Systemic Issues

How can we expect our justice system to retain legitimacy when it struggles for consistent results?

Systemic Issues

Yesterday I was working to finish up my post for the week. The costs of printing and publishing a tabletop game was the topic. As I typed I was struck with how surreal it was to just keep going focusing on professional topics with everything that is going on in America right now. I have mostly kept my politics to myself on social media as my engagement with these topics there hasn't felt very constructive in the past. I am mostly very liberal and I come from a family that regularly talks about politics and places great value on showing up and voting. This moment calls for commentary.

Inspired by Eric Lang's Facebook post HERE, and Brad Arnold's Facebook post HERE I am going to share a few stories of interactions I have had with the police throughout my life. In comparison to Eric and Brad's experiences they starkly highlight the issues with policing in this country. Also, if my post here does nothing but cause more people to read Eric and Brad's posts then that will be a great outcome.

  • Encounter #1 - It's 1995. I am 17 years old. I drove a car full of friends from Longview WA down to the Salem OR Armory to see Pantera play with Type O Negative opening on a Sunday evening. I left my wallet and keys in the car and removed the car key from my key ring. I secreted my car key in the side of one of my shoes so that it couldn't slide out of a pocket during the jumping around and so on during the concert. After the show ended my group returned to where we parked the car. I took my key out of my shoe and it had bent slightly to conform to the curve of my foot. I put it on the ground and pressed down on it to bend it back straight so I could get in and start the car. I picked up the key and as I put it into the lock it hit the edge of the keyhole and this shock was enough to break it in half where the bending had occurred. The break was in the teeth near the end and it made it impossible to open the car. After disbelief and swearing we searched the area we were in until we came upon a convenience store and I borrowed change from my friends so I could call my parents long distance from a pay phone. It's around 11:30 PM at this point. My parents both have to work in the morning. My father answers and listens to me explain what happened. He says to wait there and proceeds to drive two and a half hours to bring me the key he has. He pulls up at around 2 AM and hands me the key and leaves pretty immediately. He obviously wasn't super happy about the situation but wanted me to get home. We get everyone into the car and start the drive home. As we get closer to the exit for my home town it is between 4 and 5 AM. I am pretty tired and wrung out from the night and I think everyone of us in the car were nodding off at that point. I didn't notice that there was a police car behind me until they turned on their lights. I pull over into the shoulder of the highway immediately. The officer walks up to my window with his flashlight on and shines it in to look at us. I say "What seems to be the problem officer?" he says "I noticed you swerve now and then while you were driving so I wanted to check out what was going on. Can you please get out of the car with your license, registration, and insurance?" I exited the car and he had me come stand behind the vehicle while he checked out my paperwork. He comes back and hands me back my license and things and says "What's going on this morning? What are you doing out here this early?" I tell him the whole story starting with picking up my friends and going to the show, key issues, getting my father to come help me, then driving home trying to get back so we can all go to school in a few hours. He just listens as I talk. He then says "Have you had any alcohol or other substances this morning?" I say "No, sir." He says "I if I searched your vehicle and everyone in it would I find any illegal substances?" I look back into the car through the back windshield and all my friends are watching through the window. I turn back to him and say "I didn't bring anything like that with me but I can't speak for my friends." He looks at me for a beat and then says "So, you would say you are exhausted and are just trying to get home?" I replied "Yes, sir." He again looks at me for a beat and then says "Ok, you're pretty close to getting home. Get your friends to help you stay alert and be careful getting back. Have a nice morning." He then turned and walked back to his car, got in, and leisurely drove off. He didn't hear a more important call or see another driver speed by, it was 4 AM and no other car passed us in the period of time that he had me pulled over. I got back in the car, drove all my friends home, went back to my house, showered, and went straight to school. We had alcohol and marijuana in the car. Possibly psychedelics as well. I hadn't done any of that that night as I knew I would need to drive to and from over a fairly long distance.
  • Encounter #2 - It's July 4th weekend in 1996 or possibly 1997. This is in the summer after my senior year in high school or possibly the next summer after that. So, I am 18 or 19 years old. My parents have decided to go on vacation for a week and leave me at home to work my job. My sister is staying where she lives to work and isn't coming home for the Summer. So, I decide to throw a party for 4th of July weekend. Where I grew up 4th of July was basically a week long party for high school and near high school aged kids culminating with the large fireworks display over the lake and park that was a few blocks away from my parents house. This is the first large steam giving off event to kick off summer for our small town and people would come from the Washington and Oregon coast and out of town family would come for the fireworks, flea market, and parties. A group of my close friends and I go through the house securing anything we think might break and putting it away in an attempt to party proof the house. Then, we get a keg of beer and start getting together food and playing games. I run an open door policy for 2-3 days over the 4th and the crowd ebbs and flows as people come by hang out, drink, play games, etc ... On the fourth itself people are starting to show up that I don't really know having heard that the house party is running and the crowd is starting to get pretty big. My friends and I are having an awesome time! I am eating, drinking, socializing, moving around to keep an eye on things, and meeting lots of people that are friends of friends. The house and back yard are fairly crowded as dusk approaches. Someone finds me in the house says to me "There are policemen in the alley and they'd like to talk to you." I head there immediately. I come out the back gate of our yard and close it behind me. There are two officers standing in the alley way with their car. I say "Hello, how can I help you officers?" The officer closest to me says "Having a bit of a party here?" I say "Yeah, we are having a barbecue for the fourth." He says "Well, we've had some calls from your neighbors about the noise." I say "Sorry. I'll make sure we quiet down and that it isn't an issue as it gets later." He looks up and down the alley and says "Are you serving alcohol?" I say "No, sir." Then he says "Isn't this Mr. Freeman's house?" My father taught math at one of the two local high schools for about 35 years so it was a regular occurrence that we would run into current or former students of his in town. My father was a great teacher, and is well liked. I say "Yes, I am Mr. Freeman's son." He says "Ok, keep it quieter and get anybody that is in the front yard either in the house or out of here." I replied "No problem officer, I'll get that done right away. Stay safe out there." They got in their car and drove off down the alley. I went back in the house got everyone that was in the front yard to come back into the house, asked everyone in the back yard to take it easy on noise, and asked like 5-10 people I didn't know that well and looked to be definitely still in high school to leave. We continued our party and watched the fire works from the roof of the house.
  • Encounter #3 - It's 2004ish? I am approximately 26 years old. I am living in Memphis TN. I drive home after being out with friends in downtown Memphis. I live in the suburb of Collierville with a few friends and coworkers as room mates. I pull off of the highway into Collierville at about 2 AM. As I am sitting at the first red light that is directly after exiting the highway I notice a police car sitting in the parking lot of the Shell station that is on the corner of the intersection to my right. Thinking nothing of it I wait for the light to change and continue on my way. The police car pulls out of the parking lot behind me and follows me through the intersection. After we clear the intersection they speed up to get closer and then turn on their lights. I pull over into the closest parking lot as there isn't a shoulder on the road to pull over into. I stop the car and look around the interior to make sure everything is in order feeling somewhat mystified why I was pulled over. The officer comes up to my rolled down window. I say "How can I help you officer?" He says "Show me your license, registration, and insurance." I open my glove compartment, get everything out, and hand it all over to him. He says "I'll be right back." and goes back to his car to check everything out. My drivers license and license plate are from Washington state still. I had been living in Tennessee for almost 2 years at this point. I just hadn't gotten these things updated yet. They were both still current since my tabs had been renewed right before I moved if I remember correctly. He comes back to my window and hands me back my paper work. He says "When you pulled up to that red light by the gas station I saw you reach up and put your seat belt on." I look down at my lap at the clasped seat belt buckle and then back up at him. I say "Ok, I'm not sure what you saw because I buckled this seat belt when I got in the car." I tried to sound respectful but I am pretty sure I mostly failed. He says "No you didn't. I saw you buckle it while you were sitting at that light." I replied "Well, I guess there's no way I can really argue with you about it." He kind of nods and then says "Where are you headed around here?" I say "My room mates and I moved into (address I can't remember) almost a month ago." He says "Ok, I'll be right back." and returns to his car. After about 10-15 minutes he comes back and hands me a ticket. He says "Here's a ticket for your failure to wear a seat belt. It has directions on how to take care of it on the back. Get your license and plates updated as soon as you can you are supposed to have it done within 30 days of a change of address. Stay safe." He then walked back to his card and headed back towards the Shell parking lot. The ticket was for something like $30. If you went in at certain times of day throughout the week and paid by cash or check they knocked it down to like $16 or you could mail in a check or your credit card info to just pay the $30. No repercussions on your license if you paid on time.

