My Breathalyzer Story... or, more specifically, That Time A Cop Used His "I Will Shoot if You Don't Comply NOW" tone on me.

If you had asked me a month ago, or even a week ago, if I'd ever had a bad run-in with a cop, I'd have said no.

Today, I'd characterize things a little differently. 

Keep in mind, as I speak, that I'm still white, and my experiences still aren't anything like the level that we've seen in the news and on social media of late. I've never had a gun actually pointed at me. I've never been accused of selling drugs just because of where I happen to be walking. I've never been asked where I think I'm going, as though going home is somehow a crime, now. 

• But I have been accused of drunk driving and breathalyzered, when neither of the people in the car had even tasted alcohol before. 
• I have been accused of purposefully breaking laws despite it being the truth that I didn't know.
• I have been forced out of my car and separated from sight of my driver in the middle of a pitch dark parking lot. 

And those are the good stories. The "I've never had a problem with cops before" stories. 

Let's take a moment and think about that. If this is good, what is the bad like?

We're often given a narrative that being a good kid and doing what we're supposed to means we have absolutely nothing to fear from a cop. They are our friends. They are our buddies. Unless we are criminals.

And yet I have never seen a cop so much as pull out onto the road near me without feeling a tiny spike of adrenaline. Getting pulled over is exponentially worse. I've felt what it's like to get pulled over, and I've felt what it's like to have a panic attack. And to be honest, my panic attacks are milder. I've been in shock before after a car wreck, and coming out of that was milder. 

The visceral rush of "Oh, no! There's a cop! Where do I pull over? What do they want? Did I do anything wrong?" is powerful and terrifying. 

And let me remind you that I'm coming to you as basically Hermione Granger. Though I have been pulled over, it's never been for speeding. I made it through the entirety of high school only having gotten in-school detention once. (For being late to Earth Science by about 3 1/2 seconds.) If anyone in the world should be entirely unafraid of cops, based on that "if you're a good kid" narrative, it ought to be me. 

But I am all the same. So is almost everyone I've ever talked to about this. And I think that's a strange phenomenon. This group of people that is supposed to "serve and protect" almost universally produces a massive fear response when they show up without having been called. (And sometimes even when they have been.)

Even good cops are scary. Even good cops produce panic and fear responses. Why is that?

I'm not a social scientist. I can't offer data or any hypotheses based on established theory. But I can offer a two-part suspicion and a story. 

PART 1: Uncertainty

A large part of the fear of getting pulled over—especially for someone like me who doesn't experience it often—is just that anxiety of not having the brain paradigms to handle it. If something hasn't happened to me before, I often panic. Even when it's a small, silly thing like going to someone's new house for the first time. The stress of not having a pre-made response already in my brain makes me way more stressed out than usual. 

To a large degree, I think this happens with cops, too. And that, in itself, is not the cops' fault. 

But it does go beyond that. The scope of a cop's job is MASSIVE. They could be pulling me over for speeding, or for changing lanes wrong, or for having a broken taillight, or for expired registry stickers, or for suspicion of wrongdoing, or for something as vague as a random search. If a cop stops me, I can guess what it might've been for. but I can't really know. It could be seriously anything. 

It could even be a bored cop who wants to write a ticket and is trying to find an excuse. (And lest that sounds like a too-dramatic example, I pulled that from a real life experience that I heard first-hand.) 

Even as a white person who generally follows traffic rules pretty well, and who is therefore very likely to be totally fine, I can't really know what that cop wants. And I can't really know if it'll be someone nice, or a macho bro who tries to puff his chest and intimidate me with his badge. I can't really know if I'm gonna come out of this with a friendly warning or an arrest. 

Some of those things are less likely than others for me, but still possibilities. I still can't really know. 

And that's the first part of the fear, I think. The inescapable fact that cops could be there for anything. 

And ya know, I just have to ask why that is? Why are cops, who have a very specific kind of skill and training, in charge of so many kinds of things? And why are they allowed so much power in the execution of those things?

Which brings me to the second half, and the part with my personal story.

PART 2: Power

Cops wield enormous power in the execution of their duties. Power which is, more often than not, scary. Yes, even to those of us who aren't in a visibly targeted demographic. A mechanic walking up to my car could be spoken to through an only partially-opened window. They would have a clear topic of discussion. And if you didn't want their help, tell them to buzz off and lock the doors. 

