My experiences with cops
I've had some bad experiences with cops. But not as many as the good ones.
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2022-01-03 |
I had an “interesting” relationship with the cops, some good, some bad. In the end, they're like Soylent Green: they're people, with all the failings that come with them. Assuming guilt or innocent because of the badge is silly. But that includes guilt. They have a shitty job to do, and it's best if you don't make it worse for them: but they often don't have the choice to just ignore crimes and let it go. If you did make it worse for them, they'll probably make it worse for you, no matter your skin color.
On one hand, I knew many cops and taught them martial arts, called them friends, and even had family members that were cops.
On the other hand, the LAPD motto during the 80's and 90's could have changed from “To Protect and Serve”, to “We’ll treat you like a King”. (Rodney King that is).
While the joke is slightly overstated, there were problems with cops being willing to set examples in L.A., and elsewhere.
As a teenager with a hopped-up car, the cops made me a target, and would get pulled over and harassed:
- <5 MPH over the limit
- my inside dome light was out
- no front license plate
- "suspicious driving" (whatever that means)
- muffler too loud
- I got a ticket for a U-Turn at an intersection (with no sign saying I couldn't) -- that city had made those illegal, and not bothered to tell anyone visiting
- I even got a $500 ticket for street racing, on a one-lane road (supposedly racing the guy in front because I had a loud car and I shifted late).
- With California's 110% tax on traffic fines, that's a game of “bend over and grease up” -- it was a lot of money back then to get harassed.
So the city, state and police themselves had started driving a wedge between themselves and the community, and the “us versus them” attitude, only magnified the problem. As there became a stronger thin blue line, there became a lot more resentment by those on both sides of it.
Once at a Warehouse club, we got raided by cops in riot gear. It wasn’t enough to just disperse the crowd, they’d have a “real good time” with their show of force, and outright abuse. Including smashing a friend's windshield with a baton, just because. Or being a bit wacky-smacky with the clubs when people got too close.
Complaints about that incident earned questions from the duty cop like, “what did he look like, or do we all look alike to you?” Knowing full well that in riot gear it's near impossible to offer a good description. So we were told outright, "If you want to waste our time and file a report, be our guest". (That attitude didn't defuse a situation).
I even overheard some cops joking about how they took out their frustrations on vagrants, “hey if you lay a phone book on them, you can smack them with the baton and it doesn’t leave a mark... but still hurts like hell. Ha ha!”.
On the other hand, they were cool if you were cool. And I saw them do great things, help people, stop bad guys -- and many take a ration of shit they didn't deserve and NOT react to it.
I berated a cop for pulling me over (he was wrong), and he didn't show up when I fought it (because I think he felt guilty). And I got let off occasionally on warnings that could have been far worse for me. So you have to take the good with the bad.
The problem in 1991 was that blacks in L.A. had it all wrong, they thought it only happened to them. But the issues were with anyone that wasn't looked on favorably (youths and miscreants of all colors got rough treatment). But you can't reason with the determined ignorant -- and if you lived and worked in the black community (I had done both), you knew the community could be ignorant, racist, and very determined to stay that way.
And that was the 70's, 80's and 90's.... by the late 2000's, cellphones (and cameras) were so common, that cops got much better. Which makes the outrage in the 2010+ era a lot less sensible. The cops got much better, and the outrage got much worse.
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Tags: Me Rodney King/all Experiences,,
