Sorry, Mr. Officer Man …
If you’ve known me for a while then you also probably know I’m not a big fan of law enforcement officers. Generally speaking I’m distrustful and very much dislike cops and what not. While I’ve not had a run in personally, too many honest friends have been mislead and mistreated by cops in the past and I’m just wary of them as a rule. Of course, I know there are many good ones out there, but that doesn’t change the history I’ve seen with them in Los Angeles.
Yesterday afternoon I was leaving my comics shop on Ventura Blvd. and did a stupid thing – I did a two lane lane change RIGHT in front of an LA County Sheriff without a signal. While there wasn’t any traffic for me to be screwing up, it was rather blatant and well, he caught me. So, he got in behind me and as soon as the light turned green he threw on his lights and I pulled in to the MTA Bus Stop depot at the Universal City Subway station. I rolled down my windows, took my keys out of the ignition and threw them on the dashboard and sat there with my hands on the wheel, like I’m supposed to, as the officer walked over to my car. As he approached I said, “Wow, I did a stupid thing right in front of you, huh?”
The officer kinda chuckled and said, “Yeah. License and registration please.”
Which I gladly gave to him. I was very cooperative, seeing as how he “caught” me red handed. I handed all my info to him and he said, “Man, if you had done that on any other street I probably would let you off, but it was Ventura Blvd.” I said I understood and he went back to his car to write it all up.
About a minute later he walked back to my car and said, “You know what, I really don’t want to do all this paperwork, so how about I give you a parking ticket instead of a moving violation? It’ll save you like $150 and there’s no point on your record.”
Obviously I agreed, so he wrote me up for stopping in an MTA zone. $45. I’ve got no problem paying that over a $195 moving violation, plus traffic school. So, either I found one of the good cops, or one just too lazy to do all the paperwork. Either way, thanks good buddy.
