What is your worst experience with the police?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Inspired by Why I hate cops…

I’ve never been subject to abuse, harassment, or intimidation by the police. The worst thing that comes to mind was when I was sitting in the basement watching TV with my geriatric pug Lucy. Unknown to me at the time, one of my next door neighbor’s dogs was hit by a car and crawled back home, seriously injured. Neighbor saw what had happened, got his shotgun, and did the right (IMO) thing. This is a rural neighborhood with big yards and long driveways. I didn’t hear a thing. Someone else did, and called the police reporting a gunshot.

Meanwhile, I decided to take Lucy outside. I carried her into the front yard and while she was sniffing around a police car pulled into my driveway with its lights on. That’s kind of weird, so I walked over to see what was going on. It was a chilly night so I was wearing a fleece and had my hands in my pockets. As I approach the car the officer leaps out…

“Hands out of your pockets!”

“Hands in the air!”

“Turn around!”

“Hands on your head!”

I’m not into any freeman of the land crap or anything so I complied, and I got frisked. In my front yard. Taking my geriatric pug Lucy out for a pee. I was absolutely furious. My wife and the neighbors who saw the whole thing came over laughing and explained to the officer that he had the wrong driveway. Before I could say anything my wife saw my face and sent me in the house. For some reason I complied and left without saying anything.

In retrospect I decided it is bad to approach an officer with your hands in your pockets.

Epilogue: A couple of years later I was on the deck with my 2 year old son when a state police officer came in the gate with his weapon drawn and told me to get inside. He was approaching the same neighbor’s house. It turns out the neighbor wanted to kill himself but instead of attempting anything sat around threatening to attempt suicide with stepkids in the house. Local police, sheriff deputies, and state police put a perimeter around the place.

Moral of the story: if an officer tells you to get off your own deck, do it. Sort it out later.

Thankfully neighbor moved.

2

A stern talking-to for riding my bike recklessly on main street. I was about 9.

3

Something I witnessed, but didn’t happen to me. My friend and I were walking in Baltimore and these two black guys were across the street, one of them was really high or drunk, just falling down. Two Baltimore cops pulled up, said something I couldn’t hear to the guys and just started to beat the shit out of them. Neither victim resisted in any way, unless you count covering your head with your arms while someone beats you with a stick resistance.

4

Never had a bad one, and had several very good ones.

5

People should post their economic/social status, gender and race during the worst events, I’m sure the results will vary dramatically based on that. Middle class white women and black men from the ghetto are not the same to the police. The less valuable you are to society and the more of a generic threat you seem, the worse the cops are.

I don’t want to post mine, but it was over a decade ago and I’m still terrified to contact the police even if all I do is witness a crime.

6

The worst, it was pretty mild.
A few years ago I found myself suddenly stopping directly behind a cycle cop who was ticketing someone in the right lane on my way home from work. I couldn’t go into the left lane because there was too much traffic. And it was coming up pretty fast behind me too. He motioned to me to stay put and approached my window and told me I was changing lanes without signaling. I said I hadn’t even taken my foot off the break. He said he saw me turn the wheel. I said my tires are not even on the line. He started the ticket anyway. I asked can I pull up to the crossover, which was only about 50 feet forward. He said no. I said but this is a terribly dangerous place to be parked in 5:00 traffic. I was cringing at all the cars rushing up in the rear view mirror. He said something about how he was an instructor and knew what he was doing. I kind of yelled at him, I don’t care who you are this is a dangerous place to pull people over! Well, needless to say that didn’t go over well. I got the ticket.
But… I went to court and fought it and won. What an asshole! :smiley:

7

When I call them up and say “Hey, y’all still Protect and Serve down there?”, and they say “Naw, our legal affairs department has pretty much put the kabosh on things like that. Unless we can combine with a good media photo op. Besides, we don’t have time, got quotas on our ticket books.”

8

My worst (and only one I can think of at the moment) as an adult. Rant here

Basically, a cop gives me shit for daring to drink a beer with lunch.
As a teenager though, Jesus! I don’t know what it is with cops and teenagers but fuck, I have lots of stories of cops being a dick to me or my friends as teenagers. And as an adult, I’ve witnessed cops being dicks to teenagers.

Seriously, cops should be made to go through some sort of sensitivity training when it comes to dealing with teenagers.

