Rude Introduction
Two Sundays ago around 5:30pm, I decided to go to a nearby store to shop for a planter and a rice bin. Now, we don’t normally go out this late unless necessary but I figured being a Sunday there won’t be too many cars on the road and with daylight being longer, I had plenty of time to get home before it got dark.
T and I bundled into hubby’s newly acquired truck (it was first out of the driveway). I got on Gentilly Blvd. and made a legal u-turn because I had to be on the other side. I had seen an NO Police Dept (NOPD) cruiser about a quarter of a mile away but thought nothing of it. As soon as he got on my tail though, I had a feeling he was going to stop me. Sure enough, I got the bluelight special. I pulled over and got this over the bullhorn, “Please pull into the parking lot.” So I drive to into the Shell station and pretty soon I was surrounded by no less than 3 cruisers. My golly!!! T asked me what was going on and if I was going to be hauled to jail. Scenes from “COPS” suddenly flash through my brain. I knew I had done nothing wrong —I made a legal turn, I was doing the speed limit, T was buckled in his car seat — but I was still quite nervous.
I rolled down my window when the officer approached. His first question was, “Is this your vehicle?” I said, “No, it’s my husband’s.” Then he asked for proof of insurance which I handed over. After cursorily looking at it, he handed it back to me and then asked for my driver’s license. I gave it to him and he went back to his car presumably to run a check on me. After a few minutes he gives it back to me and starts walking away. What the…???!!! Politely, I called back to him, “Excuse me, why did you stop me?” If he thought he was just going to walk away without a legitimate explanation he was mistaken. He said my back window was tinted and that he couldn’t see the temporary registration.
First off, it was daylight. Second, even though the window was tinted the registration was clearly visible. Third, he was going to walk away without explaining why he stopped me. Fourth, was it really necessary to have (by the time I drove off) four cruisers there? And last and the most important, he didn’t bother reassuring my son that everything was fine. He didn’t even acknowledge that there was an impressionable and quite nervous kid there who didn’t know what was happening. AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!! No wonder they have such a less than stellar reputation.
My only consolation, you won’t be seeing me on COPS anytime soon.