Experience with Travis County/Austin LEO's

[xbrotherx]

Has anyone with a CHL in Travis County/Austin area had any experience with Law Enforcement Officers? Just wondering what their take on CHL holders is. The few officers I have met have been great but I haven't had to bring to their attention my CHL.

I am just curious what to expect if I ever get a traffic ticket or, God forbid, I ever have to pull a firearm on a bad guy.

[Kalrog]

Just people that I know socially. I haven't been pulled over or had any other interaction with any Travis County LEOs in nearly 15 years (pulled over for speeding in Travis County when I was 17).

[Turfspanker]

Case by case but the vast majority are cool with it.
If they are concerned, a rookie, or just plain cautious they may call for a backup before approaching you. Nothing to take personally. Why would Austin be any different than any other large city?

[NcongruNt]

I have had only positive experiences with the local LEOs.

I was pulled over once by DPS at 11th and Guadalupe. Upon presenting my CHL, I was asked "do you have your gun with you" to which I responded "yes ma'am" and that was all that was mentioned of it. At the end of the stop, I was given a warning and thanked for my courtesy.

I have also interacted with 2 police officers where I was asked to present ID. This was in response to my calling them - once for a suspicious person outside my workplace and once reporting a physical altercation between 2 people at my apartment complex. Their questioning was the same both times... it's as if they didn't expect me to actually be carrying. It went like this:

"you don't have your gun with you, do you?"
"yes, I do."
"just keep your hands away from it"
"sure"

No question of the location of my gun, just the odd statement assuming that I didn't carry. Beyond that, both interactions were professional.

I also had an interaction with a forensics officer when my van was broken into (this was a little over a year ago, about the time I applied for my CHL). I had my guns in my van in lock boxes and advised her that they were there and where they were. She seemed unbothered and didn't seem to give it a second thought.

[78641]

I know a couple socially and they are big fans of the CHL.

[frankie_the_yankee]

I was stopped once by Austin PD. I was carrying on a FL permit that still had my RI address on it. (I had moved to TX from RI a month or so before.) I declared that I was carrying even though I knew it wouldn't come up on the cop's screen.

He was skeptical at first as to whether a FL permit was valid in TX for someone who was a TX resident. And the RI address on the permit was another wild card. The interesting thing was that he asked me if the FL permit was good in TX.

I told him (truthfully) that I had checked with DPS before moving to TX and that they informed me that:

1) TX honored FL permits.

2) The law was "silent" as to whether this applied only to FL residents or to any holder of a FL permit.

3) That with the law having no exception for non-resident FL permits, DPS operated on the assumption that all FL permits were honored.

At that point, he said, "Well, I was just saying that you ought to check up on this, and apparently you have. So we're OK here."

He was polite and professional the whole stop.

Another time, I called APD to report my truck having been broken into while parked in a restaurant parking lot. At some point the responding officer asked to see my ID. I showed him my DL and CHL and declared I was carrying. He said something like, "Aw, that's fine." And that was that.

So both of my Travis County CHL experiences have been positive.

[pt145ss]

I've been involved in two traffic stops and one collision. The first traffic stop I was on a motorcycle and on my way home from the gym. I was not armed at the time. I was pulled over by a Travis County Officer because he “thought� my registration was missing (he was looking in the wrong place). I pulled off the main road onto a small side street, dismounted the bike, took my wallet out and placed my back pack (unzipped and slightly opened) on the seat the bike. Even though I was not armed at the time I did show him my CHL. He asked were it was and I explained that I was unarmed. He went back to his car, ran my license and stuff, and of course it was clean. When he came back to the bike he began talking small talk but I could see that he was trying to pear into my slightly opened bag. I don’t know if he truly believed that I was not armed. I did offer to let him look in the bag if it made him more comfortable but he declined the offer. After that he seemed to calm down a bit and continued with the stop. He determined he was wrong about the registration tag and left without giving me a ticket.

My second traffic stop I was going 75 in a 60 on I-35. I was pulled over by APD. By the time the officer reached my passenger side window I already had my License and CHL out. Before he even got through the typical question “Do you know how fast you were going?� I handed him the licenses and he stopped mid-sentence and asked were it was and what I was carrying. I told him and he simply responded, “I’m going to check these out (referring to the DL and CHL) and if everything checks out you will be on your way.� He did exactly that, two minutes later he returned to my truck, handed me my licenses, told me to slow down a bit and I was on my way, He did not check my insurance or anything…no warning ticket…nothing. The entire stop took about 5 minutes.

The collision…I was on my motorcycle and had stopped at the store to get something to drink. While paying for my items, I looked up to see a van back over the motorcycle in the parking lot. I went out there picked up the bike and tried to exchange insurance info. At this point I learned that the driver did not have a DL or insurance (at least not on him). I immediately call the police (APD). There just so happened to be an APD officer in the store that I was just in at the time drinking coffee who responded to the call. When he asked for my DL and I also produced CHL (and yes I was armed this time). He did not even take the CHL from my hand, and simply said, “I don’t need that.� He did not ask if I was armed or anything and nothing was said about it the rest of the time he was there.

[xbrotherx]

Thanks for all the quick responses. being from East Texas (Tyler), the Austin culture has taken a bit to get used to. I have not had a traffic stop here so i wasn't sure how the LEO's would react to a CHL carrier. I have had some social interaction at home owners's assoc. meetings and Commander Forums and they were great. In Tyler they responded favorably.

[Kalrog]

Thanks for all the quick responses. being from East Texas (Tyler), the Austin culture has taken a bit to get used to.

Welcome to the area! I've been here since I was 7, so this is most certainly home. You need any pointers about things? Just PM. What part of town do you live in (if you don't mind me asking)?

[xbrotherx]

South Austin. My family really likes it here. Plus I am near the Salt Lick :) I am in software development so there is not much of that in East Texas and Austin seems to keep a hold on it. So I apologize for being one of the thousands of computer geeks that have invaded your hometown. But it is a great place to live.

[Kalrog]

DBA here. Lots of us computer geeks.

Sorry, I don't know south Austin all that much - I figure anything south of the Arboretum is a different city and I don't go there much.

[CodeJockey]

...Plus I am near the Salt Lick :) I am in software development...

The Salt Lick is awesome!!!!!

What kind of software do you write? I'm primarily a C# developer, although in Fort Worth.

[xbrotherx]

Well I am not as "hardcore" of a programmer as you. I am one of those new-fangled Rich Internet Application developers. I started in Flash about 8 years ago and in turn moved into primarily doing Actionscript development with a PHP/MySQL/UNIX scripting backend and now moving more into using Flex as my development framework (which is still a fancy way of making Flash apps).

I would like to familiarize myself with more traditional languages as C#, Java, etc. to teach myself better best-practices. So I might have mis-used the term "software" development. More of a web application developer.

[CodeJockey]

It's all still software. I don't think you misused that term at all. Nice to meet you.

[Kalrog]

Nah, you are still software. Heck, my last job we were doing some pretty impressive apps with Flex. I do some LAMP stuff but all my web pages seem to come out black text on white background for some reason - but the DB interface part ROCKS.

Hey - how do I call a stored procedure in php? Passing variables and everything?