A Lost Cause? Woes with the Wanaque Police...

If you have read my introduction/progress thread, you saw that I had a run-in with the Wanaque, NJ police driving home from New Hampshire to Georgia upon purchasing a 1986 Turbo-Coupe. In short, due to the fact that my insurance company didn't fall through and the Polices' failure nor interest to understand that Georgia allots seven days for a vehicle to be registered and tagged, they impounded it. What is worse is that they had the audacity to take the original California Blue plates that where inside the trunk. The reason the police knew about them was because my father, who was with me, said we had them and that we could put them on the vehicle as that may be better than nothing. Upon hearing this, they decided to take them away as they are "illegal to own."

I recently contacted the Wanaque Police and they told me that the tags were sent to the main DMV office in California. Upon contacting them, they sent this "When license plates are returned to the California DMV, they are destroyed/recycled and are not kept, maintained, or stored. Unfortunately, we will be unable to assist you with your effort to retrieve the license plates you mentioned in your correspondence." I then asked if whether or not I could have legally obtained the tags in the first place and they said "In California, the license plates remain on the vehicle when the ownership changes or when a vehicle is sold to a new owner." So, as you can see, there was merit to them being included with the vehicle.

This is extremely frustrating because it meant a lot to have those tags; the Wanaque Police took them without looking into whether or not they were "illegal." I feel as if the Wanaque Police owe me for taking them. Thoughts? I'm not sure how to pursue this... Thank-you for taking the time to read!

1. The police were wrong

2. Police are clueless to what other states require, they always operate under their own protocols and assume everyone agrees with them

2. You will never get them to admit they screwed you over. Especially to someone from outside their jurisdiction

(I am not a police hater, I was one for a short time)

Unfortunately, I doubt you're going to get anything at all out of the Wanaque police. :banghead:

What Brian said......