I encourage you to read the Facebook posts I linked to above. The accounts of police interactions given there are very different than my own. So what causes my interactions to be relatively civil and mostly cautionary while other people have markedly different interactions with police officers? At the time the laws in each of these jurisdictions where much the same. In any of these situations these officers could have made life much harder for me if they had decided that it was necessary or seen me as a problem in some way.

I chose to highlight Eric and Brad's post because they are both relatively similar to me in age and socioeconomic status. I am a 40 something game nerd who is professionally creative. I grew up in the mid to upper middle class and enjoyed heavy metal music with great gusto in my youth (and adulthood!). Eric Lang shares many of these traits with me. There is a reason we have both designed games professionally. The main differences between he and I (other than that he is more successful due to great talent) is that he is from Canada and he is African American. Brad Arnold is slightly older than me and comes from my home town. He has made a successful career for himself freelancing in the film industry in Los Angeles. You have probably seen shows and music videos that he has worked on. He was in the theater program that I grew up in and regularly gamed with groups of my older sister's friends. The difference between the experiences he recounts and the ones I am recounting was the perception of socioeconomic status that went along with his experiences. The call in his post for us to consider that this is how people of color are treated all the time by the police and the criminal justice system regardless of their socioeconomic success is a powerful one.

If we allow a system to exist that inherently disadvantages large portions of our population, how long do we expect the majority of the country to view it as legitimate? Or something that they should engage with in good faith. Would you regularly play a game that advantages 3 of the players over the other 2? How fun would that be?

We can do better. It will take sustained work, showing up to every election everywhere, and hard conversations over time but leaving it the way it is now is unsustainable. I think everyone should be shown the respect and benefit of the doubt that I have been shown by police officers. Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious that this isn't our current reality. The work of getting our nation to live up to its stated ideals is on all of us together.


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