At the consulting company I work for, we have a 19-year-old guy who works part-time (I’ll call him Joey here, not his real name). He does assorted odd tasks that need doing, e.g., data entry, moving stuff, running errands and so on. He’s very much into hip-hop, records raps with his friends, wears the clothes, etc. He’s also a fairly quiet kid (at least around us), polite, does his thing without too much prompting, and is generally a pleasure to be around.
Yesterday afternoon, he was asked to run an errand into the next town over. When he didn’t come back in a timely fashion, his mom (who also works with us) and my boss began to get a little concerned. Joey finally called in, but with a story that infuriated me when I heard it later in the day.
He was driving his mom’s car - a BMW convertible - when he was stopped by a police officer for not having a license plate on the front of the car (New York requires plates on front and back.) Out of sheer coincidence and possibly bad luck, this same police officer had stopped him three weeks earlier for the same infraction, and she remembered him. Now, before anyone says anything about this: yes, everyone involved recognizes that a second ticket for this infraction, however sucky, was deserved since the plate wasn’t taken care of after the first ticket. However, what followed is a little hard to swallow.
While the officer was waiting for Joey to get out his license, the registration and insurance card, she asked him, “What religion are you?” (Remember, this is Good Friday now.) He calmly asked her, “How does this pertain to my ticket?” at which she took his license etc. with a huff and went back to her patrol car. She came back to tell him that the car came back as uninsured, and that she was impounding the car. (Joey’s mom said they had changed insurance companies about a month before; given how rabid NYS is about maintaining insurance coverage, it’s unlikely that the new company failed to report her new policy, or that the DMV would not have noticed and sent a letter. In any case, the car is definitely properly insured.) So the car was towed back to the police station, and Joey of course was brought along in the patrol car.
Once at the station, Joey asked if he could call his mom to tell her what happened, and to come pick him up. One officer said, “What, you don’t have a cell phone?” (Joey doesn’t, in fact) and then refused to let Joey make the (local) call. Another cop, noticing both the make of the car and Joey’s clothing, suggested it would be fun to “let the dogs rip apart the car to look for drugs.” Several other snide comments were made about his attire, the car and his alleged moral character before he was allowed to leave the station. At that point he found a pay phone at a gas station and was able to call his mom to say what had happened.
To the cops I would say:
WTF is wrong with you people? Is living and hour and a half from NYC a valid excuse for having your heads so far up your asses that you don’t know it’s inappropriate to ask someone about their religion during a traffic stop? That the issue of profiling got a whole heckuva lot of bad press just 30 minutes down the road in New Jersey, and maybe, just maybe, you ought to be a little less blatant in waving your prejudices like a flag? That apparently pretending someone’s car is uninsured so you can tow it, just to hassle someone and collect another $200 for the town, is unbelievably wrong behavior for a LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER?
His parents are furious and intend to complain loudly to anyone who will hear it. I hope they make plenty of waves.
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