What has been
your worst experience
with the law?
I don’t like to work negative. I try my best to avoid “worst” posts. I’m all about the positives and maybe someday in the future I’ll do one about really positive experiences with law enforcement, but now isn’t the time for that. As you know, yesterday afternoon the second in a serious of shocking non-indictments occurred when it was announced that a grand jury had decided that Staten Island Officer Daniel Pantaleo would not go to trial for the death of Eric Garner, despite the fact that the father of six’s death had been ruled a homicide by the coroner and his murder had been captured on video, showing–without any doubt–that Mr. Garner pleaded for his life as Officer Pantaleo kept the asthmatic man in an illegal choke hold.
To any reasonable observer it’s as open and shut as a case gets and–as we learned last week when a distressing similar scenario played out in Ferguson, Missouri–the grand jury system is such that it’s pretty much impossible for a prosecutor to NOT get an indictment unless they make a very specific effort to do so. It would appear that in both these cases the prosecutors actually did the work of the defence and made every effort to exonerate the officers under scrutiny, even though that is the exact opposite of their job.
So, it’s pretty easy to understand why so many people are very, very, very upset right now. While the Mike Brown case was one with multiple narratives that contradicted each other, the Eric Garner is one that allows for no ambiguity. It’s there on video for all of us to see. The only way to misinterpret it and choose to see Officer Pantaleo as anything but a violent aggressor is if you are so twisted by your own fear (and bigotry) that you are incapable of accepting any act of violence perpetrated by a police officer as unjust.
But sadly there are many, many, many people like this out there. People who are celebrating the grand jury’s decision in this matter as a victory for a system they innately understand exists to prop up a status quo without which they would be lost. The truth is that these people cannot be convinced that they are on the wrong side of this issue. They are too invested in what is to ever seriously consider what should be. They don’t want a fair system, because the current one gives them the advantage.
Still, it helps to counteract their narrative with as many stories of injustice as we can dish out and that’s what this post is for. Tell us about your worst experiences with the law. Let’s make this personal.
Speaking personally, this is where my privilege strikes in. I’ve never been looked at twice by a police officer. I’ve never received a ticket. The only times I’ve ever even talked to a person in uniform was when I worked at a 24-hour cheque-cashing store and needed them to collect the drunk people who had passed out on our floor (which happened quite a lot).
Many of these incidents have blurred together in my memory, but I’ll never forget the one time two officers came in to pick up a man who was so drunk I was worried he might choke to death on his own vomit. What struck me about the encounter wasn’t that it was the only one that involved two female officers, but that they both approached the man like he was a threat–even though he literally couldn’t even stand up by himself.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with an officer being defensive to protect themselves from potential harm, but watching the one officer who was taking charge, I couldn’t help but notice a certain self-satisfaction in the way she yelled at the man who was far more likely to throw up on her than throw a fist. I had seen examples of other officers who treated these drunks with dignity and respect, so I could appreciate the unnecessary anger and disgust with which this officer approached this man.
And the truth is I don’t know her story. She could have just come from a similar encounter with a man who did attempt to assault her or maybe something like that happened a week earlier and she still felt the rage the incident had inspired. But the fact is that this doesn’t excuse her behaviour. If we gave everyone a pass to be unnecessarily hostile and violent because of past incidents, there would be almost no one in prison right now.
The second worst incident was when a police dispatcher literally said, “What do you want us to do about it?” to me when I called after a man demolished our lobby, because I refused to cash his cheque after he ignored my request to stop harassing a woman who clearly did not want to talk to him. It sucked and made me feel helpless, but I could see his point. since I didn’t have the man’s name or any way for them to locate him. Even so, when the people who we want to turn to in these situations admit there’s nothing they can do, it’s the total opposite of comforting.
So that’s me. I’ve been incredibly lucky in this regard. And I know why. I’ve never been stopped for walking with my hands in my pockets. I’ve never been stopped period. I probably never will. Doesn’t quite seem fair to me.
