Today’s post starts from a Facebook post I made about this news story.
I posted this to Facebook:
And now we shoot deaf people with walking sticks. Proud moment for the son of a cop </sarcasm >
When is this going to end? Like seriously, people. When are police officers going to stop being trigger happy? We aren’t safer because police draw their weapons– we’re in far, far more danger.
A story, just to offer a bit of perspective here. I grew up in Richmond, IN. I live there now. Funny how life comes back around. When I was in high school, almost all the cops knew me because my dad was a cop (long ago, may he rest in peace). So I grew up not realizing how bad it could be to deal with a police officer who either isn’t trained well or doesn’t understand his duties.
One day about eight years ago, I was driving home, in Richmond, down a road I drove on every single day. My van’s alternator went out. I sort of knew that was what it was– lights died, it went sluggish, etc. I was going the speed limit, but my lights were off after dusk. A cop got behind me and lit me up.
Instead of immediately pulling over, I drove another 100 yards or so and turned into a parking lot (I was almost positive that when my van stopped it wasn’t going to start moving again, and there was no shoulder where the cop turned on his lights). I usually drive with a window down in the fall, with my arm out.
The cop pulled his gun and ordered me out of the van with my hands up. He insisted that I’d “thrown the drugs” out the window (there had been no change in the position of my hand, by the way. it was out the window when he started following me and never came back in, never made a throwing motion, etc. And he was less than the legal distance behind me the entire time), and he searched the parking lot and the street while I stood there leaned over the hood of my van. I was dressed for teaching, had my IU faculty windshield hanger and my IU faculty ID right next to the license he rudely pulled from my hand when I offered it on the way out of the vehicle. Calmly I explained to him, as he was shouting, that I’d pulled in to park because I was pretty sure my alternator just blew out and that I hadn’t intentionally turned my lights off. I told him repeatedly I didn’t want him or I to be in danger standing on the shoulder less road. I also told him, as he yelled, that I understood it was well within my rights to drive to the police station before I stopped, which was the direction we were going at the time. I apologized. I assured him I hadn’t thrown anything out of my window, and I apologized for any misunderstanding repeatedly.
It took an hour for him to believe me, and he wrote me a ticket for my lights being out (though he had to have noticed the alternator blowing out– he was behind me as my lights went out) and he left me, with no phone on me, standing in that parking lot with the ticket he wrote. my van, of course, wouldn’t start, because the alternator went out and the starter couldn’t draw power. I had to walk 2 miles home and call a tow truck to go get my vehicle.
Had this been today and not years ago, I imagine there’d be a bullet hole in me because the officer came at me with his weapon drawn. I didn’t realize I was about to be treated like a wanted man because part of my vehicle broke while I was driving.
And that’s the son of a cop, a college professor, driving where the cop saw me leave the college campus, where the cop saw something cause my lights to blink out, in a town where there was, at the time, very little crime. He had to know I’d left campus and my vehicle was in distress from something sudden. I was headed for that lot had he lit me up or not. I didn’t realize that 100 yards would qualify as a high speed chase in his eyes.
We are not safe if police are going to walk into situations with guns drawn. That’s not the world we should live in. Guns should be drawn when there’s danger. Not when a dude with a walking stick is 20 feet away and your partner has a taser in hand.
Some Post-game.
First, my memory is crap. It was actually about 14 years ago. I forgot that I’d lived in Oxford for 4 years after living in Michigan for 5 and have been living in Richmond for a little over one.
But second, I wanted to expand a little talking about my relationship to police and police culture. As I mentioned in the FB post, and have said before, my father was a cop. I grew up around cops, even though my father wasn’t a part of my life. A few officers in particular took on a sort of responsibility for “looking out” for me, so I had good relationships with them. Even though I grew up as a minority in an all white town, I was never that scared of the police.
Sweet pappy did that change when I left the area.
I want to share another story. When I was a senior in High School– so I was 18– my friend and I drove up to Evanston, IL to see They Might be Giants in concert. On the way home, it was pretty late (11:30 or midnight— it’d be like 4 am by the time I got him home), and we got pulled over on 65 south. The officer told me that he pulled me over because my front headlight was out.
So he asked me to get out of the car. And I did. he ran all my info, then he walked me up to the front of the car. My lights were both on. He insisted my right headlight had been out.
I knew my car pretty well. It had hide-away lights, and sometimes one of them rattled loose. I’d been meaning to get it fixed. So, not thinking it would be any big deal, I said “every now and then it jiggles loose for a second” and I slammed the top of the headlight with my hand. It blinked out and back on.
The cop drew his weapon and asked me to step away from my car. Then he lectured me for about half an hour about hitting my car when an officer was present. I didn’t know– and I still don’t think– that was a law, but I know now that it wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
Later on that same trip, I got pulled over going through a small town. I was going 32 MPH in a 35. The cop pulled me over in front of the sign that said 35. He said “do you know how fast you were going?” And I said “32.” He stared at me for like fifteen excruciating seconds and said “don’t let me catch you doing it again.” Then he went back to his car.
On the same stretch of road, years later, I was going 40 in a 55 due to a person in front of me. I waited for the dotted line, then I passed him. In the process of passing him, I got up to 60, then I merged back into my lane and set my cruise at 55. A cop pulled me over.
He asked me how fast I was going, and I said “55.” He told me he clocked me at 60 on the pass. So I told him the truth– my driver’s ed teacher back in the day (in the 1990s) told me that, within reason, you should get out of the passing lane as quickly as possible. As such, for my entire life, I’ve gunned to get to about 10 MPH above what speed I plan to be going so I could easily merge back in without causing anyone any problems.
The cop didn’t believe me and gave me a lecture about lying.
So now I know that you can’t exceed the speed limit if you are passing and someone speeds up. But I also know that men in blue don’t trust men who are red.
At least to this point no police have shot at me.
I hope that trend continues.