@msquebanh Never arrested. As a young woman was stopped by cops eager to make my acquaintance. One night walking home from bus stop after work a cop ordered me into a cruiser. I had done nothing wrong but was frightened and obeyed. 2 bored cops wanted conversation. I said I was married, but one asked asked for my phone number. I gave him a fake and got away.
This was a Boston suburb.Out of fear I told no one. A couple times in other places cops pulled me over to chat. I was a kid. Easy target😡
@Barbramon1@msquebanh same experience. Night of my 24th bday, I'm drivng home after the party at 4 or 5am, a cop alone pulled me over, gave me a field sobriety test (i was sober I don't drink), he then said "fine, where do you live?" I didn't want to tell him but he had my DL so I said the town and he said "I'll follow you to your place then". He did. All the way to my door. It. did. NOT. feel. comfortable. When I got there I ran inside and locked my door. The cruiser stayed there for hours.
@msquebanh@Barbramon1 IKR?! I got pulled over countless times in my life and it was never like that. Ticket and be on your way. Done. That was creeeepy.
@VeroniqueB99@msquebanh Awful! As a woman in my 20s and 30s I had several bad cop encounters.
The last one, in my 50s, was almost funny. Cop followed me on freeway, pulled me over after I exited. It was maybe 11PM. I was coming from a family dinner and had not been drinking.
Don't think the cop got a good look at me until I stopped, probably just saw long blonde hair. His face when he saw I was old enough to be his mother!
He accused me of weaving, gave me a field sobriety test, no ticket.😡
@Barbramon1 I had one cop stalk me for 4 months & he only got paid suspension after my report. He was putting unwanted love letters in my mailbox - this was one of the cops who helped me leave past abusive relationship. I didn't expect to be preyed upon, shortly after.
He showed up at my home with unwanted gifts & angry that I refused to accept them. I was really creeped out. Why would any cop do that to me, knowing I was highly traumatized & scared?!?
@Rasta@Barbramon1 When I filed an official complaint - it ended up on his desk. He was part of VPD internal investigation department too & you know how the rest goes...
@msquebanh there was one in Toronto I think that lost his license and continued to drive every day a cruiser. When caught they did something administrative. I've competed with the police in pistol shooting, then we went and got drunk at their club and they drove us home
@Rasta CAF loosened recruitment in recent years because one of my ex bf's got in, stole a rifle, ended up killing himself & one other person. I met him at military school
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@msquebanh When I was in the process of divorce my abusive ex husband sent his pal, a police captain, to my home to threaten and intimidate me. This was in suburban Massachusetts.
The cop who stalked you did so precisely because you were traumatized and scared. You were vulnerable, and he thought you were an easy target.
A certain percentage of cops are predators. Always have been.
@msquebanh Many studies have been done about the shocking rate of domestic violence in law enforcement families. It is 20% to 40% higher than in general population.
@msquebanh No woman, no human, should have to endure what we did.
Cops still get away with abuse of all kinds, but I am glad that they are under more public scrutiny than ever before. It can only help.
"Why would any cop do that to me, knowing I was highly traumatized & scared?!?"
A: Because power was what attracted some of them to the job in the first place. It's worse when they become the norm in a subculture like the police "brotherhood".
@msquebanh Once as a teenager, I was put into a cop's cruiser with a friend. My friend had shop lifted and I wasnt aware at all but I was a potential witness / accomplice.
Other time, I was parked in my car chilling at 2am ish waiting for my gf's dad to go to work 1st shift so I could go see her when a couple of cops (politely) pulled me out of my car and searched it (with my permission). They found a fake switch blade knife.
@msquebanh After Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, there were demonstrations in many cities. I got caught up in one of them (in Michigan) and spent a week in a crowded jail cell. Most of my fellow inmates were black men, and I made many friends among them.
@msquebanh I've had my share of discussions with them, and even welcomes upon my arrival somewhere. I was never arrested or truly detained, but I was watched, not always covertly.
Eventually that stopped... I think 🤔
@msquebanh@grumpywitch I’ve only ever been stopped for no reason once in 40+ years of driving. By comparison, I had a friend in his 30’s who had been stopped for driving while non-white more than 30 times.
@Flare Tomorrow afternoon. I had a long & stressful day at hospital & oncology clinic. I have another medical appointment at different hospital tomorrow morning.
@msquebanh Oh I WAS a mess - I’m decades past that now 😀. I was getting police apologizing for arresting me 😂 which likely wouldn’t have been the case if I hadn’t been white and male presenting.