Have you?
Let’s talk about it.
Several years ago, I was stopped by a female police officer who’d run a check on my tags. The tags on the back of my car were inches below a “men’s/father’s rights bumper sticker. The system showed that I had a truck I was working on had not gone through emissions testing. Accordingly, my license was suspended. I was arrested and although I advised the officer that I’m highly claustrophobic, after being searched by the female officer which included her checking my junk, I was cuffed and placed in the police car. I was/am a big guy and if you’ve… Read more »
I was living in Bermuda, 7 months pregnant and a very careful driver who kept within 5 km of the speed limit. One day as I headed to the airport in a stream of traffic going about 40km042 (speed limit was 35) a police man on a motorbike pulled me over after a rastafarian passed all of us at full speed, helmet on top of his hair which was piled up under the helmet and therefore it wasnt fastened. The black police officer gave ME a ticket for speeding and when I mentioned that I was in a stream of… Read more »
“in both these cases the prosecutors actually did the work of the defence and made every effort to exonerate the officers under scrutiny, even though that is the exact opposite of their job.”
I know this is a common misconception, but a prosecutors job is to serve the cause of justice not get convictions. Usually, getting a conviction does serve the cause of justice, but sometimes it doesn’t like in the Duke rape case.
When I was 16 I attended a political rally in the city. I got involved in a verbal dispute with an opposing protester. He was an older, white male, somewhere in his thirties. He shoved me when I had bested him verbally. He then spit in my face. There was a large crowd at this point, and they surrounded us quickly, and at my defense. This guy was a good five inches taller than me, and an adult. The police came from behind me and very forcefully arrested me. The adult male that shoved and spit on me was not… Read more »
I basically have no bad experiences with police or judges because I’m an attractive, educated blonde white woman and I hate to be an asshole but that’s 100% true. I wish I could say that wasn’t true, but a few months ago Aja (if you don’t know her, she’s Black) and I had near-identical experiences when we both pulled off the freeway (separately, in separate cities) and one of us was bothered, ticketed, and threatened and the other one of us was not. Basically everything about Aja and I is the same except the notable feature of our race, so… Read more »
@ Joanna Schroeder I had an interesting interaction with police about 30 years ago. There was a car full of us guys. I can’t remember how many of us there were. We sometimes would exceed the car’s capacity. I was with Hispanic friends so we were “brown”. We were pulled over for nothing. The police asked for ID and when we produced our IDs from a local elite Jesuit high school, they let us go because we were “good Catholic boys”. I’m sure all they saw was a car full of young, brown, males and assumed we were trouble. Funny… Read more »
The worst experience I had personally, was two days after I’d turned 18. I’d had a hard day and my girlfriend at the time and I drove to a beach near her house and stared at the water. The park closed at 10pm. At 10:02 lights suddenly flared up behind us. He started raging on us about “doing that shit at home” (i.e. sex, which…we weren’t dong – we were just sitting there in our separate seats with all our clothes on…) The car was my grandfather’s so I didn’t know where the insurance or registration was. I found a… Read more »
I was riding in a car with someone (Caucasian) in suburban northern New Jersey….he started to make a left turn….an oncoming red sports car collided with his car….the man (African-American) driving the red sports car was in shock and moaning: “Why did you turn into the lane then? Didn’t you see me coming? I don’t have car insurance…!” We all pulled over to the side…a cop (Caucasian) arrived at the scene and looked into our car and politely asked me if I was okay and then he got our stories….afterwards, my car companion told me that the cop said to… Read more »
Great article, Allan. Two weeks ago I had a very unfortunate run in with the law. I was out late, on my way home from a night of drinking. I wasn’t staggering around or passed out or vomiting, just a few drinks with friends. Along the way I was accosted by a group of thugs. They beat me up and robbed me and left me bleeding and naked. A short while later an officer approached me. I thought he was there to help me. Instead he arrested me. I spent the night in jail and now have an indecent exposure… Read more »