2010: Why I Was Scared of the Police

Let me start this blog entry with a few disclaimers:

• I am in no way implying that my situation, as a white woman, calls for more validity than what a person of color may have experienced if this had happened to them. My story doesn't have so much to do with my race as much as it had to do with the fact that I was a young female and I was alone.
• Not all cops are racist or sexist (or on a power trip in general), but those that are needed to be held accountable when they behave based on those prejudices and disciplined accordingly.

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2010:

Before I get started, I would like to point out that I know I accelerated before I saw the 70mph sign, and a speeding ticket was warranted, but the rest of it was not, and that's where my story starts. 

I was going through a small town that I have gone through a million times. The speed limit drops from 70mph to 55mph, all the way down to 35mph before going back up to 55mph and finally 70mph once you're out of the town -- which takes maybe a minute to drive through, it's small.

I sped up at the 55mph sign and just kept accelerating since no one else was around (that I saw) and the highway was literally empty, I thought getting up to 70mph right at the edge of town wasn't a big deal -- oh to be 22-years-old again. I heard the siren, saw the lights, cursed under my breath, and pulled over. I kept my insurance card in the glove box, so I had it ready when the cop came to my window.

"You know why I stopped you right?" he asked. He was a skinny cop, I saw him get out of the passenger side of the patrol car. The other police officer was older -- mid-50s I'd have to guess -- heavier and looked pissed off about everything. However, he stayed back in the car and was observing the police officer talking to me. 

"I was speeding. I'm sorry, I am just trying to get home so I can go to work at 2:00." I knew what I did, and thought if I told him that I was trying to get home (which was about three hours away) that he would just write me a ticket and let me go. That's how my previous interactions with the police have gone. He took my license and insurance card and went back to the squad car. While he was gone I noticed he was gone for a while. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the other cop -- the older one -- get out of the car and start walking toward the passenger side of my car and stop at my window. I rolled the window down and he said he wanted to talk to me and asked me to step out of the car.

I would like to point out that this is in the winter. It's about 30 degrees outside, and it's misting. I'm in pants and a hoodie. I had the heater on in my car so more clothing wasn't necessary. I figure he doesn't want to talk on the driver's side cause it's closer to traffic, and talking across the car at a weird angle wasn't comfortable, so I turned off the car and got out. I walked around the front of the car and stopped about 3 feet from him. He said he noticed I had recently gotten a ticket for speeding in another town. I told him I was going to be taking defensive driving to get it taken care of, he said 

"Oh, ok, that's good. Good to not have things pop up on your driving record." 

Yeah...I think so too? Why am I talking to this guy if the other guy is handling the traffic stop? I look over and he's on the radio. I figure he's checking my license, plate numbers, insurance, I really didn't know what he was doing that was taking so long. I start to feel a little uneasy about the whole situation and put my hands in my hoodie pocket. The cop asks me to take them out. I apologized that I was just cold and showed him that there wasn't anything in there. He still didn't want my hands in there even though he could see there wasn't even a piece of lint in there.

About this time my hands are freezing and he said "We're going to have to search your vehicle."

"I'm sorry, what?" -- is what I should have said. 

Instead, I thought if I told him no that he would interrogate me on the side of the road and try to get me to say something that would warrant a search, so I said "That's fine... you aren't going to find anything."

As I'm having this dialogue with the cop, the younger cop comes back and says "I called for backup." Why? This is a basic traffic stop! Another squad car with lights and everything pulls up behind the first patrol car. I'm not sure what they thought I was going to do...I mean, I was tiny at this time in my life. I was 5'6" and weighed maybe 125 lbs. I had already shown the cop I had nothing on me -- my pants were tight enough that a pat-down wouldn't have been necessary -- so why were two other officers arriving at a traffic stop? It made no sense.

The other two police officers -- all of them during this stop were male -- stayed at the front of the first patrol car, and the younger cop that initially talked to me opened the passenger's side doors of my car. He starts flipping through my CDs (and even takes some out, like...why?), goes through my glove box, looks under my seats, opens my suitcase, and goes through some boxes I had in my back seat that were open.

As he's going through my stuff, the older cop starts asking me questions -- so I got to be interrogated anyway:

"So, do you drink alcohol?"

"I'm 22, so legally I can, but I don't really drink that much."

"Oh, that's good, that's good. What about drugs? Do you do any drugs? Pot? Meth? Prescription pain killers?"

"I'm a licensed Pharmacy Technician, no I don't do any illegal substances or abuse prescription drugs."

"Pharmacy Technician, that's interesting... so if we find any pills we will find..."

"My thyroid medication."

It was the most bizarre conversation ever. I'm watching the cop search my car, I'm looking at the other guys talking on their radio, and I decide that I need to know their names. I look at the cop's name on his uniform and made a mental note. I didn't have my phone on me, and even if I did, he probably wouldn't have wanted me to be taking notes on him.

They never asked me to pop the trunk (which if I were searching a vehicle would be the first thing I would search). After keeping me on the side of the road in 30-40 degree misty weather for an hour and a half they gave me a ticket and let me go. At this point, I knew I was going to be late to work. I got out of that stupid town and pulled off to the side of the road to look at the ticket. I had written down all of their names on the back and in the box where it said "searched vehicle" the officer marked "NO"....when in fact they DID search my car.

The next town I'm coming up to I know I'm going to lose service. I call my mom and tell her what happened, and I said "I'm on my way home so I can get to work but I really want to call the Police Department and tell them how I was treated, cause it wasn't justified but I'm about to lose service." She had me give her their names, the ticket number and said she would call them. I got home, showered, got to work (like almost two hours late but they said "Get here when you get here.") and a couple of hours later she calls me back.

She apparently got to the Chief of Police and he called in the two cops who did the stop initially. Apparently -- I was right -- the older cop had been on the force for a while, and the younger cop was fresh out of the Academy and was riding along with him for a while before getting to go out on his own. He reviewed the tape and told my mom that he could tell that he was glad I cooperated with them, but he could also tell that I was very uncomfortable. He said that they shouldn't have done what they did and that he was dropping the ticket and I didn't need to worry about it.

I honestly didn't feel safe. I was extremely uncomfortable and scared. The older cop kept looking at me weird, to which I kept my distance from him. He was asking questions that weren't relevant, and I still don't know what they thought they were going to find in my car, or why they didn't ask me to pop the trunk or search the driver's side of my car.

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The only time I had been stopped by a female cop was when I was in High School. After that, they were all men. Out of the 5 or 6 times, I had been stopped, about half of them tried to mess with me in some way or another, (mostly by making a snarky comment about me, my car, or something like that knowing that I couldn't really say anything to defend myself the way I would have wanted to) but this was on a whole other level. After this anytime I saw a cop car turn around -- even if they were just getting to the end of their jurisdiction -- my heart would almost explode out of my chest. 

I remember I was pulled over one night at about 2AM when I was on my way to my parents' lake house (which has since sold but that's another story for another time) and I was so exhausted, I was on the verge of tears. I wasn't speeding, my tags were current, so I didn't know why I was being stopped. The guy ended up being someone I went to High School with -- we weren't friends, but I knew him through my friend's brother -- and he wanted to let me know my tail light was out. The amount of relief I felt when I saw it was someone I recognized and not someone wanting to throw their weight around made the exchange a lot easier.

Since then I haven't been pulled over -- I don't really drive much now to be honest, since Aaron does most of the driving -- but it took me a long time to get past that experience. It isn't anything I would wish on anyone.