A few years ago, I was driving into NYC at the speed limit and got pulled over by a NYPD officer. "What's the problem, sir?"

He told me “I don’t like your license plate.” It’s a custom plate. It says THIEF. I laughed and said, “I’m an author. I steal from reality for my books.”
When he returned, he handed me a warning.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

He said, “I don’t like your car.”
A few years later, I was pulled over driving a beat-up white pick-up truck through a Michigan neighborhood late at night. I asked the cop what the problem was.

He said, “Your truck looks stolen.”
A few years later, I was driving in my splashy tuner car in Virginia, and two cops in a marked car raced me on the interstate, cutting around traffic to go triple digits, and as they peeled off, they gave me a thumbs up.
Last year, I was speeding into Baltimore and got pulled over. Proper speeding. Really speeding.

The cop peered in at me, and his face relaxed, and then he told me that instead of writing me for speeding, he was writing me for having a burned-out taillight; have a nice night.
These are pointless stories. Nothing stories. Everyone I know has them, which is why I think they’re damning. That’s just how law works here: subjectively. If these don’t shock you, you can’t be shocked when a Black person ends up dead, because it’s the same principle:
American policework is human, & that’s unacceptable. I’m gonna say that again, because I think many folks think humanity is always a good thing. But humans are fearful, angry, racist, biased, funny, kind, cruel, tired—most of all, they're subjective. Power amplifies all of that.
The badge should not be subjective. It needs to be better than we are individually. Wearing it needs to mean you’re held not to a human standard, but an even stricter one. I want cops to be held accountable for actions, but that’s not enough—
I want picking up that badge to be seen as the incredible responsibility that it is. You put down self and pick up society.

Weighty? Nerve-wracking? I hope so. That’s the cost of power. Who so pulls the sword from the stone, etcetera, etcetera.
‘Most cops are good people.’ I don’t want the cops to be my buddy. I want them to have my respect because they’ve earned it by representing who we OUGHT to be, not because they’re a good dude. Isn’t that the point of law? If not, what the hell are we trying to do as a society?
(one more P.S.: this is resource for my state: https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/ )
You can follow @mstiefvater.
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