OK. This was many years ago, when I first moved to the great state of Georgia from Louisiana...
My roommate and I, being poor transplants, lived in a pretty crappy apartment community on Windy Hill Road in Marietta. His car was broken into twice in six months. Anywho, this occurred after the second burglary, and prior to the repair of his smashed window.
My roommate, his friend, and I are stopped at a red light on Windy Ridge Parkway and a Cobb Co. police officer pulls up beside us and shows obvious interest in the broken window. My roommie looks back at me, and says, "We're getting pulled over."
Light turns green, and we continue on our way to get some very cheap, and pretty terrible, Chinese food, and the officer, as expected, pulls in behind us. Right when we're pulling in to the Chinese buffet, the blueberries come on. No problem, we expected the officer to pull us over, roomie is grabbing lic., ins., and reg., and everyone was calm cool and collected... right up to the point where the officer opens his door and draws on us.
Now, this freaks my roommate out. He gets pulled over a lot--young black male, Honda Prelude, cornrows, baggy clothes--but he's never had an officer pull his sidearm and draw down on him. Oh boy...
R: "What the
?", very loudly.
O: "Put your hands on the wheel."
Roomie complies.
R: "What the
, man, why are you pointing that gun at me?" in same loud voice.
O: "Who's car is this?"
R: "It's my car, now would you please stop pointing that gun at me..."
More officers arrive, weapons drawn...
Me: Holy
, this is crazy!
<things>
As I'm getting ready to get out, the officer leans in the car and asks, "Are you all right?" Eh, I'd like to give the officer the benefit of the doubt, but the department really needs to work on "tact" in that situation. I understand that I was the only white guy in a car with two black guys, but a more tactful officer would have asked everyone if they are ok, not just the pale person, so that he or she did not appear to be a bigot. Perception is everything. Officer is pretty cool, explains why he pulled us over, and we say we understand, but all three of us express our displeasure at having a weapon aimed at us.
Anyway, if
criminals would stop shooting at LEOs, then LEOs wouldn't have to be in "combat mode" on every traffic stop. Any time you draw a weapon, there is a chance a bullet will exit the barrel, and I don't want to be looking at the business end of a firearm when that happens.
