De’Shon Purtue
Professor Sperry
English 1301
02/20/14
Police pushing power?
The police should not be allowed to rule that you are publicly intoxicated without a sobriety test or blood test within the time limit. Not only does it take away from you being able to prove that you are not intoxicated, but in my point of view it gives the police a lot of unsupervised power. It’s a classic case where Big Brother’s word is always more reliable then Little Brother’s. But that is not always true, Big Brother’s lie also. I believe police are already prematurely fixated to have that unlawful power above the citizens of America. It was a cold and rainy Saturday night. I was attending the party of a cheerleader who went to my high school. Usually I would not go to a party by myself, but my girlfriend Kimberly did not think it was a good idea to go. I should have listened to her but I am a little hard headed. It is a given thing that I would drink alcohol at a party, but I drove my car with no one else to drive so I made the smarter decision that night not to drink. A couple of acquaintances and I moved around the house chit-chatting to different people every now and then, getting a feel for the party. From my prospective it was a decent party; good music, people, food, and vibes usually dial up a decent party. However that all changed after I heard someone yell “cops!” Cops are never in the recipe for a decent party. As everyone was in a frantic about the cops being outside I soon realized that I had no alcohol in my system nor could I go to jail for anything I did, so I calmed myself down mentally so I could think straight. As the cops pounded on the door the cheerleader who owned the house answered the door. Moments later I heard an unorganized chant of “driver of the silver car we need you outside” awkwardly enough I was the driver of the silver car. The police did the usual go round with me as far as questions. I was confused on why I had been called out, so I had asked the cop who seemed to be in charge. He had said that it was a water pipe broken by my driver side door and that it was a hazard to other cars. No one said that I could get a ticket for that so I assumed it was a warning, nothing more. As I mentioned before it was raining so as I walked away from the cops I slipped stepping up on the curb, The cops noticed that and took it as a sign I was publicly intoxicated. Before I could even think I was in handcuffs being read my rights. The only explanation I got was that I was deemed publicly intoxicated and going to jail. Nothing about this process felt right to me; from how the cops treated me to how the bed felt that night I was in jail. What made me upset the most is that the cops never gave me a
