night, so at the time I just figured they were out on DUI patrol and had left once it was clear I wasn't weaving (or even buzzed, I hadn't drank a drop that day).

I keep going down Smith, then turn down 57 towards my apartment. As I pull away from a four-way stop, I see the same Medina PD unit that had been following me (I made note of the number) pull up to the other side of the intersection and then pull in behind me again. Approaching my street, I see a Medina Township unit sitting in the street with his rear lights on. Coming around the corner, there are three other units including Brunswick PD, Montville PD, and another Medina PD car in the parking lot of one of the other apartment buildings on my street. The car that was once again following me pulled in behind the Township unit in the street and fired up his lights as well. There is also a mid-90s Cadillac in the middle of it all with some younger males standing around it.

At this point I'm of course interested. Rarely do you see five units on scene when nothing of interest has happened.

Today I fire up the Medina City PD Public Information Log and pull up the information for the weekend:

Incident #: 10-004590

Nature of Incident: Traffic Violation

Offense Reported: Traffic-Moving Violation

Time Reported: 23:20:10

Time Occurred Between: 23:20:10 02/20/10 - 23:20:10 02/20/10

Responsible Officer: Lynn S

Complainant:

Incident Address:
Springbrook; 300 Blk
Medina, OH 44256

Narrative:
No plate light

Five units from four agencies, two of which are out of their jurisdiction, for a license plate light? Really?