In one high-profile incident, the live-streamed aftermath of the shooting of Philando Castile at a traffic stop at the hands of police in Minnesota sparked country-wide outrage and was ruled manslaughter. That and another death in Louisiana sparked a protest in Dallas, which a sniper took advantage of to kill five police officers.You don't have to be a threat to the cops. You just have to be reasonable.
I was pulled over by a local policeman a few years ago for speeding.
He was right; my Lady was sick, needed a refill of her Cancer medicine from the Pharmacist,
I was more concerned about getting the pain-relieving drugs to her as quickly as possible than I was about driving safely.
It was dark when the policeman pulled me over, and I recognized that he may not feel safe in the encounter. I knew that he had called my license plate in, and they had told him that I had a CHL (Concealed Handgun License).
When he pulled me over, there was a 3 minute delay while he checked up on me through the radio.
During that time I pulled out my drivers license, my insurance card, and my CHL.
When he approached my car, I had the interior lights on, my hands on the wheel, and those three documents in my hand. He asked me for my drivers license, and I gave him all the the information he needed to know (and which he had probably already received from his station downtown).
After I gave him the three documents, we chatted for a few minutes. I acknowledged that I was driving too fast, and explained why. I was in the wrong, so I was not confrontational.
Hell, he had me dead to rights.
But he wasn't afraid of me.
Even though I told him that I had a pistol in the compartment between the front seats.
My hands were in plain sight on the steering wheel at all times ... again, with the interior light on.
I was no threat to him.
He let me go with only a warning. Well, it probably helped that I hadn't had a ticket in the past 5 years, but I HAD a warning on a speeding charge 6 years earlier. That didn't matter.
Folks ... if you're pulled over by a cop, you probably deserve it. Even if you think you do NOT deserve it, the best thing you can do (especially if you have a CHL) is to NOT present a threat!
If you think it's a bum rap, go to court and explain it to the judge. He probably doesn't have a gun.
(I actually had that experience 20 years ago ... explained the situation to the judge: he let me go because I manned up and because I was trying to merge with fast traffic at the off-ramp of a bridge.)
I'm not black, so I can't speak to their experience.
All I an say is ,,, well, I've already said it: man up, don't be a jerk, take the ticket if you deserve it.
If you don't deserve it, tell it to the judge.
2 comments:
That is all sort of what they used to teach us in HS drivers ed., and what our parents used to tell us. Those days seem to be gone.
Quite right. You may deserve the ticket, or it may be a bum rap.
But either way, the side of the road is not the place to make your case or be confrontational.
That's what the courtroom and hearing date are for.
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