[Target70]

I have been driving this car for over a year now and only gotten pulled over for kicking the back out when turning left on a wet road. They let me go when they realized it was a manual and I had just bought it. In other words they thought it was an accident, and my fear of them was good cover for the "scary unexpected" slide.

I have been pulled over on my bike (single speed 20'' bmx). I tucked to gain speed going down one hill to help me crank my way up the next: a ~25-30 degree incline
of about 400 yards. His official reason for pulling me over half way up the hill is: I looked like I was running away from something.

A friend and I were parked in the lot at the local park that shares the parking lot with a police station/courthouse/tax commissioner/DMV etc.. Your basic govt building. We were walking around on one side of the large field when we saw a bunch of flashing lights, and walked through the trees to see what was going on. They had set up a full road DUI checkpoint in a dip of the road on a bridge so you couldn't see it. And this was on the main road (4 lane plus turning) through our town, on a Saturday Night at around 6PM. Traffic was backed up for miles in either direction. As we were standing by the road, a cop going the wrong way rolled up to us and told us to keep walking to the checkpoint, well we are young, about 20, don't know any better and so well why not? We get about half way across the bridge on the side median before one cop yells out HEY! and we are swarmed from all sides. We are then grilled, patted down, made to take off our shoes our mouths are checked, intimidate, bully the works. When we explain we were told to keep waking, they mock us saying we made up some the story about "phantom cop". They accuse us of carrying drugs, and trying to avoid the checkpoint by parking our car and walking through the checkpoint. We explain that this makes no sense, and I have never done drugs in my life and he calls me a liar. Eventually they badger my friend into giving them his car keys to check his car which we have to tell them where it is in their own parking lot. And one of them drives off with the keys to check out the car and If they find nothing then we are free to go. After they say they found nothing, we start walking back to the car only to find that it has been towed. And we are now miles away from home with no car. After walking home, and calling the cops to figure out what the deal is, they tell us 4 different stores, from there being a gun or drugs in the car, to it being abandoned. This car is my friends ~90 8 series BMW. Well we try to call the tow truck company only to find out we now owe a towing fee before we can get the car back, but since it is Saturday, and they don't open till Monday, we will also have to pay for 3 days of storage fees. So we call the cops till we are told that the officer in charge cant talk to us because he is at the checkpoint. We find the new DUI checkpoint further down the road. We get in his other car (Lexus sc300), and pull up on the side of the road in front of the checkpoint and are swarmed again. Why are we pulling to the side of the road! We could be a threat. We explain we would like to talk to the officer in charge, but instead they decide to run a dog around the car, who runs around the car, then when he gets to my friends side, he jumps up and licks him on the nose, and proceeds to scratch the hell out of the door on his way down. Well this is enough for the cops to say that the dog alerted on the car and here we go for strip search number 2. Now at this stop it is getting late and is winter, and I am made to stand outside without shoes or a jacket while my friend goes inside the big police van thing, and I am left to chat with the MP's. No we are not on govt property, but apparently to my local police, they see no problem using military personnel for a city policing function. At the end of it they find no drugs on us or in the car, and give us the shaft about everything else. The best we can do is go back the next Monday and file a complaint (while being intimidated and ignored) and pay the tow fees to get his car back. No lawyer we call will touch it. Now If you swapped our roles, and we did to them what they did to us how fast would we be in jail?

Some cops are ok, some are not. The real problem is that we now have an unequal class system that they are on the top tier of, unequal rights if you will. Those that are not good can an will use their superior rights against you. If the "good" cops try to stand against the abuse by their coworkers, they are removed. It's funny how fast it is for a cop to be removed or hounded from office after ticketing another cop, vs how long if even possible it is to remove a cop who kills innocent civilians.