Tag Archives: police

Scared of Cops

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I am a law abiding citizen. I don’t steal, murder, rape, racketeer, swindle, assault, harass, drive drunk or even over the speed limit for that matter. I did spend a night in jail once but that was only because I forgot about a $75 moving violation. My bail was set at $50 and it was refunded to me at court and my ticket fee was waived for “time served” (5 hours).



I’d like to say that I try to follow all the laws of the land because I’m a good citizen and am doing my part to help society run as smoothly as possible. Really, I’m just scared of cops.



I’ve written before about my irrational fear of uniformed police. I immediately start tensing up whenever a uniformed cop is around even though I’m not doing anything arrest-worthy (looking up police brutality videos on youtube probably doesn’t help alleviate my fear). I’ve always wondered where this fear has originated from and yesterday I think I may have come across a reason.



I was at my mom’s yesterday for a belated mother’s day get-together with my sister and she mentioned in conversation how she’s pathologically scared of police. I never knew we shared this and asked her about it. She explained that it’s been with her ever since she was a kid and probably started with the incident at the construction site.



The construction site incident! How could I forget?



When I was a kid there was a big open field and large woods right to the south of my house. When I was 11 they took the open field and some of the woods and built a bunch of four bedroom split level houses that all looked completely identical and named the neighborhood after the trees that used to stand there. While it sucked that they were getting rid of my giant open playground there were plenty of construction sites to play on while the houses were being built.



The best sites were the ones where the foundations were laid but nothing else had been built. Big cement foundations, holes and dirt piles to climb around on. My friends and I knew we weren’t supposed to be playing around there but figured as long as we weren’t breaking or stealing anything we wouldn’t get into too much trouble. We based this assumption on no information or experience.



One day my sister, a couple of friends and I were climbing around a cement block foundation and a cop car drives up to the cul-de-sac, flashes his lights and blares his siren. His siren. I thought that was something they only busted out for high speed chases and bank robberies. I can’t remember if somebody yelled “run!” or if we just ran but everybody but my friend Jake ran into the woods.



It was the perfect plan! We grew up playing in these woods. We knew every trail, fallen tree and small creek there was in there. We knew the woods like the back of our hands. These were our woods. We’d just get off the path, move in a serpentine pattern to lose the cop, pop out on the other side on Greystone Ave. and calmly walk home like nothing happened. He probably didn’t know the woods ended on Greystone Ave. Hell, he’d probably get lost in the woods because he didn’t know them like we did and would have to call for backup to get out of the woodsy labyrinth that only us clever kids knew how to navigate.



What actually happened is that we ran around the acre and a half of woods like idiots for ten minutes and emerged onto Greystone where a very irritated cop was waiting for us.



Our approximate path into the long arm of the law.

Our approximate path into the long arm of the law.





We got into the cop car and he drove us back home where he very sternly lectured us from running from the police and trying to give them fake names (my sister tried using an alias) and our dad grounded us for a very long time. It was scary as hell and I think it might have been the start of my fear of police.



Now that I know where it’s stemmed from the healing can begin. Hopefully, one day, I can commit a bunch of crimes without any irrational fear the police are going to get me.

Minneapolis Cops Accused of Baffling “Drugs for Nothing” Program.

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Holy shit. City Pages just put up a story about how Minneapolis cops are supposedly cruising Occupy protests to find people who are high and take them to a facility to take part in an impairment study. Allegedly, if the cops can’t find anybody who is high, they’ll get them high and sometimes even stop at a McDonald’s drive through and get them a McDouble for their trouble. The article even said they took one person who was kind of high already and got him really high before taking him to the study.


It’s no secret that I’m afraid of cops and spending a night in jail did nothing to alleviate my fears but now I have to worry about cops getting kids high?



Great. I knew we were going to have to do the “drug talk” with my stepson sooner or later but now we’ll have to amend it completely. Here we go –



Jared. You’re going to be 12 in just a couple of months and as you get older you’re going to have to make new decisions. Your parents, stepmom and I aren’t going to be around you 100% of the time so we’re trusting you to use good judgement and common sense.

I don’t need to tell you that “drugs are bad”. You’ve heard plenty about the dangers of drugs in school and you’re a smart kid but you need to realize that hearing about it in a classroom is very different from dealing with the situation in real life. I just want you to know that if a police officer tries to give you drugs you need to say “no” and get away from them as fast as possible.

If a cop ever offers you drugs you need to get away and tell somebody. Find a trusted adult like… shit. Cops used to be the “go to” people when thinking of trusted adults. I guess we don’t really have that option anymore. Go and find a… priest? No. Not a priest (at least not a Catholic one). Uh… how about a fireman? Go and find a fireman or something and tell them what happened.

It may not be easy. You may feel pressured into doing the drugs the cops are trying to give you because they’re in a position of authority and you’ve been told since you were a toddler that the police are here to protect you. They also carry loaded firearms so that kind of ups the intimidation factor.

