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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • seth@lemmy.worldto4chan@lemmy.worldAmerica
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    2 months ago

    I went for a walk at like 10pm in my hometown the first winter break I was home from college, just on the main two non-residential streets that downtown consists of, fully on the sidewalks with all the streetlights on. I got stopped and IDed and grilled by one cop who pulled over, and then called for another cop to come back him up. And they both were so angrily asking me question after question about why I was outside walking at night “suspiciously” I had no idea what was going on and asked, “why are you interrogating me for walking? Did someone just commit a crime and you’re trying to find them?” I really believed like an idiot they were acting in good faith, but one grabbed my forearm and asked me why I would ask something like that, had I just committed a crime? I was incredulous. They let me go on my way after like 20 minutes of that and told me “go for walks earlier.” I didn’t even think to get angry about it for a day or so while I was processing how lucky I felt to not be arrested, when I realized, arrested for what? I was just walking.

    It’s been decades but every time a cop talks to me (pulled over for speeding), I think about that. Some of my family members are cops and I still know ACAB. When I mentioned it to one of them he tried to justify it with, “maybe he was having a bad day,” and told me, “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” when I told him how psychotic it sounded to justify someone taking out their bad day by bullying a random person who didn’t have the ability to leave the situation, and just had to “legally” be at their mercy.