But a cop? Well, a cop can straight up force you out of your own car. Even when you haven't done anything. Even when there is no reason for it. Because if you don't comply, you put yourself on "the wrong side of the law". You can get tased or shot if a cop thinks you should get out of the car, and you don't do it fast enough. 

That's a LOT of power. 

I experienced that same power in Gainesville, GA, some time in the autumn of 2007. 

I don't remember the exact date, but it must have been late October, or maybe early November. The wind was chilly. The days had gotten dramatically shorter. And we didn't have many appointments. We had done a lot of walking during the day, and when we stopped to have our lunchbox dinner, we stopped in the lot of a public park bordering the lake.

I was the passenger. The driver was Crystal, a short, adorable 22-year-old with masses of bright-red curls and a lot more charisma than I have ever possessed. We were church missionaries, dressed up in conservative dresses, and with Jesus name tags pinned to our clothes. No two people in a car could have looked more innocent. (Ya know, according to definitely-problematic social conventions and all that.)

It was still light out when we started eating our cold soup, partially flat pepsi, and whatever else we'd packed to try to make that dinner feel like we'd eaten actual food. By the time we were done, though, it was after 6, and the sun had long set.

Just as we were packing up and getting ready to drive off, the thing happened that you see in cop shows all the time. A car pulled up behind us. We were instantly a little wary about this. Then that giant floodlight turned on, and got pointed on our car. 

I instantly panicked a little, although I tried to look cool. I'd never had that light used on me, before. I'd only ever seen it in the context of illuminating the people on the show who were obvious criminals. 

After that, the cop walked all the way around the car to come up to my passenger window. I've wondered about why he did that for years, but I have no idea. Either way, when I opened it, he got suddenly tense. "The moment the window opened, I smelled the odor of an alcoholic beverage."

Which... okay? We've never been sure if he really did think we were drunk, or was just trying to find something on us, but the only alcohol we'd interacted with at all was hand sanitizer. Maybe that's what he smelled? We don't know. 

I also learned that even when I'm in panic mode, and not thinking about my responses, I'm a smart alec. 

Cop: "Have either of you had anything to drink today?"

Me: Holds up a water bottle, and squeaks out the word "water".

I legit didn't intend it to be sassy. It was just an honest response to a question I'd sincerely never been asked before, let alone by a cop. I was WAY out of my realm of experience on this. But I have a feeling he wasn't pleased with me about that answer. 

Cop: "I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car."

We looked at each other, shrugged at having no idea why any of this was happening, but knowing that we had to do as he asked. He was a cop. We literally couldn't just say no thanks, and lock the door. And so we started to get out of the car. The both of us. Like he'd asked. 

Crystal got out first, and I started to follow on the passenger side. But the moment I cracked my door open, the cop screamed at me to get back in the car! Back in the car now! It was the same tone cops in the movies used when a bad guy wasn't putting the gun down. 

More than anything else that happened that night, the tone of those words is burned permanently into my memory. I joke about my breathalyzer encounter a lot, telling it as just some funny thing that happened to two people who never even drank. 

But I often catch myself randomly thinking of that moment when the cop's tone turned to angry panic. Even before all of these events of the past two weeks, I have spent a lot of time vividly recalling that half an instant when some random Georgia cop suddenly treated me like I was hostile and dangerous.

I never did a lot of thinking on where things could have led had I stood up all the way before getting back in the car, or if I had insisted on following the missionary rules more closely by not letting Crystal out of my line of sight. Which I almost did, TBH. I was this close to arguing about it. But cops are... well, cops. 

I have thought about that lately, though, and now I'm not so sure it that it couldn't have ended very badly if anything had gone differently. Which is totally possible. I definitely bristle at being told what to do in most circumstances. I've almost gotten myself fined by UTA that way. 

In hindsight, I feel like the only reason I didn't resist that cop was because a) I'd never done this before. I had to improv everything, and I wasn't prepared to do that. And b) because I knew that tone, albeit subconsciously. I knew that if you didn't listen to that tone, you could get arrested or hurt. Or both.

That tone had power over me that even my own parents don't possess. 

(I couldn't find the right gif here, so just imagine that kid from the Mummy Returns. "Lady, I don't even behave for my parents. What makes you think I'm going to do it for you?")

