dahmerszombies: In the same position I'd also think they were making shit up and abusing their powers. An important part of policing is discretion. Two guys plainly sitting there, minding their own business causing no-one any trouble, and not making a break for it the minute they see you cruise by? Might it not be more appropriate to just move them on, and keep an eye out whilst further patrolling in case they do actually start some trouble? Innocent until proven guilty and all that?
Rather than clocking their accents as not being local and fabricating some nonsense to extort a bit of cash out of them to pay for tomorrow night's beers?
$35 may not be much to some people, but I'd be pissed off at having that taken off me apropos of nothing. If it's 35$AUS, I could fill up my bike's petrol tank for that. If 35$US, I could have a (cheap-ish) night out instead of sitting at home.
Were there signs up saying about this, so ignorant visitors and tourists would know that the beach was effectively under a curfew (i.e. no unauthorised persons between certain night-time hours - the badge authorises you, and there's probably a complex, vetted, lengthy and expensive process for getting one) and so wouldn't dare wander onto it - or in fact, wander a short way onto a bit of decking suspended above it?
Googling for it I do find some links talking about such things (was this Jersey/Greenwich area by any chance?), but the top few links feature racehorses and name badges for weddings, and I must say in 29 years on this earth so far it's something I've never ever come across before. Wandering around a strange town, maybe on the way back to a hotel after a couple of drinks, I'd have been caught just the same.
((I don't have much truck with supposed guardians of the peace who get drunk off the power it grants them, by the way... I've had it out at traffic lights with coppers who have overtaken me on a 2-lane road, clearly speeding as I was already doing limit+1, but also clearly not on the way to an emergency because they haven't fired up the blues & twos and run the lights ... and played a merry game of "how long are they going to quietly follow me before pulling me over" when I clocked them quietly tailing me as I made my way - legally and smoothly, on empty roads - home from a night shift and decided to keep circling the same block over and over for the lulz... Though I must say, it's bouncers that are the worst; I've known and worked with some diamond-class door staff, but others are little more than scum in a suit that can't get any other job and take out their frustration on the clientele, occasionally picking off a seemingly lone but otherwise harmless punter in the middle of a club, sticking them in a (dangerous, excruciatingly painful, damaging to tendons and technically illegal) half nelson with no warning and depositing them outside the front door without friends, phone, coat or keys, at 11pm in the middle of february. Yeah, that was me... Just because someone's got a uniform and a badge, and can *usually* be relied on to be your buddy and help you out if your own intentions are pure, you should NEVER assume that this is ALWAYS the case. There are enough corrupt police forces/etc in the world.))
