The City of Albuquerque and metro area is full of really bad cops, and the tales of their incompetence never end. My sister can tell you about the time some Rio Rancho Police got bored once day in a post-donut high and decided to pick on her and her black-wearing, metal-loving teenage friends. They accused them of drinking, sniffed their diet Cokes and claimed that they reeked of booze, and detained them in the back of the police car while they bragged about their cock size to each other. They released the kids, of course, a few minutes before my dad came to pick my sister up... you know how much that makes sense, that they would not wait for parental types if they were really convince the kids were drinking....
More recently my friend got pulled over, and the cop decided it would be neat to pull her out of the car and cuff her for arguing with him about whether he'd asked for proof of registration or not. I'm sure he thought she was dangerous, you know, a young woman up against a big man. She noted the sick gleam in his eye; he obviously got off on torturing young women.
The most common complaint about Albuquerque Police is that they enjoy helping suicidal people finish the job. Despite all the new technology designed to maim and not kill folks who are waving guns around, APD still prefers to shoot first and ask questions later... lots of times the "guns" people have turn out to be shiny crosses, squirt guns, and little white flags of surrender, but hey, why not shoot? And the murderer, er, officer normally gets paid suspension while the department "investigates."
I have lesser complaints; don't I always? But in June I was driving downtown on a Friday, a day of hell in terms of parking, driving and such. I got hit from behind at a stoplight by some stupid kid. Fortunately I saw him and managed to pull up a little, and I drive a tank, so no damage was done, but I was annoyed and shook up. I decided not to bother with the cops, though, and so we went on our merry ways.
I desperately tried to find a parking space so I could get out of my car, since I was shaking a bit; for some reason Friday makes parking impossible. So, in making a left turn from a 2-way street (Central, a slow, congested crawl) onto a 1-way street, I took the yellow. So I thought. I felt the car in front of me caught the last of the green, and I caught the yellow. This copper pulls up behind me, and just as I'm getting to the end of the next block to turn again, he turns on his lights. Since he waited so long, I'm actually not sure if he's pulling me over, or if he needs to get around me.
He was pulling me over. For running a red. I was furious. In no way had I compromised the safety of anyone on that road. In fact, I had seen several cars turn left just as the light turned green before the cars coming the other way could start going-- blatantly dangerous. It was quite apparent that this little prick needed to make quota for the month and decided to take a questionable call and turn it into a violation.
So, because I'm downtown everyday, I set a court date at metro court. It's not until September 1st. Typically cops don't show up and the cases are dismissed; I can see why they wouldn't show, since it's so long after it happened and the defendant will recall the incident much better. But I almost wish he would show up, so I could tell him to go fight real crime and actually try not to be an asshole to law-abiding citizens.
So, I say Damn the Man! Take your big egos and little... minds, and shove it!