It doesn’t matter. You have a bright future ahead of you and you don’t need to ruin it just because some police officer needs to meet some quota for a drug study.

DARE to resist drugs from cops.

So I Went to Jail Last Night.

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Last night Jena and I went to the 2011-12 Minneapolis Comedy Death Squad Awards and I’m proud to say this little blog won the “best blog / vlog” award. Thanks to everybody who voted!

Finally! An award I can never show my grandmother.

The latest addition to my family of Reapie awards. No big deal.




After we got home I gave our friend Kaia (who was kind enough to babysit) a ride home. After I dropped her off and helped her get her things out of my car I started driving back home but forgot to turn my headlights back on (YES MY CAR IS SO OLD THE HEADLIGHTS DON’T JUST TURN ON AUTOMATICALLY LEAVE ME ALONE I’M POOR). After just a block and a half of headlightless driving a cop pulled me over. I’ve stated before that I’m pathologically scared of cops so getting pulled over is always a shitstorm of anxiety but I tried to calm myself by reminding myself that I was probably just going to get a warning. My license was valid, the tabs were up to date, I was insured, everything was on the up and up. The cop asked for my license and insurance and went back to his car. He came back in less than a minute later. I figured the cop realized he had more important things to do than give some jackass who forgot to turn on his headlights a panic attack. That’s when the cop told me I had a bench warrant for a moving violation from last year and that he would have to take me to jail.


The cop gave me a couple of minutes to make a phone call before he handcuffed me so I tried to call Jena. No answer and I can’t leave a voicemail since we use the google voice service so it’s like we have the same voicemail for different numbers or something. I typed up a text that said “Going to jail. Warrant. Be home late. For the love of god turn your ringer on” and gave the cop my cell phone. One quick ride later we end up at the garage entrance to the jail waiting behind a Minnetonka cop car.



Note to suburban cops; city cops totally shit talk you when you’re not listening.



We head into an underground garage and the cops that arrested me totally cut in front of the suburban cops. The driver said “whelp, looks like we’re going first!” and brought me into a room with about a half dozen deputies standing around. One of them was weaing rubber gloves. He was to be my dance partner for the next two minutes.



I thought I’ve been patted down before. Going to certain music venues and airports I was all too familiar with a process that I was told was “patting down” but all those times I may as well have been given a high five for how noninvasive those pat downs were compared to this cop’s pat down. This man patted. Me. Down. Nothing was unexplored. I can now confirm that there are no weapons or drugs in my taint or buttcrack. I think he’s my boyfriend now. I’m a little pissed he hasn’t called but I don’t want to seem desperate. My shoes were taken and I was told to swap out my pants for some stylish orange sweats in a bathroom.


In the bathroom I noticed there was the “toilet without a seat” and realized that I needed to shit but I figured I’d have to ask permission first so I changed and they took me to a small (probably 4X8?) cell. After watching the half dozen cops stand around for ten minutes I realized I probably wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and needed to go to the bathroom. I pressed the call button on the intercom in the cell and a voice said “go ahead”.
“Hey, I hate to be a bother but I really need to go to the bathroom. Can that happen, please?”
“Everybody on duty is pretty busy right now so it may take a minute”.
I looked through the glass wall and saw the half dozen cops chatting away. Five minutes later the voice from my little intercom boomed through the big intercom in the room “Oh hey the guy in 14 needs to use the bathroom if anybody has a minute”. One of the cops escorted me to the bathroom where I changed.


30 seconds after sitting on the toilet it started flushing. I didn’t move. I didn’t touch anything. It just flushed. It did it again a minute later. After I was done I tried to find a lever to flush it manually but there was none. I went to the sink to wash my hands but there was no switch or button for the faucet. I waved my hands around, thinking there was a sensor. No luck. I started pushing and twisting at different parts of the sink but no water came. I poked my head out the door and asked “Hey, is the sink like a puzzle or is there-”
“That’s enough. Come on out.”
I still don’t know how those sinks work.



After some processing and mugshotting I was escorted to a larger, open cell with one other guy in it. The place was filthy. The floor and benches were covered in half eaten sandwiches, bread crusts and apple cores. While waiting around I noticed that there were a ton of bread crusts. Like, almost everybody who ate there earlier tore the crusts off their sandwiches. I pointed that out to the other guy in the cell. “Do you think there’s a connection? Like, if you tear the crusts off your sandwich you’re 40% more likely to be a criminal?” He told me I shouldn’t base my PhD thesis off of it.



For about a half an hour it was just me and this other guy in the cell. He was older, maybe in his 50s. Short, thin, grey hair. I wanted to ask him. Of course I wanted to ask him. How do you not ask? It’s so easy. Just four little words. “What did you do?”. I went over the different ways I could ask him. I wanted to seem cool but not that I was trying to look like I’m cool. I blurted out “So how did you end up in here?” and immediately regretted it. The guy actually looked at me for a second, turned away and said “Because there’s nobody out there.” I honestly thought he would start fading away at that moment, like a fog. I’d reach out to touch him but there was soon nothing there. I’d call out to the guard and ask where my cellmate went and the guard would look at me, puzzled, and say “Sir, you’ve been the only one in that cell all night”.



