Fresno PD almost crashes into me, threatens to give me ticket

I love the police. No seriously, they do a great community service for us here and I love them with all my heart and are truly heroes. It just seems that I always run into the bad apples, I guess. Just a few minutes ago, as I was returning home from the AM/PM on First & Tulare, I was traveling to my home on northbound First St. near Olive when a Fresno PD cruiser veered right into my lane, sans turn signal no less, and almost caused a collision with me.  I honked as he came really close to hitting me. I then decided to get his number off the back of the car as I felt that his actions were not proper and felt that I needed to report this to someone. Now this isn’t the first time this has happened to me where PD cars almost run into me or others cars around me while not having their sirens or lights on so I felt the need to report this guy driving dumb in a Fresno PD car. So I followed behind him as he made a right turn onto eastbound Olive Ave. He noticed me following him as I was trying to get a good look at the reflective numbers that marked the back of the car and he proceeded to slow down. And as did I and we both did so to the point where we were traveling less than 5 mph in the road. Luckily, there was no traffic around us whatsoever. At that point, the officer made an illegal* U-turn from the eastbound lane followed by another U-turn and got behind me at which point I had already memorized the number. I kept driving and eventually pulled over a bit to the side and he pulled up next to me on the left lane and rolled his window down. Here’s the conversation as I remember it:

Officer: Why are you following me?

Me: Well you cut me off pretty bad back there and I would like to report your actions to whomever needs to know about this because I feel like you were putting the public at risk with your driving. Do you have a business card with your information?

Office: No, actually I’m all out.

Me: So can I get your name because I think what you did was wrong.

Officer: (angrily) Okay, how about you pull over and I give you my name on a ticket for that modified exhaust.

Me: Aight.

So we pull over completely to the side (that whole conversation took place in the traffic lanes which now that I think about it, was probably not too safe) and he puts his spotlight on me. His partner stayed in the car and the driver came up to my window and asked me for me license to which I gladly obliged.

Officer: So this is your name? Roque?

Me: Yep. Awesome you pronounced it right.

He gave me the meanest look as if I were mocking him. Sorry but I express glee whenever I meet someone who knows how to properly pronounce my name, even if he’s trying to give me a ticket.

Officer: I have a cousin named Roque.

Me: Cool. Oh and just to let you know, I’ve received a few tickets for my exhaust in the past and it’s not modified as the judge has ruled in my favor and is perfectly okay the way it is now.

Officer: So you don’t have any mods to the manifold or anything?

Me: Nope. It’s all good, you’re welcome to check under the hood.

Officer: It’s okay.

Me: So yeah, I just feel like I’ve encountered a few close calls with PD driving erratically around here and I never did anything and I felt what you did back there was wrong. You didn’t use your turn signal, you didn’t have your lights & siren on so I wanted to get your info to report it.

Officer: Well you know it’s perfectly legal to not use your turn signal if there are no cars around you.

Me: Really? I didn’t know that.

Officer: It’s true.  I just didn’t see you. You think if I had seen you I wouldn’t have used my signals?

Me: I don’t know. I just thought it was wrong what you did and felt that something needed to be done so yeah, can I have your name?

The officer gave me his name and I wrote it down along with the number of his car. He then gave me back my license, and walked back to his car and that was that: he went on fighting crime & I went home and wrote this blog post. Now I don’t usually hound police when I see stuff like this happen and I probably wouldn’t have felt the need to blog about it if it weren’t for the fact that he tried to flip it on me with the exhaust angle and give me a ticket. I was literally in shock when he said that line about giving me his name on a ticket. *sigh* I guess I should be used to this kind of stuff but it still shocks me that this kind of stuff goes down from time to time. Lame. Am I in the wrong here? Should I not report him? Am I just being uptight? Please chime in on this & let me know what you guys think.

*Actually, I may be wrong here on the legality of that maneuver but I do know that in 1998, as I was traveling to turn in my final project in college, I did the exact maneuver when I got a flat tire and was driving to the gas station I had just passed when a police officer puled me over and gave me a ticket, flat tire and all. I was late to class and my final project was marked down significantly because of it.