Reply #64: OK, white guy, might not be the best reference

[nashbridges]

But I had one experience with cops that was so exceptional, it negated any problems I had in the past. When I was a teenager and a college student I ran into plenty asshole cops, sometimes when I was doing something I shouldn't and other times when they were just being assholes.

However, when I was 23 I was standing on a street downtown at 8:30 pm in the evening and talking to a friend, and the entire world went dark. I vaguely remember my friend yelling "Stop! Stop!" and regaining sight on the ground long enough to see a fist racing at my face before everything went dark again. Then, in between poundings, everything started going red, and I couldn't feel anything but blood swooping off my face when my head bounced against the sidewalk.

Long story short, the police (as luck would have it) were a block down the street at a club waiting for the point in the evening when they could arrest the drunk and disorderlies (and thus be assholes) and they made it to my rescue in under two minutes because a parking garage attendant called 911 when she saw some guy beating the hell out of me.

I still believe that most police departments have a problem with high school bullies attempting to translate that "skill" into a career, but they showed up, pulled the guy off me, and arrested him. They didn't beat him, they didn't fight with him, they just handcuffed him and let him piss himself in the street.

DC services being what they were at the time, there was a 45 minute wait for an ambulance. There was a detective that showed up to take a statement and he took one look at me, asked me to identify the man that hit me, and took me to the hospital. Not only that, but when the front desk wanted me to fill out insurance forms before I could be admitted, he lied and said I was bleeding out of my ears and needed to see a doctor right away. (I'm sure that made someone else in the emergency room think he was an asshole - it's just that it worked in my favor that time, otherwise I would have called him on it).

Every single cop I saw that night behaved in a more professional manner than I would have if I had the strength to beat the crap out of the guy that hit me. And why did he do it? Strung out on something, he tried to rob a couple earlier in the evening and didn't succeed, and he was apparently pissed off about it. He thought he saw them when he spotted me and my lady friend.

No matter, whereas the cops did a great job, the DC justice system did a shitty job, and since the "defendant" didn't show up for his first two court appearances, they issued a bench warrant for the guy and let it go. It's been 8 years, and that man hasn't shown up on a docket in DC at all. I'm still saving up money to fix my nose, since I can't breathe through one nostril at all.

So I'm not painting all cops as assholes, and I'm not painting all cops as saints, I'm just offering this one time that I know of where they did exactly what they were supposed to do and then some. And fuck yes, I was happy to see them.