If I'd been more my usually argumentative self, what would have happened? To me? To Crystal? I don't know. But it didn't, that time, luckily for us. 

I sat back down as the cop took my friend around behind both cars, in complete darkness except for the floodlight trained on my car. I tried to keep them both in my rear view mirror, but couldn't see well. And once again, who knows what could have happened there, with us separated and in the dark with an armed cop?

Well, he turned out not to be a rapist, which was fortunate.

When it was my turn to go back behind the vehicles, he had me blow into the little breathalyzer tube, clearly expecting it to say something. When the numbers remained 0.0 he seemed to be sincerely flabbergasted, and started making up some kind of excuse about "have you seen a mysterious gray van around here?"

Then he told us to get back in our car and leave, since the park closed at dark. 

Once again I'll reiterate: that's one of the "I've never had a bad experience with a cop" moments. I wouldn't have said that was a bad run in at all. It's just par for the course. 

But now I wonder why. Why is it par for the course that one person, just because of their badge and weapon, can just have us individually get out of our car and walk into the dark with a stranger? If it had been literally anyone else than a cop, we would never have even opened the windows all the way, let alone gotten out and gone with him because we actually had no choice.

Why is it par for the course that a cop can threaten me, and I panic into compliance, when literally anyone else giving me that order would have had to physically restrain me from getting out of the car? Why is that okay? Why is that visceral fear considered just part of the experience of being pulled over?

Looking back on that experience with a more critical eye, I see so many places where the power a cop wields is just astronomical. No one else in any circumstance or situation, besides maybe the military, could have asked us to do the things that cop asked of us, let alone had us actually comply. 

And that is what makes us fear them. It isn't the portrayal in the movies. It isn't the "bad apples". It isn't even the idea of their being armed. It's the power. It's knowing that they can do just about anything they want, and we as a whole are completely helpless to do anything against it. 

Once again, I recognize that my cop stories aren't even actually bad in comparison to most of what we are seeing and hearing about lately. I don't get stopped regularly for no reason. I didn't get shot when that cop apparently panicked at the idea of me getting out of the car. I don't get harassed while walking places. 

Yet still I DO fear getting stopped by a cop. I do have a stress reaction when I see one driving near me. I can only imagine how much worse that might be for me if I wasn't white.

I'm not politically knowledgeable enough yet to know exactly how system changes and budget changes would realistically affect the actual policing system. I don't know what would happen, or if doing things like cutting off qualified immunity would be nearly enough. 

But what I do know? They have too much power. And they have too many jurisdictions. And even the "good apples" intimidate, threaten, panic too quickly, and make excuses for mistakes, instead of apologies and restitution. 

I know that causing such a reaction just by being nearby is never, ever going to help in deescalating situations. I know that deescalation was not on my particular cop's mind as one teeny tiny aspect of his plan went out of place. I know that he held massive emotional and physical power over me, and that it didn't feel good. It didn't make me feel very safe. 

I know that it's WAY worse for other people. And I know that something has to change. 

#Black Lives Matter

I hope to keep this short, because I'm tired. But no guarantees, because I also have a lot of feelings right now, and writing is how I deal with that, sometimes. 

But I'm so tired. Tired in a way that the news and the state of the world has never made me before. Not even something like 9/11 has had me addicted to the news feeds and filled with rage like I am right now. 

Maybe because I was a teenager in high school then. Maybe because I've grown a lot since I was the type of person who could unironically believe that racism wasn't a thing anymore. Maybe because smartphones and social media have revolutionized the way we are able to receive and interact with the news of the world. 

Maybe all of the above.

But whatever the cause, I have been able to see things, learn things, and understand a broader perspective of the world just by paying attention and living in it. That fact makes me so utterly flabbergasted that there are people out there with more years, more experience, and more opportunity who will still argue that treating other humans with respect is a crushing and unnecessary burden.

I got harassed on Twitter yesterday by one such guy, who as much as said that being PC is a sin against God. He literally thinks it's against his religion to respect people's identities and treat them like actual humans. And I'm exhausted by people like him not only existing, but existing in my local area.

I watch the protests and riots and media posts and statements from our leaders, and it exhausts me that people still exist in the world who will hear "Stop killing black people" and can muster up the audacity to reply with "but..."

