| | John, consider yourself complimented. Even though he apparently trembles when using the button for the full stop, you seem to have gotten an entire two sentences out of Robert.
I certainly agree that the police should have all resources necessary to their proper functions.
But consider just one story from my experience. I was living at the corner of 207th street and Brook Avenue in Washington Heights, working for a corporation with a local office nearby. It was my habit after the Simpsons aired at 11PM and 11:30PM to go to the Bodega before it closed shortly after midnight. Most of the inhabitants of the building were Dominican, and I was the only person of Northern European descent.
One night I noticed a strange white van parked at the corner, illegally. In the rear cabin through the illegally tinted windows I saw a small red light as one would see on a VCR. I thought to myself "I hope that's surveillance, and not a gun sight." The van was there every night for several days. Waiting for my boyfriend to visit (he worked the evening shift) I would look at the van from inside the lobby of my building. One Friday night, I ordered steak from the restaurant next door and just downstairs from my building. I exited the building and walked directly to the restaurant. As I did so, three unmarked cars sped up to the corner, and as I entered the restaurant door I heard the cops jumping out of their cars curse "He's on to us!"
These fools, if I can be so polite, had apparently been surveilling me and on no other evidence I can assure you than the fact that I was a white person exiting a largely Hispanic building.
Their "cover" being blown, the next day, Saturday, the van was gone. Sunday evening I walked two blocks to the ATM to withdraw money to purchase steak from the grocery store. I noticed something was amiss, and lo and behold, across the street from the bank again unmarked cars rushed me down, I was put up against the wall and frisked. I insisted that the officer not touch me, and tell me why I was being stopped. He said he had to search me (in jeans and T-shirt) as I might be carrying a weapon. He simultaneously said that if I told him where the drugs were hidden, he would just issue me a ticket, and not arrest me. I laughed.
This cop was a rather fat balding Irishman, in uniform. The undercover cops don't like to do the frisks. I told him to leave me alone, I would show him ID. I gave him my license showing my residence from where they had followed me. I explained to him how I had been the subject of their stake-out for a week. He apologized, and explained that he had been assigned to work with the undercover unit, and that he himself recognized me from the neighborhood, and that he thought stopping me was wrong.
I don't for a second believe that that cop had "stood up" for me to the undercover officers. I was made to look a fool and a criminal before my entire neighborhood. I spent the next two weeks explaining to store owners why they had seen me treated like a criminal. Luckily for me, the store owners are all minorities and understand that, at least in certain parts of NYC, it is shoot, beat, and arrest first, think later.
I have nothing against police officers doing their proper functions. I am distantly related to Daniel Faulkner by marriage through my sister. He was murdered by Mumia Abu Jamal. The police have a hard enough job without having to arrest non-criminals for non-crimes. Were narcotics not illegal, surely police officers would not have to fear attack from pharmacists with AK 47's and body armor.
Ted Keer
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