Re: DWB/Safety concerns

From: Jasper
Date: 10 Jul 2000
Time: 16:04:06

Comments

Charlie,

That's what these posts are for. If I should suddenly disappear, suffer a fatal heart attack, appear to commit suicide, or become incapacitated by an "accident," or an image assault to the extent that I cannot function effectively, start with the Detroit Police Department's 10th Precinct and the officers who gave me the bogus ticket.

The lieutenant I saw at the desk the next day was L. Moor (if it matters to anyone, he was black). He told me that I didn't need his first name. He also told me that he couldn't read the cops' names on the ticket so he couldn't tell me anything about them. When he summarized my concern as being upset because I got a ticket (he told me -in a polite way -- to tell it to the judge) I told him I was afraid that he might have some problem officers. When I tried to show him their names and badge numbers he refused to look at them and gave me the bum's rush. He told me that my assessment of the officers' demeanor as being hostile and disrespectful was "just a subjective judgment." He TOLD me that I wasn't qualified to give that interpretation. He didn't know I was a writer. He didn't ask for my name. He didn't particularly give a damn why I was stopped.

This will seem "insignificant" to most people. Therein lies the danger of unchecked government authority. Getting stopped by the police is ALWAYS a serious matter in a free State. What can be more basic to our freedom as American citizens or legal aliens than our ability to go from one place to the next without being arbitrarily stopped and questioned by somebody wearing a gun and a governmental badge of authority to use it? When a cop stops you from exercising that basic right of travel he'd better have a damn good reason. When he doesn't he has to be held accountable.

I keep thinking about Nazi Germany and the countries behind the old Soviet Union's Iron Curtain where all manner of evil was practiced by the authorities…and men with guns and governmental badges of authority to use them stopped people arbitrarily and said, "Show me your papers." --Jasper