9

When I was on leave from the Navy I was pulled over on Christmas and the cop said he smelled weed in my car and I told him I had no weed or had not smoked any either. He kept saying I was lying and I told him he could search my car. He searched my car for like 20 minutes while making me stand with my hands on my car in freezing weather. When he was finally finished he made a snide comment on why I was only a E-3. I told him I was only in for a few years and he told me he would call my ship to get my leave revoked. Even the other cop who came to the scene told him to take it easy. I never understood why that happened. I was coming from my parents house to visit a friend of mine. I even told him that my father was a cop and then he made a snide comment about how my father wasn’t a real cop because he was a secretary of state cop instead of a city cop.

10

I was at a festival digging through my bag when suddenly I was accosted by a group of cops. One of them had briefly flashed a light into my bag and claimed he saw pot. Which was bullshit because there wasn’t any pot in there.

For over 10 minutes, I refused to let them search my bag, and eventually talked my way out of it. I know you’re not supposed to say anything at all, but somehow I convinced them to let me go. In hindsight, I wasn’t actually being detained, so I should have just left. But it’s not a normal situation: your heart rate spikes, you can’t think clearly. This is why the ACLU/rights organizations drill it into your head to always ask if you’re being detained, because it’s so easy to forget.

That has been my only personal experience with cops, and the number of complete lies they made up in those 10 minutes has completely eroded any trust I previously had.

11

Years ago, an ex-bf cut my phone lines and crashed through my front door because he said he heard me having sex. Not true, I was home alone and sound asleep. He tried to choke me and it was only by playing dead and getting him to relax his grip that I was able to get away from him. I jumped out the window and walked to a friends house to call the police.

The fucking bitch of a cop did nothing. I understand that by the time they got to the scene he was gone but she did nothing. That was bad enough but when she asked what happened I told her he was an ex, that he thought I was cheating on him and tried to kill me. I had bruises around my neck.
Her response was an implication that I was a whore and that there is
‘no smoke without a fire’.

I thought, you stupid fucking bitch, he is an EX, I was NOT cheating on him, I was home alone, sound asleep. Even I hadn’t been it wasn’t his, hers or anybody’s business who I had in my bed. I could have 50 men lined up outside my door and as long as I wasn’t charging them I’m not breaking any laws.

I wanted to smack the bitch.

12

Being married to one the last 30 years.

13

I called them when I had my purse ripped off and stolen by a man on a bike while taking a walk before going to work.

Cop: If you live there and work here, why were you on that street.
Me: Look, I am the victim here. You have no reason to ask me why I am on any street. I have a perfect legal right to take a walk before going to work on any street in this country. So just stop asking those questions.

14

I got a ticket once for running a stop sign (I was guilty, no question), but the cop apologized and said he would normally have given me a warning but his boss wanted to have strict enforcement there.

The only other bad experience involved drinking with my friend Bobby, a Boston cop.

15

Late 50s, reasonably white and pudgy, and bearded but reasonably neat/clean.

I got pulled over at one of our usual sobriety check-points. I was stock cold sober (my last drink had been a few weeks before that) but I had a minor stroke ages ago and sometimes when I’m tired my enunciation goes all to Hell. Cop asks me to step out of the vehicle and I did ---- and without thinking pulled the keys and locked the door behind me. He then went nuclear demanding I unlock the car and why did I lock the car and who did I think I was and I got smug and said “I’m an American with certain rights, several of which have already been bent by this routine stop. You want to bend any others, arrest me and call my lawyer. Otherwise give me something to blow into and let me get on my way.” There was some more posturing including waving of cuffs and threats that weren’t even close to veiled but in the end I passed “0.00” and was told to leave.

Old ones from my youth when I looked like the motorcycle riding hippy I was --------- I got written up for going 27 in a 25 zone and was detained because I fit the description of a bank robber. He was 6’2" to 6’4, thin, blond and clean shaven. I was 5’11, fat, black hair down to my shoulder blades and a beard I could tuck behind my belt buckle when I was riding.

16

Back in college my bank would send your checks back to you with the monthly statement. Well, I got a check that I didn’t write, obviously not my signature on it. So I took it to the bank to discuss it. They said that I had to go to the police and fill out a report. The cops gave me a ticket for filing a false report and lying to an officer.

Ended up fighting it and it was all thrown out, but still. Fuckers.

17

I haven’t personally had any bad experiences with police, maybe them tailgating me would be about the worst. Haven’t had that happen in a long time.