Which is why I’m pretty passionate that everyone should get that chance, since I managed to clean my act up.
@msquebanh And it gives a perspective; when my daughter was arrested at a protest and ,she was worried we were going to be angry at her, one of the things I said to her was “at least it was for a cause”
@msquebanh I was there for the entire day, they knew I had nothing to eat. The white female idiotic "empath" nurse brought me an "egg sandwich" which I spat out immediately for being so awful. I trust nothing here, especially not Indians becuase they are casteists and get paid by whites to implement the racism, colorism, white supremacy on the whites' behalf, such that all of white supremacy's genocidal goals get accomplished while never needing to get their hands dirty.
@msquebanh It has taken a dozen years to recover from all of the trauma which these police inflicted upon me, in my already traumatized state. On another instance, the police forced me to go to Grand River Hospital's emergency because I used the word 'suicide' to describe my rapidly deteriorating mental health due to the rampant racism, colorism, religious-bigotry that continued to traumatize and affect my ability to exist, specifically after being harassed while walking alone.
@msquebanh I was arrested at the end of the first week of November 2011, a week after I turned 23, for engaging in a peaceful, non-violent protest against the normalization of my dehumanization by age 12 through regular, repeated traumatization and an instance of sexual abuse when I was 9. I was handcuffed by Waterloo Regional Police and these were deliberately tightened to be more uncomfortable, leaving red markings on my wrist. I experienced the worst suicidal emotions shortly after.
@msquebanh Been arrested twice, stopped & searched maybe 4-5 times? I got hit with a baton on my left shoulder by a riot cop on a demonstration, but that's about it I think.
@msquebanh I voted twice, because those are two protests / arrestable actions where I was taken away by police, as an intentional civil disobedience tactic.
It's possible that a couple of other interactions with police in my daily life may have technically counted as being detained, but I don't recall it being explicit, so I'm not sure. (I ran away from home once in high school and police found me, but I don't remember what happened after that.)
@msquebanh Detained is somewhere on the 0-3 range. I'm not entirely sure if I was legally detained or just being talked at. I was young and white and unaware.
I was neither arrested or in any real risk of being so, though. If I /was/ detained, it was under 20 minutes. I assume that's close enough to vote Never.
@msquebanh White guy here. My mastodon client registered the 2 vote while I was scrolling, when in effect I never have been arrested. Didn't want to mess up your statistics, sorry
@catch56 Yes. Also randomly kidnapping us & doing Starlight Tours. Google that term. They've expanded that fascist controlling shit. I was kidnapped 4 times by RCMP. I'm part of huge class action lawsuit.
@msquebanh OK voted one for me. Had two near misses (one at a protest where I dodged a kettle, one trying to buy wine when I was under 21 in the states where I spotted undercovers and walked out with a bottle of water instead. Flatmate who was there with me unfortunately didn't believe they were cops and got 40 hours community service).
@msquebanh shakedown in one, accused of illegal import in other. Got yelled at a lot. Passport confiscated. Detained but eventually paid my way out / paid fines.
I'll be doing a follow up poll with same questions but asking for demographics. Mostly POC folks are detained or arrested by cops with zero legal reasons.
Then doing side by side graphs on this poll & next one.
@msquebanh
True.
As a middle-aged, middle-class cis-het white guy, I'm predictably in the Never category. Which is how it should be, but isn't, for everyone. Racism rearing its ugly head again, like we all know it does.
@violetmadder@Gurre I've had similar experience w/abusive ex & cops thought putting me in front seat helped when it didn't. Especially when same cops refused to help me but quick to come to my home after I sent my ex's Mom this -
"You & your racist family can burn in hell! Your son raped me. Fuck you & fuck your entire family!"
I had to show cops entire msg thread because my ex's racist Mom refused to believe her son was a rapist & abuser of women.
@msquebanh@Gurre i have some amazing stories about being a white dude at traffic stops. I mean, I used to do things to practically beg for punitive actions and they still didn't do anything. At one point I was deliberately trying and it still didn't happen
@DanielTuttle@Gurre We should road trip doc on identity politics & combine it with racial profiling, in Canada. Additionally visit reservations & highlight stories of adaptation & struggles. Adding in the traditional foods, arts & sustainability cultures in #FarNorth
@msquebanh@DanielTuttle
How far north is Far North in Canada?
I've been up to about 68 North here in Sweden.
Traditional Sami lands, now a mining town & space launch facility.
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