Wish In One Hand…

The following was an entry from another blot in May of 2007

“i sent the following to the press enterprise about an hour ago.  somehow i doubt anyone will care tho.
—–
With all that is going on with police perception regarding the recent outrage at the park, I have recently been part of an event myself that flipped my own perception of the police.”

“A wish in one hand…”

I grew up with the police as my friend.  My parents had friends that were cops, and I myself have friends who are cops.  When I was a victim of a home invasion robbery several years ago, the police were on my side.  I felt served and protected.
One of my friends who is now a cop, used to be a mechanic, like me.  One night, while driving a customers car home, he was rear ended, all be it a slight tap, by a drunk driver.   Bothered that this was a potential danger to other drivers, He called the sheriff, and followed the car.  After a string of persistent phone calls, an officer was finally dispatched to the home of the alleged drunk driver, and —  nothing happened.  No arrest, no ticket, no nothing.  Why?  The officer did not catch the person in the act of driving, it was only the word of a concerned citizen.
Last night, on the way home in a customers car, I was pulled over, held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and put in a patrol car. I then watched them do the same to my delicate new wife.  Due to my physical shape, It was hard for me to hear properly and comply quickly to the officers commands.  I was asked if I wanted to be shot.  It turns out, after an hour of wasted time, that a friend of the customer that owns the car I was driving, saw me get into his friends car, assumed I was a thief, and called the police.  There was no warning, or even a reason why in this situation a person, unaware of the circumstances, was given the credibility of word to have such a mentally jarring thing happen to me and my wife.  I was called a criminal by one officer, despite my trying to defend why I was driving the car.   He called it “joyriding” even though my purpose was to ensure that a car that came in with numerous problems was now reliable enough to be driven, and could pass smog.  I didn’t need to drive this car, I moved my own (much nicer) car around to take this one.  I drove the car for the same reason I drive others.  I have a very good reputation as a mechanic, and I wanted to keep it.  This car had to be right.
I no longer feel protected by the police.  And what I feel I have been served is usually in the hand opposite of a wish.

I have an image in my head that is hard to ignore, and it has even kept me from sleeping without the aid of lime tequila.  I sit helpless, handcuffed, and in pain from my legs trying to cramp, watching 4 unstable cops, (the riverside dept has a very bad reputation for shooting people on a whim) point guns at my wife as she tries to follow their commands.  the only good thing, is it has misplaced the image in my head of a guy getting hit buy a car on highway 74 a couple years ago.

Leave a Reply