Post by Valencia Donahue on Jan 4, 2007 1:35:05 GMT 1
Sunday: July 09, 2006
There have been quite a few times where I wouldn’t know where to start a story, especially when it’s so fresh in the mind as it is right now, but in all honesty, this has got to be one of those few occasions where the beginning couldn’t be any more clear to the naked eye. Well, this just so happened on a Sunday afternoon around 6 PM while my mother, siblings, and I were driving down the street of Spring from J-Town, the Japan-ish part of LA that accompanied ChinaTown, and headed to our usual left turn onto College. So our speed was the typical cruising speed, as permitted by the viridian hue of the green traffic light. Of course, to our surprise, we realized too late that there were cones on College’s crosswalk and to avoid smushing them into orange, plastic hubcaps, we had little choice but to swerve with the best of our ability to make do with the situation. In short, we managed to remain on the left of the two lanes of the right side of the road, with the rightmost of the two lanes blocked by cones to obstruct the path of those they didn’t want in the secured area.
From there, confusion met frustration. It was a bit late when before we knew it, we noticed a bus driving down the road, a camera on wheels following after, and a black displeased police officer telling us to pull over. Thank goodness that we didn’t hit anything, but instead ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time during a film shoot. That alone ought to draw more attention than one would want in an afternoon, especially since this really created a scene that the tourists took as amusing. A mortifying case of schadenfreude, if anything. Taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. The cameras and smiles didn’t help our egos, in all honesty, and neither did the officer’s way in addressing us as if we were criminals like they do on television. Moral damage. I understand if such occupations have to be done, it is their job to do them after all, but this is a major contrast to the usual, pleasant demeanor I see whenever the police come to school and teach what they teach.
Digression aside, the first thing he told my mother was to get out of the car. My mother did as she was told and tried to explain her confusion to the situation, but the officer insisted on not lending an ear to her side of the situation. With that option shot down, when asked to give him the driver’s license, my mother obeyed and went back into the vehicle to fish it out of her purse. Of course, it wasn’t the swiftest of retrievals when the officer was harrying her to get it, because some things require patience and thoroughness to be performed efficiently. That aside, she gave him the license and he told her to move the vehicle because it was, after all, still in the secured area in the middle of the street. So we did the next best thing and followed him and drove our car to where he indicated, which happened to be a red curb. For lack of better terms, we “parked” there, but didn’t turn off the engine since if we did, we would be parking in an unauthorized zone.
From here, there was nothing else to do but to wait until the officer returned my mother’s license. It should come to no surprise that each and all of us felt cheated by the local law enforcement. It may be reasonable that the policeman probably displayed unstable behavior because he might have had a long day, but to crack under pressure at all showed quite blatantly that he had unprofessional work ethics. Aside from knowing for a fact that an authoritive figure must remain calm in performing their duties, I also know this from personal experience. Though there were only four of us in the car, my mother, younger sister, and brother, there were also plenty of other bystanders around as well who each had varied, neutral, but justified opinions of the event. I for one do not believe making up stories about thing like this, so I did what I felt was appropriate while the matter was fresh, and suggested to take pictures and record videos of this fiasco. With that being said, I set out to collect evidence in order to support our claims and prove that what just happened through our views were not falsehoods.
The moment I got out of the vehicle, the first things I did was take a multitude of pictures of the street, the turn, the corner, and everything else I deemed as relevant at the time. Something I was not capable of capturing on film, but nonetheless worthy notice, was when another officer in a white-tinted uniform, supposedly the security, entered the scene. The first thing he did was move the cones a tad to prevent future mistakes and stationed himself in the general area in order to guide the traffic along in case they too performed the same error as we did. After all, we only saw the cones after it was a too late and there was no one to let us know that it was a no-go. Personally, it would have made more sense to put the cones or a sign in a more obvious position in broad daylight, like blocking off the turn completely instead of the road the turn leads to. After taking a few photos and seeing a few other confused, bewildered drivers react to the cones, I proceeded in recording videos from there.
