On saturday morning I am driving on my way to Kent (about 30 mins from my house) I am running late so I am picking my afro as I am driving. Pass by a cop who was incidentally turning onto the road I was on from a side street. No worries for me as I am going every bit of 35mph. The cop is behind me for no more than three seconds and then pulls into the left hand lane and procedes to pass by me. Not before he takes a nice long look at me picking my hair. So he sees me , decides to slam on his breaks and get behind me. I figure he's just doing his job because I am a normal motorist not violating any laws and shouldnt arrouse any suspicion.
So big surprise lights come on. I pull over get insurance card and license ready. He walks up to me immedeately and says the classic "do you know why I pulled you over?" honestly I say no. And he goes on to say "Well it's kinda hard to read your license plate." HMMMMM, still giving him the benefit of the doubt I say it is a tinted plate and it is dirty so I probably should clean it off. So he says ok and takes my license back to the car to check on me. I told him that I had a speeding ticket back in November that I payed. So he comes back to me and says "that I am driving under a suspended license." At this point I start to laugh, thinking he was joking. He wasn't. Rewind back in time a few months. I am paying my speeding ticket and being cleared to go by both the judge and the balif, or whoever you get to pay the ticket to, I go on my way not thinking twice about it. Now what they failed to do is ask for my insurance card, I had it with me but sice they didn't ask to see it, I didn't show it to them, thinking that they would somehow have had this information. Well they forgot to and found out later that they had missed a step in processing me, so instead of calling me to come back and give them proof of insurance, they suspend my license. Best thing is they don't notify me about it. No phone call, no letter, I even bought new tags for my car, and they didn't seemy license as suspended. Which leads me to believe that they recently had to cover up for a mistake they made and back date it to make it all look legit.
So fast forward back to saturday morning. Cop tosses me in the back of the cruiser, cuffs me, arrests me, and impounds the Legacy. I can tell you, there is no worse feeling than watching your car get towed away, and there is no more ultimately deranged horrible sadistic feeling than watching your car get towed away while sitting hand cuffed in the back of a freaking cop car. Now imagine all of this happening when you know you are innocent in the matter. I can say that was me at my worst. funny thing about it tho, I was more worried and spent more time making sure that they got a flat bed to tow it away on instead of a normal tow truck. So in conversing more and more with the arresting officer, he starts to put two and two together. And I hear remorse in his voice as he figures out that something about this whole situation just doesn't make sense, the whole thing stinks actually. He was however nice enought o get some things for me out of the car like Ipod, walltet, and whatnot. So now I am sitting their trying to figure out the fastest way to get my car back and this arrest off my record. All of this going thru my head as I am getting my mug shots taken. So what do I do, give a cheesy grin. Yeah, I had just about enough. So the officers there all of the sudden start being really helpful, giving me their cell phone numbers and giving me information on what to do and how to get this resolved and my license unsuspended as quickly as possible. Odd I think, but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I play along. So I call up my parents, who were already made aware of the situation by my sister, all thanks to some quick text messaging skills, and my Dad picked me up from jail. Cool thing is the cop released me of my own recognizance, so no money. sweet even tho it was bull sh*t in the first place, and he knew it. I can tell you I had never expected to hear a cop appologize for anything. Well that would be the second big surprise of the day.
So now tomorrow morning I have to have my dad drop me off at this place to pay to get my liscense reinstated. And then I have court on Thursday. Which I hope to get several things accomplished; get money back for having to pay to get liscense reinstated, and pay to get my car out of the impound lot, and take care of court costs, and get this arrest taken off of my record. We;ll see how much of this will actually happen. All I know is this is freaking whacked and there's not too much I can do about it. The justice sytem is f*cked, and it doesn't work, not as long as ignorant people in back water hick towns are able to screw over hard working people. And definately not when I still get pulled over for a d.w.b.