On a more general level I do see things like police driving over the speed limit while talking on a cell phone, and DUI or other checkpoints, both of which I disagree with.

18

I reported a break-in and when the cop “routinely” checked my license, it came up that I had an unpaid 7-year-old speeding ticket and that there was a warrant out for my arrest. Now I am certain I paid the ticket in question and my license was never suspended, but I was handcuffed and carted to the police station and shaken down for $115 cash.
The officer was friendly and apologetic, but claimed his superior insisted on this. I’ve made no effort to get my money back, although I do have proof of my former payment. It really isn’t worth the risk.

19

Not really the worst, but the most recent of that ilk:

Last Sunday night, June 29 2014:

I’ve gotten to the Speonk rail station about 20 minutes before my train is due. I’d done a 20 mile walk to get there and at my age (55) it’s good to keep stretching for a little while instead of sitting down and letting your muscles stiffen up, so I was walking up & down the platform and then around the perimeter of the parking lot during my wait.

Police car rolls in and hits me with the spotlight from 25 feet away. “Yes, may I help you?”, I ask.
“May YOU help ME?” single police officer replies, sounding incredulous. Beckons me over. “What are you doing here?”

“Hi, I’m waiting for my train”
“You live around here?”
“No… I’ve been out for a walk and this was the end of my walk”.

He seems suspicious of this statement. I have in my pocket my itinerary—you know, turn left on Gordon Street, then you’ll pass Lichen, Montgomery, Old North Highway, then take a right on Piedmont Ave, that sort of thing. So I take it out and offer it to him. He unfolds it and reads it. “You walk all this way?” I confirm it.

He finds this behavior questionable and a potential matter of concern.
“Well, I’ve reached the point in life where I really need the exercise”.
He seems dubious.

“Got some ID?”
I give him my driver’s license.

“You live at this address?” He indicates the address on the license. I confirm it.

“Do you see a psychiatrist, ever been in a mental hospital, take any psychiatric medication?”
Pisses me off to have to lie. “No… you don’t have to be crazy to go for long walks.”
Why do I feel like I have to lie, you ask? I dunno… but my gut instinct tells me it would not serve me well at the moment to reply that I’m an escaped schizophrenic and an activist lunatic in the psych patients’ rights movement and that I’ve picketed the APA and oppose forced treatment and so on.

“You never been treated for depression? Some depressed people, they go for walks”
Bloody hell, this is annoying.
“They do? Well, it’s probably good for them to do that”.
“Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t”. He keeps staring at me like he suspects me of being a Walking Depressed Person in Need of Whatever-the-Fuck.

“Ever been arrested?”, he asks, changing tactics.
I’m on more confident ground with this line of inquiry. “Yeah, of course.”
“Oh? What for?”
“Civil disobedience, sit-ins, that kind of thing”.
“Got any outstanding warrants?”
“Not that I know of”
“Let me see your ID again…”

By now my train is due in 5 minutes. I glance at my watch while he calls in his inquiry.
He hands me back my license and warns me that going for walks is unsafe and I need to be more careful.

20

I had one the other day. I didn’t get beaten, I didn’t even get a ticket, but it rankles. Still does.

I was riding my bike up Greenwich Street in the West Village of Manhattan. I was in the bike lane, it was broad daylight, and there wasn’t much traffic.

There was a police van parked ahead in the bike lane, with a barrier erected so that the officer could stop every bike and look for violations (the NYPD has a bit of a thing about bicycles and is very much opposed to the city government’s pro-bicycling policies).

So I got stopped, and the officer started saying something about the size of my wheels being non-compliant with the law (I was riding a folding bike with 20-inch wheels). I thought I was going to get a ticket for not having a bell or something, and I was resigned to that, because there is a law requiring safety equipment, but no, he was going on about the size of my wheels. Now, this is ridiculous – there’s no such rule. Lots of people ride folders. So I said, quite politely, that I thought he was wrong.

He replied, quite forefully, that “the only thing you should ever say to a police officer is ‘I’m sorry, officer, I was wrong,’ so shut up.”

Not exactly up there with being beaten or wrongfully arrested, admittedly, but it pissed me off.

There’s another incident, which was much more serious, back in the '90s, and that one did involve being held at gunpoint, and I’ll post that later, when I have a bit more time.

For reference, I’m a middle-class, middle-aged, utterly inoffensive-looking white man.