My dog is right at one year old. We don't have a fenced backyard, so I have to walk him out there on a leash a few times a day so he can do his business. Our house is one of two in a cul-de-sac, so when we walk on either side of the house, the rest of the street is visible to us, and we are visible to it. At night I use a flashlight instead of the bright security lighting. I like the dark, and it's easier to avoid the landmines my dog, Blue, has previously dropped with it anyway, so about 1:00 this morning, I leashed Blue and headed out for our last business-run with flashlight in hand.
As soon as I walked out on the back deck, I noticed bright lights were illuminating part of my back yard coming from the front of the house and shining down the side. I also noticed that blue lights were flashing. The lights were bright enough that I knew I wouldn't be able to see anything looking directly into them, so I took Blue to the opposite side of the house first to try to see what was going on up the street. When I got there, I could see an ambulance and two cop cars with all their lights on facing my house, parked two doors up the street. I could also see two cops standing in that driveway talking to John, my neighbor. Not wanting to be overly-nosy, or attract any unwanted attention from the cops, I took Blue out to the far corner of my approximately one-acre yard where he normally does his "big" business and gave him all 26' of the retractable leash to cruise around looking for that perfect spot to unburden himself. We were the farthest away from the part of my property that faces John's house, but still visible if someone was looking out there, which, apparently, at least one of the cops was.
All of a sudden I hear an authoritarian-sounding voice say loudly, "What are you doing out here?!?!" At the same time the cop shone his flashlight in my face as I was turning towards the sound of his voice. He was standing about 15' feet from me in my own backyard. I said, "Lower the light dude! This is my backyard and I'm walkin' my f!$&ing dog! The question is, what are you doing out here!?!?" He says, "Walking your dog at 1:00 in the morning?" "Yeah man, it's the last thing I do before going to bed every single night for the last year! You can probably go back where you came from and ask John. I'm sure he sees me out here all the time." Then he asks me for ID! I told him to get lost, I'm going to bed, and started walking back towards the house. He says, "How do I know you even live here?" I advised him to radio his partner, whom I could still see was talking to John in his driveway, and ask him to identify me, which unbelievably, he actually did. John told his partner that he knew I was his neighbor because he'd seen me when Blue and I first came around my house. The cop says, "Well, OK then, but I don't know why you got such an attitude. We're just out here trying to look after your property." I'm thinkin' to myself, "Yeah, right. You get in my face, shine a flashlight in my eyes, start questioning me for no reason whatsoever, trespass while you're doing it, and you're looking after my best interests???" I just said, "Yeah, whatever, you can get off my property now."
I just got back from talking to John. He's probably 70 or older. Turns out his wife has developed dementia and has gotten increasingly violent over the last several months. He feels scared to put his hands on her to try to control her when she goes off because she doesn't even remember what happened once the cops get there after she calls them. If she has bruises on her arms, or gets scratched or something while John's trying to calm her down, that's all the "evidence of abuse" the cops would need to arrest him, so instead of doing all that, he changed the locks on the front and back doors to keyed locks both inside and out, and locks her inside while he goes outside to call 911. Apparently the cops have been out here four times in the last couple or three months, but it was either while I was at work, or asleep or whatever, and didn't know about it until this morning.
Anyway, I don't hate cops, but I sure as Hell don't like 'em demanding ID and an accounting of my sleep schedule while they're trespassing on my property. If I didn't know for a fact what a completely frustrating waste of time it would be, I would go to the cop-shop and file a complaint. The CoP doesn't care though. While this is the first time cops have ever even been on my property since I've owned it (12 years), it isn't the first I've heard of their rude and demanding style of "policing" that their Chief approves of and encourages. Conspiracy or otherwise, the attitude by cops that they can break the law with impunity is as pervasive as it has ever been across this country, and it's only getting worse.
The saying, "Don't piss down my collar and tell me it's raining" comes to mind. Cops are, by and large, abusive thugs.
Blues
