Five Oh? Oh, I get it.
on February 15, 2010 at 00:01If you ask the people who actually know me and occasionally hang out with me you’ll find that I am likely to be a somewhat boring individual by many standards. I drive the speed limit, I put trash in it’s proper receptacle, I cross at the corner (cross on green not in between), I have a fanatical avoidance of drinking and driving, and I don’t do drugs (regardless of how much I may joke about it).
Part of this comes from growing up with my grandmother. I have often joked that I grew up in the 1950s. I was pretty much isolated from a lot of ‘bad’ influences. Our farm was pretty far away from anyone else. It wouldn’t have made much more difference if I had lived in town as my hometown would have given Mayberry a run for it’s money.
I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, The Lone Ranger, Batman (yes, the Adam West one) and Superman. I guess since I didn’t have too many other influences except the sanitized, sanctified view of American life presented on television it maybe warped my thought processes a little. I grew up believing America was always the good guys and the good guys always win. I was taught to respect authority and accept that those in power were there to act in our best interests. But above all else I was taught FOLLOW THE RULES.
Then I left the farm.
Since joining the rest of you here in the ‘real world’ I have to say I was initially very disappointed and felt disillusioned. I’m sure many of my readers would just tell me to “get over it” or “grow up” and that “it is what it is” but even after fifteen years off the farm I still get really upset by some of the things I see.
And that brings me to the point of today’s post, the police (Not The Police, I love Sting, especially when he was in Dune). For some reason since day one living in this city in Southeastern Virginia I have felt very anxious when I see the police. Whether they are in traffic with me or at local convenience stores they freak me out. I know I’m not doing anything wrong and there’s no logical reason to fear them, but it’s there. I constantly get the impression that this has to be one of the largest collections of arrogant, gotta-prove-something, tinplated, mini-tyrants to be found in the region. I feel like I am constantly being observed, judged, and determined to be "less-than". It feels to me as if they are constantly looking for something wrong, no matter how minor.
Before anyone starts a flame war ranting about how great the police actually are, let me just say, I know. Each and every day thousands of women and men across the country wake up and put on a badge and proceed to put their lives into harm’s way in order to protect each and every one of us. Basically these men and women risk their lives so that civilization is maintained. I get that. I also get that it is totally wrong to judge all these thousands by the actions of a few arrogant douchés.
The problem is that due to the majority of my contact being with these select few, it is very hard not to start feeling this nervousness around all of them. How can I tell the good ones from the bastiches?
Thinking back over the past three years I think I’ve had a direct interaction with the local police (not counting chance encounters in stores and traffic) let’s say ten times. Of those occasions I would say only in maybe three meetings was I not made to feel as if I was some kind of suspect or needed to ‘stay in my place’. One of those three occasions was when an officer responded to my accident and I was unconscious during the majority of that encounter.
For example; on two separate occasions, in two different parts of town, involving two different officers from the same local police department the exact same incident and conversation took place. I arrived at my shopping destination and parked my car. While the car was still running and my seat belt still on, I retrieved my Blackberry to check Twitter. Our state has a ‘no texting and driving law’ with which I totally agree and comply. But while checking my messages and tweets in my parked car I had an officer knock on my window and explain to me that texting and driving was illegal now. When I explained that I knew this and thanked him for reminding me, both officers asked, “Well how am I supposed to know that you weren’t texting and driving before I got here when I see you sitting here with the car running and you texting on your phone?”
How do you respond to that? Am I supposed to slump my shoulders, keep my eyes directed at the ground and continually call him “sir” while assuring him that “I don’t wants no trouble, sir” or perhaps, “I’m real sorry for having a really nice phone that you probably can't afford and now feel the need to prove you’re still a man by hassling me”. Okay that second one probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
What I’m saying is that I’m very tired of feeling as if I am being accused of something each and every time I speak to a police officer. Now I have a police officer standing at my door on Saturday night interrogating my son for hopping our back fence because the gate was locked. That’s not a problem. My issue was the arrogant, accusatory attitude the officer took with my son while talking to us. My problem is the same cop pulling over my guest ten minutes later for a ‘dim’ tail light and asking him “Why are you in this part of town”.
This last one ticked me off to the point I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper. I’ll give it a few days to get printed, but I fully plan to post the text of my original letter here in the blog.
I apologize for taking up so much of your time with this post, but I’m still pretty P.O.’d about the P.D. and just needed to vent. Thanks for sticking around till the end.
-Tovias
Hey whats up. I saw your site in the comicpress forums, and I originally came over here to say that it was great to see another artist/webcomic creator in the 757 area. Then, I read your post, and I got a little upset reading this. Something similar happened to me while I was in Virginia Beach. I clearly went through a yellow light around the Dam Neck area, and had 2 passengers with me in the car. They all attest that the light was yellow…just turning yellow…and I got pulled over for running a ‘red light’. He said that he was sitting there waiting for someone to do that. I didn’t know it was illegal to run yellow lights…but it should be illegal to call red lights yellow lights because you feel the need to make a traffic stop. So I totally get what you’re saying, and the officer was in the wrong about the texting thing…and more in the wrong about your son jumping the fence. Somewhere along the line, they lost their sense of reality.
Hey, thanks for stopping by! If you’re in the 757 you might be interested in checking out our local Meetup Group for Comic and Cartoon Creators.
Since it was in the Dam Neck area it may have actually been the same Officer Douché I met, as that’s really close to our neighborhood.
I had a lot more to say about the situation, but a site crash and redesign ended up killing the week for updates. I was ticked enough that I wrote a letter to the Pilot (ooh, I’m all kinds of out of control now!).
Again, thanks for checking out the comic, drive safe. (heh).
Distrust the police. Always. You’re talking about a group of people with weapons and carte blanche to do whatever they want. I was in a dinner one night with a friend and frankly we were a bit loud and a bit annoying, and a couple of officers were in the both behind us. When my friend got up to pay the bill I got up after him, grabbed him by the shoulder, then got walluped in the back of the head, falling to the floor. The blood began to pool as someone stomped on my chest. The patrons screamed ‘leave him alone’. First one cop handcuffed my friend, then another handcuffed my and threw me in the back of a police wagon alone. I laid there bleeding, passed out, then awoke briefly upon arriving at the hospital, put in a stretcher and sent to another hospital that had a trauma unit. I spent 5 days there, handcuffed to the bed, with no memory of the event due to head trauma, bleeding of the brain, and concussion. No of the cops would say what really happened. I learned it from a friend after being released from the hospital and police custody charged with assault. I come to find what really happened, I’m charged with assaulting my friend and he assaulting me, banned from entering the dinner, unable to contact anyone that saw the event, and eventually gave up trying to get internal affairs to get off there ass and ask a single person a question about what happened. I was unemployed shortly after that and dealing with the joke that is public defense. I might have been able to do more to fight all that, but I wanted to move and had very little chance anyway. I gave up, took the anger management classes deal they proposed, and moved on with my life. Ideally the officer would be fired and charged with assault. Ideally internal affairs would have interviewed at least 1 person. Ideally the FBI would have done more than just write a report up. We don’t live in an ideal world. Here is my advice. You see a cop, move to the other side of the street, Never let them on your property without a warrant. Never volunteer anything to them, or let them in your door. Demand a lawyer immediately if you are ever arrested for anything. TV Cop shows are the way things should work. My lil story is how they do work quite often. Your paranoia is justified.