Basically, it came to no surprise that it was fairly easy to record footage of puzzled drivers being forced to U-turn or at a lost of what to do. At one point, I decided to take a picture of the officer, but missed a grand opportunity to record footage of two cars on the verge of a head-on collision. Then again, the incessant honking of horns accompanying inadvertent danger and the crowd of people in the general area should be more than enough proof that weren’t where they should be. To add to that and now considering it, I can’t believe that I was unable to record everything that the rude officer said and how he disrespectfully treated my mother, right in front of her own children.
I didn’t hear a “Please get out of the vehicle, ma’am,” I heard a harsh “Get out of the car!”
Was there a “May I please have a look at your drivers license?”
No, there was a loud “Give me your license!”
With a few other discourteous remarks side-by-side with “Get out of here!” and the like, after that bout led us to where we currently are in this statement of a story.
Each order was a fierce reprimanding shout and if that wasn’t enough to incite several sparks of anger in the backseats, adding insult to injury wasn’t exactly the best way to deal with some meddling kids who annoyed him by gathering useful proof and evidence. Such evidence, which was respectfully gathered by my younger sister, was that all this was for a bus commercial and that would explain why a camera-on-wheels and a bus nearly clipped if not crashed into us during the turn. Such evidence would be that the officer’s name was Bowen, or at least that was the name stated on his badge. I was about to snap pictures of proof that the headlights were still blinking, therefore the engine was still on and we weren’t technically parking until my mother told us to get in the vehicle. Plain and simply, my sister and I got into the car and from there, Mr. Bowen wrote up a parking ticket, tossed it into the front passenger seat, and told my family to scram. Thusly, we did, and my mother was obviously dismayed. Not only at the parking ticket with the wrong time being listed, but at the overall despicable display that was just witnessed by many and worst of all, us on the receiving end of that wretched sham.
According to my mother, the parking tickets shouldn’t be too much of a hassle because all it takes is a couple hundred dollars to pay off something that’s only of material importance, then it is over with. However, damaging one’s pride as a law-abiding individual and destroying our faith in the local law enforcement runs much more deeply into our being than our wallets. For reading this statement of mine, I would like to express my gratitude for understanding my situation and giving it proper consideration.
The ticket got pardoned some time ago.
We're now dealing with the cop.
There have been quite a few times where I wouldn’t know where to start a story, especially when it’s so fresh in the mind as it is right now, but in all honesty, this has got to be one of those few occasions where the beginning couldn’t be any more clear to the naked eye. Well, this just so happened on a Sunday afternoon around 6 PM while my mother, siblings, and I were driving down the street of Spring from J-Town, the Japan-ish part of LA that accompanied ChinaTown, and headed to our usual left turn onto College. So our speed was the typical cruising speed, as permitted by the viridian hue of the green traffic light. Of course, to our surprise, we realized too late that there were cones on College’s crosswalk and to avoid smushing them into orange, plastic hubcaps, we had little choice but to swerve with the best of our ability to make do with the situation. In short, we managed to remain on the left of the two lanes of the right side of the road, with the rightmost of the two lanes blocked by cones to obstruct the path of those they didn’t want in the secured area.
From there, confusion met frustration. It was a bit late when before we knew it, we noticed a bus driving down the road, a camera on wheels following after, and a black displeased police officer telling us to pull over. Thank goodness that we didn’t hit anything, but instead ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time during a film shoot. That alone ought to draw more attention than one would want in an afternoon, especially since this really created a scene that the tourists took as amusing. A mortifying case of schadenfreude, if anything. Taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. The cameras and smiles didn’t help our egos, in all honesty, and neither did the officer’s way in addressing us as if we were criminals like they do on television. Moral damage. I understand if such occupations have to be done, it is their job to do them after all, but this is a major contrast to the usual, pleasant demeanor I see whenever the police come to school and teach what they teach.
Digression aside, the first thing he told my mother was to get out of the car. My mother did as she was told and tried to explain her confusion to the situation, but the officer insisted on not lending an ear to her side of the situation. With that option shot down, when asked to give him the driver’s license, my mother obeyed and went back into the vehicle to fish it out of her purse. Of course, it wasn’t the swiftest of retrievals when the officer was harrying her to get it, because some things require patience and thoroughness to be performed efficiently. That aside, she gave him the license and he told her to move the vehicle because it was, after all, still in the secured area in the middle of the street. So we did the next best thing and followed him and drove our car to where he indicated, which happened to be a red curb. For lack of better terms, we “parked” there, but didn’t turn off the engine since if we did, we would be parking in an unauthorized zone.
