Suggestions on Law Enforcement Encounters

I am a white, middle-aged male, who lives in the South.  Now some people would say that the first factor (skin color) is more than enough for me to get a pass in the eyes of local law enforcement, with factors two through four (age, gender, and location) just being bonus points.  Well, all I know is I’ve been stopped three times in the last year and a half, and that’s three times more than the previous 30 years.  And, even assuming that I’m the beneficiary of some positive law enforcement bias (either conscious or subconscious), I still try to act in an overt manner that reassures the officer that I’m not a potential threat. 

All three stops were at night and I did the same thing:  put the vehicle in park; turn the interior light on; turn the radio off; roll all four windows down; hands on the steering wheel at 10:00 & 2:00.  On one stop, I was pulled over a few blocks from the office.  Once the officer got to my window and saw my face, he reported over the radio to his Sergeant that I worked in that building, and that’s why my vehicle was seen pulling out of the back parking lot.  That was the end of the encounter.   

On the other two stops (brake light out on one, headlight out on the other, and no I didn’t know about either one at the time) it went something like this:

Officer – Good evening.  I’ve stopped you because your brake/head light is out.  May I see your driver’s license?

Me – Yes.  It is in my right rear pocket; may I reach for it.

Officer – Sure, go ahead.

Me – (with hands still at 10:00 & 2:00 on the steering wheel) To do that I’ll have to reach around my firearm (concealed by a shirt/jacket) on my right hip. 

City Police Officer – [kind of chuckled] OK.  Georgia State Trooper – Don’t show me yours and I won’t show you mine [totally casual and non-threatening tone].

Both times I drove off with a verbal admonition to get the light replaced, and without a ticket.

I’ve been told that in my state, if you have a Georgia Weapons Carry License, it shows up when they run your tag.  I don’t know if that’s accurate or not.  My point is that two nighttime encounters between a LEO and an armed citizen ended without issue.  I wasn’t ordered out of my vehicle; I didn’t get thrown across the hood, or manhandled to the ground.  And, if I had been instructed to do anything by the officer, I would have complied, regardless of whether I thought he was acting properly or not.  The side of the road is not the place to adjudicate your case.

And, it should go without saying, but regrettably it doesn’t, so… DON’T TRY TO FIGHT THE POLICE.  I hereby make a standing offer of $100.00 for any and all verifiable stories of citizens fighting with law enforcement that end with the LEO saying “You know what?  You were right and I was wrong.  I’m glad you fought me until I realized the error of my ways.  You’re free to go and have a good evening.”

We Have to Read and Think at the Same Time

     While researching the issue of the state of Tennessee’s use of a three question drug-use questionnaire, and follow-up drug testing, I found the following web article:  http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/10/3621267/tennessee-drug-tests-after-six-months/

     

     The first two sentences of the article read as follows:

 

Less than one half of one percent of Tennesseeans who applied for public assistance flunked a drug test in the first six months of the state’s experiment with drug screenings for welfare recipients, according to recently released state figures.

Out of more than 16,000 applicants from the beginning of July through the end of 2014, just 37 tested positive for illegal drug use.

     When you read those two sentences just now, did you think what I thought when I first read them?  My initial thought was Tennessee gave drug screens to over 16,000 applicants, and only 37 came back dirty?!  However, it’s in the first part of the third sentence that the writer, Alan Pyke, gives himself away, and actually reports the proper statistics:  “While that amounts to roughly 13 percent of the 279 applicants who the state decided to test based on their answers to a written questionnaire about drug use...”

     In other words, Tennessee didn’t test over 16,000 people and get 37 positives results, and 15, 963 negative results, the state tested 279 applicants and got 37 positive results.  That’s over 13%, or basically four (3.978) out of every thirty people screened.  And, that figure is over 61.5% higher that the state’s overall rate of drug use (8%) as stated in the article. 

     Now that's a headline that would jump off the page:  Public Assistance Applicants' Drug Use 61.5% Higher Than State Average  However, the author ends the third sentence by returning to his disingenuous apples to hubcaps comparison and writes “the overall rate among applicants is just 0.2 percent.”  

     Allow me to re-write the first three sentences with some different data to illustrate my point.  

  

Less than one half of one percent of all students enrolled at The University of Georgia passed the state bar exam on the first attempt in 2014, according to recently released state figures.

Out of more than 35,190 students on campus during the 2014 school year, just 155 passed the bar on their first attempt.   While that amounts to roughly 94 percent of the 165 law students who took the bar exam for the first time, the overall rate among all students is just 0.47 percent.

     See how that works?  The fact that over 15,700 applicants were never asked to take a drug screen in the first place is totally irrelevant to the author feigned statistics, just like the fact that over 35,000 UGA students never sat for the bar exam is irrelevant to mine.  Nice try though.

A Modern Day Lexicon

In light of the current unrest and upheaval taking place around our country, and in an attempt to foster understanding and open avenues for dialogue, I would like to offer my interpretation of a few key words that I keep hearing being repeated over and over.  I’ll start with a more classical definition, followed by my current understanding of that word’s usage:

Jus·tice noun \ˈjəs-təs\ the maintenance or administration of what is just, especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments.

Justice:  the pre-determined outcome that a particular person, or group, wants in a given situation, regardless of the actual facts and evidence, or the established legal procedure.

Fair adjective \ˈfer\ marked by impartiality and honesty; free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism.

Fair (or fairness) - a societal condition that only exists when a particular person, or group, gets what s/he/they want.

Truth noun \ˈtrüth\ the body of true statements and propositions; the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.

Truth - a description of things, events, and facts put forth by a particular person, or group, to the exclusion of all other descriptions, and if necessary, the actual things, events, and facts themselves.

Racist noun \rey-sist\ a person who believes in racism (the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and the racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race).

Racist - any person of a different skin tone, but especially white males, who disagrees with a statement, proposition, or point of view put forth by a minority.  In extreme cases, simply having a certain type of job (ex. - law enforcement), will qualify a person as a racist per se.