Wanna hear about how I almost got charged?
The story of Officer Grumpypants
So I'm walking to my therapist appointment and this girl walks up to me, literally shaking. She looked terrified, and she was young, too, about my age. She asked if she could use my phone. I said of course, and to try to distract her from whatever clearly negative thing just happened to her, I start talking about the music shop I just passed by.
Then a cop car pulls up.
She goes, "Ohmigod, if he comes over here, please tell him we've been walking together for a while. Cops make me nervous."
Big red flag, I know, but I also know a lot of people like that. My first thought was that she just ran out of some domestic violence incident, what with her condition.
So this police officer comes up, clearly trying to make himself as big as possible. Like, I see through this guy. That's not his normal posture. He was puffing himself up to be as big and intimidating as possible. Unfortunately for this girl trying to use my phone (which she can barely type on, since she's shaking so badly), it works.
I ask him if we can help him, and he starts asking stupid off-topic questions. One of them was "Have you two been together long?" Like, what the f8ck does that even mean? But, of course, this poor girl is so nervous and wants to please him enough to go away that she just says "Yeah" and starts spouting bullsh8t about how she was with me at the music store a little ways back down the road. I try to throw her a bone. This was what he would take issue with later. I said "We ran into each other a little while back, like, at the crosswalk or something."
Look, I reiterate, this girl was still shaking. She came up to me wide-eyed and just asked to use my phone. She said she needed to talk to somebody. The world was clearly crumbling around her, or to her it felt like it was. Any dipsh8t could see that she was mentally and emotionally not in the best place and needed support and probably something like a friend.
Eventually the cop finally explains why he showed up. A local business had a trespass warrant out for a girl matching the description of the girl next to me. Of course she was the girl. I knew that, he knew that, she knew that. She was just scared out of her f8cking mind. Whatever happened, she wanted to get away from it. She even said "I won't go back there", referring to that business. He then was like, "are you the girl", and she was like, "no, but I won't go back there", and he was like, "well, there's a trespass warrant, and if you're not, I don't wanna trespass on y'all", which was bullsh8t because he was still standing there trying to probe her with stupid, stupid questions, and finally she said, "You know what, yeah, I'm the girl. Whatever. Sign the papers." Her tone was resignation. She just wanted out.
So she heads to the car.
The cop turns to me and makes a grandiose hands in the air "What the f8ck, kid?" gesture. He proceeded to lecture me for about five minutes on how he could totally charge me for obstruction of justice and I don't know the totality of what he was dealing with and what if it weren't just a trespass warrant and what if it were attempted murder and blah blah blah and he didn't know if I hated cops or what but he didn't understand why I would do that for a total stranger and he watched her approach me so he knew she was lying from the beginning...and I couldn't even get a word in. I just kept trying to apologize and repeat, "She just looked like she needed help." I couldn't get anything past that. He kept butting in with even more of his one-sided lecture.
Like, look, first of all, it wasn't a major charge, so he could calm tf down. Second of all, he saw her approach, so he knew she was lying to begin with, so why is this even an issue? And third, she couldn't have gotten away with sh8t. As clumsy as she is nervous, if it were attempted murder, she'd have blood all over her or something. She's not slick. She isn't anything close to criminal material. I highly doubt what happened at the business was all her fault either. According to both of them, there was a big argument she had with another person at the business about how much she'd paid for something. The way she was shaking seemed to me like she was threatened with more than just calling the cops. Or maybe she was just poor and didn't have money. Who knows? Yes, it was clear that she was the suspect in question, but clearly the situation was more complex than that. Simple guilt doesn't render someone almost incapable of typing on a phone. On top of that, if he had been following her and knew she was the suspect, what investigation would I have been hindering? Literally what? And why did this cop feel the need to rail me for a solid five minutes about how you shouldn't help people who look like they need help? Yes, he actually said "You shouldn't do that for strangers" and kept saying things like "I don't know why you'd do that."
If he had given me a chance to speak, I'd tell him why.
I grew up around domestic violence and other kids who lived with it. I've seen people lock up, freeze, lose the ability to speak, or become compulsive liars in the face of the law, not because they were guilty of anything, but because if their parents knew they were talking to cops, they'd get their butts whupped. I also grew up with adults who traded prescription drugs, foodstamps, cigarettes, and favors for currency. I also grew up with a kid in my school who came in one day black and blue because a teacher called home--and it was a good report! It was because she made the highest grade on a test in that class, and the teacher wanted to congratulate the family! But she got beat for it, because an authority figure called home.
That girl was kindred with one of those kids and I knew it. If he had taken a moment to stop asking stupid questions and got straight to the point, he'd'a known it too. Sometimes those kids turn and do bad things, which it looked like she did. But to run her into a corner instead of calmly approaching and saying something like "Excuse me ladies, I'm looking for a suspect on such and such warrant and you appear to match that description. Would you mind answering a few questions?" instead of f8cking "Have you two been together long?"--Jesus f8cking Christ...talk about a power trip. Compound that with his vehement need to interrupt me when I had tried to answer and explain my reasoning just to continue his angry monologue.
DISCLAIMER:
Not all cops are jerks like that one. I know that. He just happened to be one. I respect the fact that he was doing his job, but I do not respect that he made choices that ultimately created a more hostile situation for a suspect who was already freaking the f8ck out. I also don't think "don't help strangers like this" is appropriate advice to give a citizen just looking out for another citizen and following the innocent until proven guilty ideology. For all either one of us knew, she could've been trying to contact a lawyer. Good police officers deescalate situations and show care for all citizens. I do not believe this one did so.
I'd be willing to bet that girl feels a little bit better about the world, knowing that a complete stranger would throw her a bone when she clearly needed help, but, unfortunately, I won't be doing that again. What kind of world do we live in, where a uniformed police officer advises people to not help others in need? Either way, it was too close a call, and I won't be doing that again. If he were a mega-jerk, like he said, he could've charged me.
EXTRA IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
I will be keeping an eye out for the weekly crime report for the day that happened so that I can cross reference to see if there were any other pending charges he was keeping from us. Like I said, we all knew she was guilty. The question that rattles me is "of what, really, that would make her come up to a complete stranger, shaking, almost crying, and ask to use their phone?"
Topic: Chit Chat 2018 (Read 98026 times)