It exhausts me that half of my facebook feed a week ago was filled with people griping about how wearing masks and using mail-in ballots was a tragic infringement on our freedom, but literally all of them are deafeningly silent as we watch actual martial law get enacted all over the country.

Curfews. The national guard marching down suburban streets screaming and shooting at people who are standing on their own porches. Lines of cops faced against lines of people who are literally just walking, and out comes the the industrial powered pepper spray cans. 

Where are you now, freedom criers? Why aren't you mad now?

It exhausts me that seeing so much silence from all of these people I've grown up with or lived around or am related to means that they won't be a voice for or act on anything unless it benefits themselves. That if I'm the one the bad guys come for next, I know I can't count on support from any of them.

And they do keep trying to come for me. So that's not an idle concern.

It exhausts me that people exist, both in the world and on my media feeds, that are literally more upset about a (censored) Target building than systemic prejudice and MURDER. 

It exhausts me that friends of mine have to feel the way I do now, but ALL THE TIME. It exhausts me to know that I don't even really know how much worse it is for them. It exhausts me that I could maybe defend myself if something were to happen, but if they did the same, they'd more than likely end up getting the life crushed out of them by some psychopath that gets away with it because of his badge. 

It exhausts me that people in the world still exist that will watch our "president" tweet threats and use phrases with a whole history of racism behind them, and still try to claim that he's the victim here. That they can scrape together enough grasping, reaching threads to weave some kind of narrative that excuses everything he does.

It exhausts me that the president won't even make a speech about what's happening.

It exhausts me that I belong to a religion that preaches about a pretty radical Jesus who stood up for the marginalized, broke bread with the criminals and the sinners, and forgave even the very people driving nails through his body, and yet large swathes of the members of that religion literally and sincerely believe that gay people are evil, black people just want attention, and that holding political opinions that aren't right-extremist is actual heresy. 

There are actual white-supremacy/alt-right/neo-nazi organizations and trending hashtags in this religious community. And the people involved in those things actually believe they're following the radical Jesus I mentioned above.

It exhausts me that there are people who are so concerned with refocusing the narrative on the parts of the system that are good and warm and fuzzy, that they forget it isn't our job right now to feel comfortable. People have been trying to tell us for 400 YEARS that it's not all sunshine and lollipops, but we keep finding ways not to listen.

I'm not an exception. I grew up having no idea that any of this was a thing. I've said things I'm still embarrassed about years and years later. But I've learned, and I've grown, and I'm trying to listen now. 

Nothing ever gets fixed without first RECOGNIZING that something needs fixing in the first place. 

It exhausts me that I can 100% guarantee someone reading this is gonna think "not all cops" or "all lives matter" or "not all white people". 

Yes, we all KNOW it's not every single person who ever existed. But it's enough. Enough that the problem is systemic. Ten good cops don't erase that the bad ones are murdering people and getting away with it. 

Ten good white people don't erase that the KKK still has active chapters in this, the year 2020. 

Ten photo ops of cops kneeling with the protesters is nice and cozy and hopeful, but it doesn't change that militant cop militias are jogging down suburban streets casually opening fire on random citizens.

It exhausts me that cops in full swat gear are not even trying to be careful with their weapons and tools. Just because a bullet is rubber doesn't mean it doesn't explode eyeballs and penetrate skulls. Just because a protester exists, doesn't mean the can of industrial mace has to come out. 

Are y'all even trained? Do you even know how to do your job?

It exhausts me that there have been riots in this country involving massive police overreach for over 250 years (before we even were a country yet), but we're still here, and we're still at it. And very, very little has changed. Trained soldiers still panicked in the face of aggressive riots and shot/killed a bunch of unarmed people during the Boston Massacre. This weekend rubber bullets and tear gas killed some and permanently blinded/injured many others. Two sides. Same coin. 

It exhausts me that even people who apparently know what unfair prejudice feels like (religious persecution, LGBT+ persecution, classism, non-black racism) exist who are still ready to close their eyes, plug their ears, and scream "Nah nah nah nah I'm not listening!" as soon as the status quo is beneficial for them.

It exhausts me that one of the reasons destructive rioting works to get attention, is because everyone is so (censored) OBSESSED with money. Look at our president! Look at Congress! Look at the big name tycoons who make literal billions, and do NOTHING. 

And it exhausts me that I can easily keep coming up with things to add to this list. But I'm tired, and this has gotten long.