For the second time this year, America’s cultural focus has shifted to address a problem of enormous severity.
The Black Lives Matter protests have included inspiring displays from people, platforms, and businesses reaffirming their beliefs in racial equality.
The good parts of these protests have made me very hopeful for the sort of world my daughter might know and experience when she’s my age.
It’s like going to a vow renewal ceremony for a couple that’s always fighting and saying, “wow, they might actually love each other,” even though you clearly see them still bickering under their breaths and hear their kids in the parking lot throwing firecrackers at each other.
The character of our nation is on display as we march towards the future trying to seize the promise of America.
It’s messy, chaotic, and loud but distinctly American. I’m proud to offer the voice of this small platform to the growing chorus proclaiming the simple truth that black lives matter.
Though the issues at hand don’t relate directly to my life (turns out not everything is about me), I still find that examining my own experiences leads me to a deeper understanding and greater empathy. My internal world is my portal for understanding the external world.
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the way police use the power we’ve given them.
There’s a splash of police officers on every side of my family tree. If you ever need proof that police officers are fallible, simply ask their families; believe me, they know.
I’ve also spent a considerable amount of time working with police departments in small towns and counties across the country working with their 911 call-handling operations.
These glimpses have provided a small sense of the overwhelming challenges facing departments tasked with handling scenarios ranging from social services to active shooters and fender benders.
We expect an awful lot from our police officers, which is why it is so disappointing when they unabashedly miss the mark.
The most relevant example from my life took place on a rural stretch of highway in Mississippi. It was a beautiful winter day in 2012.
I was very consciously going the speed limit since I knew that my northern Connecticut license plate would attract their attention.
Driving through Mississippi with a Connecticut license plate is like walking into a Hooters with a tuxedo-clad wedding party: you’re going to stick out and not in a good way.
I knew the officer was stopping me just to stick his nose in my business. He’d been following me for several miles with barely an inch between our cars at 63 miles an hour.
My first instinct upon seeing his self-satisfied grin bulging out from under his cartoonish flat-brimmed trooper hat was to ask if he’s hot on the trail of the bear who keeps stealing pic-i-nic baskets.
But I also wanted to ensure I’d never have to travel back to Mississippi to clear my name for any nonsense he might try so before he reached the car I decided on being cheerful, compliant, and straightforward.
One of the first things you learn in law school is that all rights are effectively waived when you’re in a car.
Yes, you technically have fourth amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, but those generally come into play when you’re in front of a judge or jury.
Those are hard-fought victories that happen on the prosecution’s terms and in their jurisdiction. Realistically, asserting your rights during a vehicle stop is more likely to escalate the situation.
For example, the most common way police officers get around someone refusing a vehicle search without reasonable cause is by simply arresting the driver so that the vehicle must be impounded and inventoried.
Cops have loopholes for everything.
Our conversation started cordially enough with the immediate forfeiture of my license and registration. I answered the standard question of where I was coming from (Connecticut) and where I was going (back to Austin, Texas where I live with my girlfriend).
Then he started fishing with personal questions revealing that I’d been working a short-term job as a document review attorney in Connecticut. He asked to see my bar card, which he claimed all attorneys in Mississippi are required to have on them at all times.
I had no bar card to show (since it’s not a thing in Connecticut). This upset him enough to start screaming until he was red in the face about how misrepresenting yourself as an officer of the court is a felony.
He threatened to arrest me several times even though I specified that I was only licensed to practice law in Connecticut.
I offered him a business card and he took it along with my license and registration. My long wait began.
I’d bumped up against a similar power dynamic many times before – as a student at an expensive private college where one dumpling-shaped officer resented all of us equally as spoiled rich kids without regard to the fact that many of us were there because of generous financial aid packages.
I delighted in frustrating that officer and arguing with him about everything he said.
But this situation was different: plucked off the road in a rural countryside hundreds of miles from anyone I knew being screamed at by a red-faced officer and threatened with arrest for a crime that doesn’t exist.
He was like a pussy cat and I was the field mouse unfortunate enough to be his catch of the moment.
My powerlessness in the moment provided the glee with which my harasser wielded his power. My anxiety grew as the minutes rolled past.
It struck me then, and in many moments since, how much worse it would be if more than the officer’s condescension fueled my apprehension – like if I were black worrying that the officer was acting with hateful intentions.
The officer came back to my window as belligerently as he had left. He said he’d pulled up the Connecticut Bar Association’s website and gone through their entire registry and my name wasn’t included.
The image of him, with his face still red from screaming and his stiff-brimmed hat huddled over a laptop navigating a website I know to be very rudimentary was too much for me.
I reacted in the worst possible way (short of pulling out a gun), which was to laugh in his face.
“You’re looking in the wrong place,” I said while reigning in my laugh, “Connecticut attorney registrations are done through the state’s judicial branch.”
I knew he was lying and he now knew that I knew. None of it mattered.
I gave him the correct website and detailed instructions on how to do an attorney registration lookup, but he declined after blustering on for a few more minutes and seeing that I wasn’t taking his bait.
His point had been made. His power had been asserted.
After lecturing me on the importance of having my non-existent bar card on me the next time I come back to Mississippi, he let me go. Almost as an afterthought, he parted by asking me if I wanted to know why he pulled me over.
Sure.
“While I was following you, you switched lanes to let me pass. When you did that, you were too close to the tractor-trailer truck in front of you.”
“Noted,” I thought to myself, “Mississippi doesn’t like fast changes. Who would’ve guessed?”
Cover photo provided by Matthew Roth https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewalmonroth/49972728911/
Philly protest photo provided by Joe Piette https://www.flickr.com/photos/109799466@N06/49954433572/in/photostream/
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