Quote:
Originally Posted by pnewton
If police abuse their authority, do not complain on them because that too involves going to the police.
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Indeed.
It would seem best to avoid the situation altogether.
There was a time when it was felt that a police officer was a friend that could help.
I can remember as a child being taught that I could approach the police were I in some kind of trouble.
It was drilled into my head during the early 80's that I should keep an eye out for the police officer and RUN to them were I to see someone suspicious approaching me.
And as I got older I discovered that the police were not the friends that I had been taught they were. That were I to approach the police with a problem, I was likely to be ticketed, arrested, or otherwise harrassed for making their life that much more complicated.
These people that I have been taught were there to help suddenly started becoming the same people that were harrassing me on a routine basis.
As a teenager, I spent more time on the side of the road taking sobriety tests then I care to remember. I was pulled over about twice a week.
I never did fail these tests, I never drank. I was a boring teenager.
I also spent time with an officers gun in my mouth.
Apparently this officer had been trying to pull me over for 500 yards down the road.
He never turned on his lights or siren, he just followed me for a distance, waited for me to pull into a gas station, then tackled me and shoved his gun in my face.
My mother was especially horrified with that. I had been following her, and I was tackled next to her car.
She attacked the officer with a purse full of soup cans.
Nothing came of it. I suppose the officer was more embarrassed with the incident then anything else.
I however felt otherwise.
I also spent a great deal of time working third shift at a local McDonalds and listening to the off-duty officer that was moonlighting as security tell us all about the various 'privelages' his badge affords him.
Perhaps youthful stupidity on his part, but he seemd to last for a great deal of time on the force before youthful stupidity weeded him out of the ranks.
It decades later now, and I still get pulled over for no apparent reason.
It is a running joke in my family. All I need do is glance at a police car and the car will pursue and pull me over. I have a near perfect driving record. No ticket in 20 years running.
My wife didn't believe it at first, but she has seen many police cars simply turn around and pursue us when I am driving. No reason that she can tell. We are not speeding, we are not swerving, we are not doing anything to attract attention to ourselves at all.
I am a middle aged white male with short hair, no piercings or tattoos driving a white minivan filled with children.
And somehow we still end up pulled over regularly while daddy gets another quiz.
My children are watching this now.
And it is humiliating.
I have no answers when they ask why I was pulled over.
There never have been answers.
"Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?"
"No officer"
"You almost hit the mailboxes on that road a mile back."
And after shuffling paperwork, I am let go with no ticket or anything else.
And then the hushed voice from the back seat..."Dad, we were never on that road."
"I know son. He is just trying to do his job. He must have mistaken us for another white minivan. His job is stressful enough, we do not need to add to it."
We both know there were no other cars on the road.
I wouldn't worry so much about what I as the parent would be teaching these children.
I would worry about the lesson they are learning from the steady harrassment we continue to receive.
As I have said before.
I would suggest anger placed at me for not teaching my children that the police are their friends is better placed with those that soil their badge.
Re: Under Asset Forfeiture Law, Wisconsin Cops Confiscate Families' Bail Money
duly deposited.
Nooo!! I didn't mean it!
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