The one time in my life that I got arrested
I have never been to jail. I have been arrested once in my life and it was a case of me having not paid some unpaid parking ticket that I was unaware that had been given to me because it was one of those ones where they leave it on your car and you are supposed to see it, pick it up, and pay it.
I think that entire situation could have been avoided by them making a phone call to me but hey! The 90's was a different time than now. When I say I was arrested it wasn't a "down on the ground!" handcuffs sort of thing. They sent a very old officer to my residence that simply informed me that I had to go to the magistrate's office on a very early Monday morning. The cop in this situation apologized to me and was a really nice guy. I was in college at the time and invited him in for a coffee before we headed out to the magistrate office with me following his car because as someone who doesn't do crimes, I was unfamiliar with where this office was and we also didn't have GPS at that moment in time. I was released as soon as I paid the ticket. That's my only time being arrested. There were no cuffs, I just had to sign something the officer had with him and then just like he said, follow him to the magistrate's office.
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At that time in my life I was actually working in construction so I asked the cop if it was ok if I put on my work outfit which included a high visibility orange jacket. It didn't occur to me that criminals of a higher order inside the magistrate's office would also be wearing orange, but for very different reasons. It would occur to me later that this cop was probably breaking protocol because he allowed me to go into another room, close the door, and then emerge later with whatever I wanted on me. I think that today this wouldn't be allowed because I actually DID have firearms in the house that day and as far as he knew, I could have been going in the back to obtain a weapon.
This was kind of an eye-opening day to me because even though I was there for a non-issue crime that isn't really even a crime and I had zero criminal record, it was still a pretty scary scene. The judge, who I presume was the acting magistrate (I still don't really know what that is) was up on a raised platform in a kind of ominous room that was a bit poorly lighted and seemed to me to be something out of a really dark film. Around the room there were holding cells and there was also several people that were restrained like animals and one guy had to be removed from the room because he wouldn't stop misbehaving long enough to even talk to the judge. Some of these people in the room were proper criminals and then there was a bunch of people like me that were there because of extremely minor offenses such as not paying a parking ticket because the guy was unaware he had been issued a parking ticket.
The magistrate of course, whipped through my case very quickly and told me that I would be immediately released if I paid the ticket on that day. He believed me when I said I never saw the ticket and that is why I never paid it. I suppose he gave me the benefit of the doubt due to the fact that I had no record at that point, was a college student, and had given the officer zero trouble when being "arrested." He also said my record would be wiped of the arrest and that there would be nothing bad on there for anyone to find. There would be no repercussions such as if an officer ever looked me up they wouldn't see that I had been arrested in the past. This was good.
Now given some of the videos that I stumble across these days on YouTube, I think about how this situation could have gone terribly wrong for me if I behaved like some of the people I see in certain videos who turn a traffic stop into a felony by acting like animals.
I don't want a police state, I want to be left alone. On the flip side though, I think one of the worst things you can do when you are faced with the police is to be a pain for that officer or officers.
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You may have seen one of these videos before. The person refuses to provide ID, registration, and insurance proof, is on the phone while the officer is trying to talk to them, they then refuse to get out of the vehicle and for some reason everyone insists on seeing a supervisor, the next thing you know a speeding ticket turns into resisting arrest, assault on a peace officer, destruction of property, and other felonies.
I think back to that day when I heard a knock at my door at 7 am or so and how I could have reacted like a fool the way that these people in the cars were. I could have shouted at the aged officer for "ruining my day" and gave him a lot of grief for arresting me for something I didn't even know I had done wrong that occurred months ago. The thing is, I don't think the officer even knew the specifics of why he was there and there was a reason why they sent a lone cop who appeared to be near 70 years old to my house. He handled the situation perfectly actually. He wasn't filled with bravado and actually apologized for what it is that he had to do that morning. I look back on that situation with kind of a nice feeling because well, even though I don't want police all up in my business, everything was handled in a sort of old-timey and friendly way. Sort of like an Andy Griffith arrest.
I believe times are very different now and that there probably aren't many situations like this anymore. Was it kind of stupid that I had to take 2 hours out of my Monday morning to go physically stand in front of a judge to receive the details of a parking ticket that I didn't even know I had been issued? Yes. I'd like to hope that things are handled very differently today in the information age but based on what I know about government and how inefficient they are, I doubt it.