OK, so here's the half-promised blog entry on the cop, Deputy Block, badge #967, Samuel (sic?) County Sheriff's Office. at least I heard him say Samuel County, even though I never heard of it, and I'm pretty sure Del Rey is in San Diego County. all this is from memory, written down maybe an hour after it happened, so I'm not 100% sure of any details.
roughly 0340 to 0350 -- could have been a little less or a lot more -- I was detained by the above named officer. it started when he pulled up and started asking the usual nosy questions: who I was, what I was doing, where I was going. I told him I don't converse with cops and if he wanted to chat he could find me when he was off duty. he didn't like this, and ordered me to sit down on the curb, specifically stating that I was being detained.
he lied at least twice saying I was in the middle of the road -- same as the CHP cop who kept repeating that I was on the freeway. these cops must be trained to lie early and often. I was on the sidewalk until my headlamp batteries were so weak I didn't see the bumps and almost fell. then I stepped into the bike lane, and into the parking lane after walking around a car.
anyway, I should have kept my mouth shut and just handed him my ID (if that -- I'll have to check if that's mandatory on detainment) but I answered some of his questions out of habit. he asked if I'd ever been arrested before and I said yes, a long long time ago. he asked what for and I told him if it came up on a records search he'd find out. he was cool with that.
he asked if he could search my stuff and I told him I don't consent to a search but if he forced it on me I wouldn't do anything to stop him.
anyway he let me go after the records search came up negative. sure I could have avoided the whole confrontation if I'd just answered his nosy questions, as I've almost always done in the past. but it's time to stand up for principles. I've just got to get better at it.
last updated 2015-10-26 00:34:09. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com