From here, there was nothing else to do but to wait until the officer returned my mother’s license. It should come to no surprise that each and all of us felt cheated by the local law enforcement. It may be reasonable that the policeman probably displayed unstable behavior because he might have had a long day, but to crack under pressure at all showed quite blatantly that he had unprofessional work ethics. Aside from knowing for a fact that an authoritive figure must remain calm in performing their duties, I also know this from personal experience. Though there were only four of us in the car, my mother, younger sister, and brother, there were also plenty of other bystanders around as well who each had varied, neutral, but justified opinions of the event. I for one do not believe making up stories about thing like this, so I did what I felt was appropriate while the matter was fresh, and suggested to take pictures and record videos of this fiasco. With that being said, I set out to collect evidence in order to support our claims and prove that what just happened through our views were not falsehoods.
The moment I got out of the vehicle, the first things I did was take a multitude of pictures of the street, the turn, the corner, and everything else I deemed as relevant at the time. Something I was not capable of capturing on film, but nonetheless worthy notice, was when another officer in a white-tinted uniform, supposedly the security, entered the scene. The first thing he did was move the cones a tad to prevent future mistakes and stationed himself in the general area in order to guide the traffic along in case they too performed the same error as we did. After all, we only saw the cones after it was a too late and there was no one to let us know that it was a no-go. Personally, it would have made more sense to put the cones or a sign in a more obvious position in broad daylight, like blocking off the turn completely instead of the road the turn leads to. After taking a few photos and seeing a few other confused, bewildered drivers react to the cones, I proceeded in recording videos from there.
Basically, it came to no surprise that it was fairly easy to record footage of puzzled drivers being forced to U-turn or at a lost of what to do. At one point, I decided to take a picture of the officer, but missed a grand opportunity to record footage of two cars on the verge of a head-on collision. Then again, the incessant honking of horns accompanying inadvertent danger and the crowd of people in the general area should be more than enough proof that weren’t where they should be. To add to that and now considering it, I can’t believe that I was unable to record everything that the rude officer said and how he disrespectfully treated my mother, right in front of her own children.
I didn’t hear a “Please get out of the vehicle, ma’am,” I heard a harsh “Get out of the car!”
Was there a “May I please have a look at your drivers license?”
No, there was a loud “Give me your license!”
With a few other discourteous remarks side-by-side with “Get out of here!” and the like, after that bout led us to where we currently are in this statement of a story.
Each order was a fierce reprimanding shout and if that wasn’t enough to incite several sparks of anger in the backseats, adding insult to injury wasn’t exactly the best way to deal with some meddling kids who annoyed him by gathering useful proof and evidence. Such evidence, which was respectfully gathered by my younger sister, was that all this was for a bus commercial and that would explain why a camera-on-wheels and a bus nearly clipped if not crashed into us during the turn. Such evidence would be that the officer’s name was Bowen, or at least that was the name stated on his badge. I was about to snap pictures of proof that the headlights were still blinking, therefore the engine was still on and we weren’t technically parking until my mother told us to get in the vehicle. Plain and simply, my sister and I got into the car and from there, Mr. Bowen wrote up a parking ticket, tossed it into the front passenger seat, and told my family to scram. Thusly, we did, and my mother was obviously dismayed. Not only at the parking ticket with the wrong time being listed, but at the overall despicable display that was just witnessed by many and worst of all, us on the receiving end of that wretched sham.
According to my mother, the parking tickets shouldn’t be too much of a hassle because all it takes is a couple hundred dollars to pay off something that’s only of material importance, then it is over with. However, damaging one’s pride as a law-abiding individual and destroying our faith in the local law enforcement runs much more deeply into our being than our wallets. For reading this statement of mine, I would like to express my gratitude for understanding my situation and giving it proper consideration.
==============================================
The ticket got pardoned some time ago.
We're now dealing with the cop.
