Elle (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} em2mb) wrote,@ 2009-06-16 23:00:00 |
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I hate the state of Illinois.
So I'm driving downtown in Springfield around 10 p.m. today. I'm going to go out with some friends. In front of me, the green light turns to yellow. I probably could have gone through, but I would have had to accelerate, so I rolled to a stop. By my own estimate, I was probably about a foot past the "stop line." The woman in the car next to me - she'd been texting - slammed on her breaks and landed on the stop line.
Twenty seconds later, I get pulled over for "driving aggressively." The officer yells in my face, asks me if I know about the woman who got hit in a crosswalk and broke her leg last summer, and when I hand him my proof of insurance, he asks me what kind of car I drive. I'm shaking and crying at this point, but I manage to tell him it's a Volkswagen Jetta. Since this is abbreviated as "JOP" for some reason on my insurance card (nevermind that the make, year and color clearly are the same), he accuses me of not carrying proper insurance and says he'll have to call it in.
After 25 humiliating minutes, he issued me two citations - one for failing to stop (I WAITED 15 SECONDS FOR THE LIGHT TO CHANGE) and the other for driving aggressively (AGAIN, I ROLLED UP TO THE STOPLIGHT, WHICH CHANGED AS I APPROACHED IT). As I hung my head and bawled HYSTERICALLY, he told me I better look at him while he was talking unless I wanted another citation. Then he had the audacity to describe the incident as a "friendly contact between law enforcement and the citizenry." Seriously, what the fuck? Shouldn't the woman next to me, the one weaving in and out of lanes and riding my ass and slamming on her breaks when she noticed a stop light, have been the one to get a ticket? Methinks it was the Missouri license plate.
As a child, I was always taught that law enforcement officials existed to protect and serve people like me - people who obey the laws. I usually tend to side with the police when there seem to be two sides of a crime story. It's cautious, but it makes sense, right? Err with the people meant to serve justice?
Increasingly I'm seeing that it's not true, that law enforcement doesn't exist to protect and serve but rather to send undeserving individuals on much-needed power trips. I felt like a fucking criminal tonight. Note to cops: try not to piss off sympathetic, college-educated, upper middle class young adults. If they don't trust you, will anyone?
So I'm driving downtown in Springfield around 10 p.m. today. I'm going to go out with some friends. In front of me, the green light turns to yellow. I probably could have gone through, but I would have had to accelerate, so I rolled to a stop. By my own estimate, I was probably about a foot past the "stop line." The woman in the car next to me - she'd been texting - slammed on her breaks and landed on the stop line.
Twenty seconds later, I get pulled over for "driving aggressively." The officer yells in my face, asks me if I know about the woman who got hit in a crosswalk and broke her leg last summer, and when I hand him my proof of insurance, he asks me what kind of car I drive. I'm shaking and crying at this point, but I manage to tell him it's a Volkswagen Jetta. Since this is abbreviated as "JOP" for some reason on my insurance card (nevermind that the make, year and color clearly are the same), he accuses me of not carrying proper insurance and says he'll have to call it in.
After 25 humiliating minutes, he issued me two citations - one for failing to stop (I WAITED 15 SECONDS FOR THE LIGHT TO CHANGE) and the other for driving aggressively (AGAIN, I ROLLED UP TO THE STOPLIGHT, WHICH CHANGED AS I APPROACHED IT). As I hung my head and bawled HYSTERICALLY, he told me I better look at him while he was talking unless I wanted another citation. Then he had the audacity to describe the incident as a "friendly contact between law enforcement and the citizenry." Seriously, what the fuck? Shouldn't the woman next to me, the one weaving in and out of lanes and riding my ass and slamming on her breaks when she noticed a stop light, have been the one to get a ticket? Methinks it was the Missouri license plate.
As a child, I was always taught that law enforcement officials existed to protect and serve people like me - people who obey the laws. I usually tend to side with the police when there seem to be two sides of a crime story. It's cautious, but it makes sense, right? Err with the people meant to serve justice?
Increasingly I'm seeing that it's not true, that law enforcement doesn't exist to protect and serve but rather to send undeserving individuals on much-needed power trips. I felt like a fucking criminal tonight. Note to cops: try not to piss off sympathetic, college-educated, upper middle class young adults. If they don't trust you, will anyone?
