legacycentral bbs

With that being said, here's how my weekend started.

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.

You have an afro?

It's really amazing how much this still happens today. I used to get harrassed all the time as a kid, but I grew a little older and got into a less noticeable car so I don't have that problem anymore. You can't not be black. I've had a few friends with similar stories and they just accept the police harrassment as normal. I think it's bullshit that in 2006 this is acceptable practice. Me as a kid driving an offensive car, maybe, someone minding their own business but not white is ridiculous. They wonder why people hate them.

If you ask me, you shouldn't have to pay one single dime, and you shouldn't stop until that is the case.

subyluvr2212 wrote:If you ask me, you shouldn't have to pay one single dime, and you shouldn't stop until that is the case.

Exactly.

My Foxbox has no exhaust, other than the 18" piece of pipe off of the cat that hasn't rusted itself off. I drive next to cops all the time, and I know they hear it. I can't say for sure that because I'm white they don't pull me over, but I can't discredit it. Maybe they feel sorry for me and giving me a ticket wouldn't solve me having a loud ass winter beater.

Sounds like you've been rung through some real crap though. It's shitty that that stuff happens. Best thing I can tell you is to refrain from flying off the handle. That gets you nowhere, whether you're black or white.

I'm sorry to hear this man...

I don't really understand why your license was suspended, and that aside, I believe that you were subject to racial profiling (what a fucking surprise)

I am going to be fighting an uphill battle for my whole career to gain respect as a peace officer because of jackfucks like the officer who dealt with you!

The ol dwb trick. assholes.

You have every right to be hella mad, but, acting so only creates the perception that they were "right".
Next time you know its bullshit, call 'em out! There's no harm to had in speaking the truth.

Yeah, I got pulled over 2 weeks ago for "too fast for conditions" at 5 AM with NO ONE on the roads, when I was going 10 miles under the speed limit . Luckily only got a written warning, guess the fact that my hands shake like crazy when handing over info helps a bit.

Damn, that sucks Jarred. Hope everything works out.

Dude thats bullshit... DWB is still an arrestable offense for some reason. I've said it before, if I were not white during my whole ridiculous experience with the feds in 2004, I'd probably not be a free man right now.

It sure as hell does take the government / local law enforcement a LONG time to realize that a mistake was made, and two or three times as long to let the issue be resolved. They will never officially issue an apology, or offer reparations for the lives they destroyed. "The government does not blush" - I've heard that several times from lawyers during my experiences.

And thats what sucks even more; if you have any money at all, you're required to pay for your own lawyer. And you need a damn lawyer to cut through the bullshit. And they always take every fucking penny you own, making life just so much easier.

I should stop ranting now, or this could go on for days.

Fucking A. Good show staying calm and being cooperative. I know how hard that had to have been. But if you relax when you're getting screwed, it hurts less.

Good luck in court.

What jurisdiction / police force was this?

Thanks all for the concern and comments.
Well this morning I went to this place to get my license reinstated. All I had to do was show my insurance card. Easy enough. So step one cleared, I have my license back, and it was as easy as some lady typing it into the computer. Well at least it didn't cost me anything. So now I can drive, just not my car since its under lock and key...

V, the original offense for speeding was in Barberton, I went to court pleaded my case, paid the ticket and left. Evidently the city of Barbeton thought I deserved to pay more than just the ticket.
I was found d.w.b. in Twinsburg . Now I find it weird to get hassled in such a mixed area but ignorance knows no bounds. And I have been pulled over by 3 cops for being broken down on the side of the road in a neighboring town...BRAT4BY4(Will) was there. That actually was a funny story.

My stories with police offers are at the extremes either really cool and helpful or complete jerks. It's about 50/50, maybe 60/40.
It's just sad that the bad over shadow the good, even tho there is more good experiences than bad ones.
And 555BCTurbo, the world needs more officers like you. Some people that you might stop are going to be morons no matter what tho just because of preconceived notions and popular culture that glorifies disrespect of authority figures. Most cops do their job just fine, its just a few who feed the fire of them being portrayed as self righteous @sshats.

Glad to hear the journey back to normalcy's starting okay.

From what I see, DWB stops seem to happen as much in mixed areas as in homogeneous ones... Motivated a little more by some kind of screwed up sense of resentment rather than fear, maybe.

snowboarded wrote: Some people that you might stop are going to be morons no matter what tho just because of preconceived notions and popular culture that glorifies disrespect of authority figures. Most cops do their job just fine, its just a few who feed the fire of them being portrayed as self righteous @sshats.

You pinned it on the nose!!!

Good luck, you have a case that's for sure.

Fo realz.

Nick I must say I think you'd make a good officer; I've only met like one or two cool cops before, and they were both highway patrol. The movie "Super Troopers" comes to mind

Jared (is that your name Snowboarded?) I hope your car's OK and your fees will be small. It'd be nice if you didn't have to pay anything else but that's unheard of

Hopefully. If it's a deal where the lot works exclusively with the city then maybe the fees will be small, hopefully. But I'm hoping that I am not going to have to pay anything at all. And you're correct Chris, my name is Jared.

Well when I told the judge that it happened in Barberton, a smaller city, he just laughed. Evidently this isn't the first time something has happened like this. So he made the whole thing go away, except for the failure to proprerly display plates thing, but didnt fine me for it. So I get out of it with $70 in court costs. Not so bad. Then I get the papers to take back to the police department to get papers to pick up my car. This dumb chick behind the glass says that the plates were confiscated for the registrar. At this point I am fresh out of patience, so I can't verify what I said or how I reacted, but I am sure it wasn't pleasant. 10 minutes later after me threatening to go get the officer I ran into on the way in, she was able to figure out that the plates were mine and there was nothing wrong with the plates. So I get the plates and go on my merry way to the impound lot. $200! $15 a day plus $100 towing fee. The jusdge told me that if I wanted to be reimbursed for the amount I was out, I had to sue the city of Barberton in small claims court. Too bad those inbred buck toothed morons who run that place would lie their mutant looking faces off to screw me over in court. So I have my baby back. but at what price? $200 for being innocent. I love this world.

And there you go; the true point of the police: to harrass and collect. It's all a scam. We're a 3rd world nation with enough money to keep the corruption just under the covers.

^^ seriously. It is quite a lucrative business. Has anyone seen the size of the new courthouse here in Orlando?!? I did pay for a portion of that with my speeding tickets...

yeah, the man got his fair share of my dough a while back, too

I'm going to open my own city, police station, and tow service on some lonely road in texas with no population in sight.

So when you come blazing through doing 160, my city laws state I get to impound your vehicle, fine you $200 on the spot. so I'll write you the ticket, take you to a holding cell, go get my tow truck, impound your car, charge you $200 to tow it and $50 a day to store it.

BTW, i'm the judge.

I'm gonna be fucking rich.

^ welcome to ohio. lol.

Crazy Bananas