They are dick suckers. I am far from young and recently got the very same crap (but with no infraction and no ticket) coming home from the hospital late one night. There were NO other cars on the road (Millersport) at 2am, but I “wandered over the centerline”, and BTW I saw the cop the whole time (he was like 10 car lengths behind in the other lane) and I did NOT cross the center line. He was looking for an excuse to stop someone. Then there was the time I was driving with my (at the time) 8yo daughter and an off duty Amherst cop who reeked of alcohol (and was driving) decided I was driving “erratically”. I ended up with a bullshit ticket for “unsafe operation” and filed a formal complaint. The complaint was two parts - that the officer appeared intoxicated (was told “cops can drink when they are off duty”, well WTF - he was DRIVING) and that he got physical with me (grabbed my harm hard enough to bruise and shoved me). I was told that was because I appeared “threatening”. The way they handled the complaint was laughable. When I told them (the overpaid Chief) I wasn’t satisfied and wanted to take it further. He told me that “I answer to no one, there is nothing else you can do”. I was like “WTF, did I fall asleep and wake up in a third world Police State”. If I had all the time and money in the world, I guess I could have tested that notion. But as I have neither the time or money, guess what, they got away with it*. It opened my eyes to what must happen to people who are guilty of “driving while black”. If that shit happened to me, it must be an order of magnitude worse for someone who is a poor minority type.
BTW: before the first incident I was a big defender of the po-po. Brought up to respect authority and all that. It was an eye opener. I guess I was being naive and in a way, the bunker mentality is understandable. But this is not fucking Detroit where officers are getting shot at all the time and dealing with crack whores. It’s fucking Amhherst - do you ever look at the police blotter: “investigated noise in backyard, possible intruder, found squirrel in trash can”. I am an overweight, out of shape, middle aged professional white guy, and if they feel they need to swing their cop-dicks at me, imagine how they over-react to someone who is actually a threat? They would probably run and hide. Guys who always want you to “respect my authoritay” (a la Cartman) are usally cowardly douche bags. If anything really happened here in Amherst, they would most likely keep their overpaid asses out of it until the shooting stopped (a la Columbine) rather than risk their life time pensions with fully paid health care. Just let us arm ourselves and we don’t need no fucking police, IMHO.
*Also, there was a veiled threat when I implied I wanted it to go farther, something about how important it is to “stay on the good side” of the cops. Frankly, I was a little scared and I am not someone who scares easy.