After a full computer scan of my hand and five sets of old fashioned fingerprints, I was allowed to call Jena and put into a different cell with more people. One guy started barking at me and immediately apologized, saying he hasn’t had his meds. The other guy started complaining about how uncomfortable the concrete bench was, saying that it was like they were trying to make us uncomfortable. Crazy bark guy agreed, saying the place was “twisting up my insides like a fork twisting spaghetti”. I said “Yeah, I’m totally giving these guys a bad review on Yelp”. There was total silence until the not crazy guy said “man, what’s yelp?” and I explained what it was and there was more silence. Five minutes later a couple of the guards were talking. One said “I can’t believe how many people complain about this place! ‘Uhh, this sucks, can’t you go faster? It’s cold in here!’ Seriously, if you hate it here so much than don’t get arrested”. I stuck my head out the door and said “Oh this place is definitely getting a terrible review from me on Yelp” and the guards laughed. I turned to my cellmates and said “See? It’s funny if you get the reference!”



Long story short (word count so far, 1372), my wonderful, smart, talented, beautiful sister who is also an amazing public speaker came with her rugged yet dapper husband and they bailed me out for $50. I got home a little before 5AM (arrested a little after midnight) and Jena greeted me at the door and hugged me. I leaned down and whispered in her ear “I was prison raped”. She looked up at me and said “were you even in there long enough to get raped?”
“What? How long do you think rape takes? It’s not like there’s foreplay involved.”



Thanks to the Minneapolis Police Department for keeping threats like me off the streets.

Pee Patrol

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Let me start by explaining that I’m scared of police. Pathologically scared. I don’t know what it is but even when I’m completely law abiding (98% of the time) I just tense up when around a uniformed cop. It’s weird but some people are afraid of clowns so don’t judge me. Judge them.

I spent the evening last night at Drink! in uptown. Not exactly my scene but my friend Brian was hosting trivia and I was learning the ropes to fill in for him next week. Two of the tips I was given was “just talk over the drunks” and “pretend there’s way more people in here than there actually is.” So basically this is going to be a standard stand up comedy show.

I watched Brian do his thing, chatted and drank some of my favorite kind of beer (free!) and walked home, stopping at Rainbow to pick up a few things on the way. I was two blocks from Rainbow with a grocery bag in each hand when I realized something. I had to pee.

I really had to pee. Bad. This was something that needed to be taken care of. I couldn’t walk back to Rainbow. I was lugging 20 pounds of groceries and already two blocks away. Pee needed to get out of me and in a few minutes it wouldn’t care if pants were obstructing it’s path. I looked around. No dark alleys in this part of uptown, just well lit new condos and open lots. I then realized I was standing right near an entrance to the Greenway Bike trail.

I didn’t want to go completely down to the trail because that’s where the homeless sleep. If they see me pee down there they might think I’m trying to mark their territory and attack me. The entrance, however, was half a block long and sloped downward. I took a few steps in, low enough to be out of sight from the street level but close enough to the street to run if the underdwellers smelled my fear. I unzipped and let nature take it’s course. That’s when the sirens blared.

Two cop cars a block away light up and drove in opposite directions. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. How did they see me? I stopped mid stream (which you’re totally not supposed to do) grabbed my groceries and ran to the street. I started thinking of excuses or alibis or something to tell them. Do I lie? They couldn’t have had a good look at me. “He ran that way, officer! Smelled like piss, he did!”. That could work. I’m carrying groceries. That’s respectable. “Just bringing some groceries to my home, which has a perfectly working bathroom that I use like a normal person.” I was so busy thinking of what to say it took me a full two minutes to realize that the cops were gone. I calmed down and kept walking, confident that I just got away with the crime of the century. I turned the corner onto 28th street and was greeted by five cop cars, blocking the street and right sidewalk with their lights on.

“Fuck!” I thought. “They’ve set up a blockade! I’m going to jail and the groceries are going to spoil and Jen’s going to have to bail me out and I’m going to get a lecture and some guy’s going to make me his bitch in jail. Not if I make him my bitch first. The second I get in there I need to establish dominance. I’m not that kind of person but this is prison and you do what you need to do to survive.” I walked toward the blockade, ready to turn myself in when I noticed that a car was pulled over. Oh thank god. It’s somebody else just getting a ticket or something. I walked by and the driver looked at me and kind of giggled. I don’t blame her. That’s a scary situation and fear makes you react in strange ways.

I got home and ran to the bathroom to finish the job I started on the Greenway trail. I went to unzip my pants and I realized the reason that girl was laughing was because my fly was down.