Arrest

[marcmagus]

I was arrested tonight. Did you know that when I walk down the middle of the road at night with my hair in a bun held back by a purple happy flower, I look "uncannily like a car thief"?

Neither did I.

So I'm walking home from a wonderful RHPS dress rehearsal. (It's been a year, and I had reason to feel I'd gotten rusty) I decide, in the interest of slightly increased safety, that I would prefer to walk in the middle of the road rather than along the sidewalk. (The roadway is better lit, and a theoretical assailant would have to cover more ground to reach me.) The road narrows or turns at an intersection or something, because I drift back to the sidewalk, then notice and move back out onto the road. I'm thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow night.

Suddenly a car turns right in front of me like it's turning into a driveway, but it stops and someone starts to get out of the car. Being the paranoid person who's been choosing the middle of the road as a safe place to walk, I step closer to more clearly see the person who seems to be trying to get my attention. (Doh, not clever, Marc. Be nervous, don't assume it's a friend. Even if you do have friends who would do just that.) Some gus gets out of the car and says, "You seem to be mighty interested in that car," and points over my shoulder. I give him an extremely puzzled look.

He says he's a police officer, and asks me to take my hands out of my pockets. After I do so, he shows me his badge. (IIRC, it's what you get when you concatenate a 2 and a 3, multiply that by 3, then add what you get when you add 2 to 3.) He asks me for identification, I ask if I have to provide it, he says yes, I do so. He asks me if I still live at <my parents' house>, I say I don't, I live at <my address>. He asks where I'm going and where I'm coming from. I tell him I'm coming from a rehearsal at Vassar, and I'm going home. He asks if I'm a student there, I tell him I'm an alum. I offer to show him my alum ID, he accepts and looks at it.

Somewhere in all this, he tells me there's been trouble with someone stealing cars, and I look uncannily like the posters they have of the thief. Then he says I'm clearly not a criminal, and lets me go. He mentions which code entitles him to ask for identification...something about the something Civil something, and probable cause. I'm afraid I wasn't retaining details too well at that point.

So now I've learned one of the things all those police officers I mentioned last week do. They sit around in plainclothes in unmarked cars looking for someone who looks like they might be a car thief to do something which looks like they might be checking out a car. Which really isn't bad, even if I'm a little sarcastic, in that they're making a good faith effort to stop an actual crime that's been going on, and not a petty one.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That's nuts. But does that count as an actual arrest? They stopped you, but let you go. They didn't book you or anything.

Regardless, that's still freaky...

[gaiaturtle.livejournal.com]

Sorry that was me. :-P

[ladymedb.livejournal.com]

that's not being arrested. lol.

[velvetmouse]

well, his progress homewards was arrested temporarily........

[marcmagus]

Exactly. :)

[wylddelirium.livejournal.com]

Technically, being arrested includes a trip to the police station, usually in handcuffs. They read you miranda rights, at the very least.

But I'm sorry. I'm sure it was a pretty shaky experience for you.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

Dude.

I'm sorry that you were harrassed, but it sounds like it was in a good cause.

[emergent.livejournal.com]

One of my roommates had this experience repeatedly a few months ago- he looked a lot like a wanted poster put up all over the area for a serial robber. The police stopped him 3-4 times, and he had people on the street pointing at him and going, "Look, it's the guy from the poster!" He tried changing the way he wore his hair and clothes, and they updates the wanted posters to match.

Thankfully, they eventually caught the real person, but it took them >2 months.

[nxk3.livejournal.com]

There was a SCOTUS decision last year (Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada)that upholds the constitutionality of laws allowing people to be arrested for failing to identify themselves if there is "reasonable suspicion" (rather than the more stringent probable cause) that they have commited a crime.

The ACLU's Know Your Rights: What to do if You're Stopped by the Police may be of interest.

[illogicalvulcan.livejournal.com]

I was pretty much going to say was nxk3 said, so I won't repeat it. It is also not outside the realm of possiblity that walking down the middle of the road violates some idiotic law about keeping to pedestrian walkways, which would also give the cops cause to demand your id. Not that there wasn't enough cause already, sadly.

Now you have a nice story for the Thanksgiving dinner table.

[marcmagus]

Oh, yeah, I expect I was violating some law of that nature. I just wasn't sure if he could demand id at that point or not.

[iamyourgoldfish.livejournal.com]

(Reposting as myself.)

Heehee. Purple happyflowers are suspicious.

Congratulations on surviving your encounter with The Man.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I was arrested tonight. Did you know that when I walk down the middle of the road at night with my hair in a bun held back by a purple happy flower, I look "uncannily like a car thief"?

*snrk!* That line made me giggle. Hippie pirate, perhaps. Car theif....no.

And RHPS, woo! Totally my obsession of the...getting on twoish months, I think. What part do you/did you play?

~Sor

(And no, I don't have anything better to do with my time then trawl through old elljay entries of yours. Theres the advantage of doing freeewrites "Of course I was productive the whole period Mr. Teacher, I just was running low on ideas!")

[marcmagus]

*giggle* You remember the Hippie Pirate thing, do you? "My father had a kind heart, but he couldn't spell. An' y'know what they say about the power of names..."

I'm somehow unsurprised that you're into RHPS. The show in question I was just showing up at their dress (with permission) to practice callbacks a bit and reduce the effect of a year without having been to a live show. I was, as I said, a bit rusty.

I (co-)directed Vassar's show for a number of years. I've played Frank. I've played Betty Munroe. I've done any number of assorted auxilliary roles (pre-show things and the like). I've been in a two-man (plus one woman playing only Janet) impromptu production in which I probably played pretty much everybody except Janet.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I most certainly *do* remember the hippie pirate thing. That's actually how Aly remembers you as well.

I may have pictures I yoinked from the LARPC conreport, but I wouldn't swear to it. Hummm...

Ah, lovely. I really do like the flower in the hair look. It's terribly fun.

Heh. I'm not so much into Rocky at the moment as really really obsessed. Perhaps another few reallys should be thrown in there? Which is especially impressive as I've only ever seen it twice...

And I'm very glad you've played Frank, as you've definently got the hair for it. And I'm just going to leave it at that, because contemplating you in a corset will make my brain hurt in far too good a way.

~Sor