lunaslide
member
While still living in LA County, on my lunch break several LAPD would go to the same places I did for lunch because it was just outside of the city limits. I sometimes tried to say hello and engage them in the kind of neighborly dialog you might have with a store clerk or fellow customer. They would look at me like I was a frickin alien. The attitude I got basically amounted to "Who is this person trying to talk to me". Only one of perhaps 10 regulars there actually responded like a normal person, said hello and chatted about the weather. There is a distinctly cliquish dimension to many of the police officers I've met in my encounters with them. This behavior is much more pronounced in big cities.
One day on my way to a local range, a cruiser started following me just about where the freeway off ramp is. They followed me for nearly two miles without making any moves toward me. Only when I turned on my blinker for the street where the range is did they turn on the lights and pull me over. The range is the ONLY thing on that dead end street and happens to be owned by two former LAPD. When one of the officers came to my window, he immediately asked where I was going. Since the range was the only possible destination and we were literally 20 feet from the entrance to it, I told him the range. He then asked if I had any guns in the car with me. In turn, I asked him why he had pulled me over. He said I had run a red light (impossible, the major street I turned onto is constantly busy and you can't turn against a red without coming to a complete stop to wait for the traffic to break). He again asked about guns and I told him yes, I did. He asked if I was transporting them properly and I said yes, they are unloaded, locked in their cases and in the back of the car. He asked if he could "check to see" that they were being transported properly. I said that he may, but that I do not consent to a search of my car. He asked me out of the car and sat me on the sidewalk. He took the two cases out of my car and gave them to his partner, who took them to the trunk of the cruiser. While his partner "checked" my guns in the trunk, where I could not see him, the first officer went and searched my car against my wishes. A short time later, the partner comes back and says that he "found" a round in the chamber of one of the guns and they arrest me. Before going to the range, I had cleaned both guns the night before. I didn't have any 9mm ammunition in my possession at the time and had intended on buying some at the range to shoot that gun. There is no way that either of them had been loaded. The police department of that city, I later learned, is issued 9mm Glocks.
I have no criminal record before or since. My car was properly registered and insured, I had no outstanding tickets or warrants. I drive a stock Jeep Wrangler Sport and typically dressed at the time in jeans, t-shirts and a ball cap. There were no bumper or window stickers on my Jeep at the time, not even an NRA sticker.
My case was later dismissed when the judge, after hearing the partner testify that he could not even confirm that there even is a light at the intersection they accused me of running through. It was clear from the beginning that the primary purpose of them stopping me on my way to the range was to hassle and possibly arrest (fraudulently if necessary) a lawful gun owner. They might not have thought that the charges would stick, but what they were counting on was that I wouldn't have adequate defense or that I would make a mistake. Nothing ever happened to them for falsifying evidence, since the trial never got that far. In spite of asking for them repeatedly, I did not get my two pistols back from over 2 years. I asked my lawyer to look into it and he said "It's LA County, they're gone, forget about it." When I finally got them back, a recent decree had come down that confiscated property, including firearms, had to be returned to the rightful owners in cases that were dismissed or acquitted. Even so, when I talked to the property clerk who returned the guns to me, he said that the department often "lost" guns they didn't want to return, or had them destroyed before the defendant had a chance to get them back. I only got mine because that particular clerk felt it was bogus and because he wanted to return everyone’s' property before he retired in a few weeks.
When I was in grade school, a high school student at my father's school accused him of rape. The police treated my father with tremendous disrespect and cruelty, despite the fact that the girl was a known liar and drug addict. For three years my family went through hell because of that case and in defending himself, my father had to spend all of what he had saved to put my sister and me through college, but the greatest indignity was the treatment of the police, which my father would never forget.
With all of that having been said, I do not hate police officers. Rather, for most of them I hold a high level of respect. They perform a very difficult job and frequently do so with distinction and honor. I am personally considering a job in law enforcement, and in my current job of fraud investigation, I work with law enforcement from many different agencies, all of whom have been professional and courteous in our communications.
However, I will never stop criticizing those people in law enforcement who feel they are above the law. I will not relent in calling out police who feel that they are separate and above the people they are supposed to serve. I will not let slide the abuses that eventually drive all peoples into submission and servitude.
You can bring up all the emotional appeals about LEOs on 9/11, saving cats from burning houses, whatever; but those examples never justify the abuses of power, or even the elitist attitudes, of many of their brethren. Nor does a "correct outcome", such as mine, or a correction made by the courts, justify abuse of power by those who enforce the law. Intimidation and imposition alone of unlawful influence and force will keep a populace cowed and compliant, and no doubt indignant toward police. Indeed, the men and women who serve the people righteously and consider themselves a part of the community should be doing everything in their power to root out the power hungry and the cruel in their midst who tarnish the badges they have valiantly worn.
"Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson
One day on my way to a local range, a cruiser started following me just about where the freeway off ramp is. They followed me for nearly two miles without making any moves toward me. Only when I turned on my blinker for the street where the range is did they turn on the lights and pull me over. The range is the ONLY thing on that dead end street and happens to be owned by two former LAPD. When one of the officers came to my window, he immediately asked where I was going. Since the range was the only possible destination and we were literally 20 feet from the entrance to it, I told him the range. He then asked if I had any guns in the car with me. In turn, I asked him why he had pulled me over. He said I had run a red light (impossible, the major street I turned onto is constantly busy and you can't turn against a red without coming to a complete stop to wait for the traffic to break). He again asked about guns and I told him yes, I did. He asked if I was transporting them properly and I said yes, they are unloaded, locked in their cases and in the back of the car. He asked if he could "check to see" that they were being transported properly. I said that he may, but that I do not consent to a search of my car. He asked me out of the car and sat me on the sidewalk. He took the two cases out of my car and gave them to his partner, who took them to the trunk of the cruiser. While his partner "checked" my guns in the trunk, where I could not see him, the first officer went and searched my car against my wishes. A short time later, the partner comes back and says that he "found" a round in the chamber of one of the guns and they arrest me. Before going to the range, I had cleaned both guns the night before. I didn't have any 9mm ammunition in my possession at the time and had intended on buying some at the range to shoot that gun. There is no way that either of them had been loaded. The police department of that city, I later learned, is issued 9mm Glocks.
I have no criminal record before or since. My car was properly registered and insured, I had no outstanding tickets or warrants. I drive a stock Jeep Wrangler Sport and typically dressed at the time in jeans, t-shirts and a ball cap. There were no bumper or window stickers on my Jeep at the time, not even an NRA sticker.
My case was later dismissed when the judge, after hearing the partner testify that he could not even confirm that there even is a light at the intersection they accused me of running through. It was clear from the beginning that the primary purpose of them stopping me on my way to the range was to hassle and possibly arrest (fraudulently if necessary) a lawful gun owner. They might not have thought that the charges would stick, but what they were counting on was that I wouldn't have adequate defense or that I would make a mistake. Nothing ever happened to them for falsifying evidence, since the trial never got that far. In spite of asking for them repeatedly, I did not get my two pistols back from over 2 years. I asked my lawyer to look into it and he said "It's LA County, they're gone, forget about it." When I finally got them back, a recent decree had come down that confiscated property, including firearms, had to be returned to the rightful owners in cases that were dismissed or acquitted. Even so, when I talked to the property clerk who returned the guns to me, he said that the department often "lost" guns they didn't want to return, or had them destroyed before the defendant had a chance to get them back. I only got mine because that particular clerk felt it was bogus and because he wanted to return everyone’s' property before he retired in a few weeks.
When I was in grade school, a high school student at my father's school accused him of rape. The police treated my father with tremendous disrespect and cruelty, despite the fact that the girl was a known liar and drug addict. For three years my family went through hell because of that case and in defending himself, my father had to spend all of what he had saved to put my sister and me through college, but the greatest indignity was the treatment of the police, which my father would never forget.
With all of that having been said, I do not hate police officers. Rather, for most of them I hold a high level of respect. They perform a very difficult job and frequently do so with distinction and honor. I am personally considering a job in law enforcement, and in my current job of fraud investigation, I work with law enforcement from many different agencies, all of whom have been professional and courteous in our communications.
However, I will never stop criticizing those people in law enforcement who feel they are above the law. I will not relent in calling out police who feel that they are separate and above the people they are supposed to serve. I will not let slide the abuses that eventually drive all peoples into submission and servitude.
You can bring up all the emotional appeals about LEOs on 9/11, saving cats from burning houses, whatever; but those examples never justify the abuses of power, or even the elitist attitudes, of many of their brethren. Nor does a "correct outcome", such as mine, or a correction made by the courts, justify abuse of power by those who enforce the law. Intimidation and imposition alone of unlawful influence and force will keep a populace cowed and compliant, and no doubt indignant toward police. Indeed, the men and women who serve the people righteously and consider themselves a part of the community should be doing everything in their power to root out the power hungry and the cruel in their midst who tarnish the badges they have valiantly worn.
"Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson
