The Road To Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
| This happened two nights ago (Thursday) and it's had me laughing ever since it happened. A friend and I were making a trip to the 7-11 down the street to grab something to eat and drink. Next to this 7-11 is a strip club/bar. This little fact is important. Adam (my friend) and I pulled up in the 7-11 parking lot and as soon as we got out of the car and started to walk inside, another car pulls up behind us and the driver asks if we can step over for a moment. We're two fairly cocky 20somethings so we're not worried about him trying to pull anything. It turns out that the man driving the car had his entire family with him, and tells us the story of how he lost his drywall job and had to sell all of his tools, etc just to get enough money so his family can get home. He never said where "home" was only implied it was still one hell of a journey to go. After telling us his story (and breaking down crying in the process, no shit) he asks if we have any change to spare so he can put gas in the car and "Get them home". I only had about $3 in change on me and Adam even less; downside of using debit cards almost exclusively. I counted out the change I had while Adam scoured his car for anything he might have. After we gave him the change he hits us with another question: Apparently they must have been on the road for awhile and haven't eaten in awhile, because he asked if we could buy his kids (remember, whole family in the car) in the backseat a bag of Fritos (product placement?) since they "haven't had anything to eat in a week". We agreed and went inside of 7-11 to get what we wanted and his kids something to munch on. Adam grabbed the little 99 cent bag at first but then realized that wasn't shit, threw it down and got the big bag, finished before I did and went outside with the bag of chips. A few minutes later I return to the car and we start joking about how weird the situation was at first and how it kinda looked like a drug deal. Then reality sets in and we start to feel really badly for this random guy and his family down on their luck, that we live in the fucking united states of America and things like this still happen. We leave the 7-11 and start driving in the direction of his house when we notice a car pulled over by police a few parking lots down from the 7-11. "Hey, is that the guy from 7-11?" Adam asked me, not being able to look as he was driving. "I don't think so...nah that's not them. No way" I replied, having not paid enough attention to the man's car in the first place to really make the call. We shrug it off and continue the rest of the 1/2 mile or so to his house from the 7-11. As we're parking what do we see lighting up the entire area (this was around 10pm) but a Virginia Beach Police squadcar. Adam and I immediately start laughing our asses off. The first officer walks over to the driver's side, and asks Adam to step outside of the car for a moment. Before he closes the door I hear the cop ask Adam "do you know why we pulled you over" and "we were watching you and it looked like a drug deal". A drug deal. We try and help out a family in need and the cops think we're doing A FUCKING DRUG DEAL. They looked at the situation and my friend and I, Adam being surfer-guy and myself looking like I just walked out of the 60s with hair down to my ass and a goatee thick enough to host a family of sparrows for the winter and just assumed it was about drugs. A few minutes later his partner comes over to the passenger side, asking me to step out of the car so we could have a talk. No problem here; I love talking to cops. I know my rights, the local laws and a good part of the Commonwealth's laws (We're in Virginia, it's not a state. Yea.) so I always have fun talking with cops. They can't pull shit past me. Anyway: officer #2 asks me if I knew why they stopped us. "Well I overheard the other officer saying that it looked like a drug deal," I replied to the second officer with a laugh, "and to be honest it kinda did. Kudos to you guys for being on the ball like that". "You're right," the officer replied, "it looked like you two made a deal in plain view. We've had the bar under surveillance for awhile now as we've had problems with this lately. We saw you talking with the car and make an exchange. Why were you talking with that car?" I relate the story to the officer, of the man's sob story, of him having to sell his tools, unable to feed his family, etc. "So all you did was buy him a bag of chips and give him some change?" the officer asked me. To be honest it did kinda sound like a bullshit story. "That's right officer. We just felt damned bad for the man, that kind of thing just breaks your heart. Especially when he has his damn kids in the car, ya know?" Here's where I got a laugh. The next thing I know he's putting his flashlight in his holster and starts moving closer to me. "I'm going to go ahead and search you now, ok?" "Excuse me?" I asked him, "Can you repeat that I didn't hear you quite clearly." "I'm going to go ahead and search you now, ok?" "No." "No?" he asked me, obviously looking surprised I refused the search. "No. I would like to retain my 4th amendment right and refuse your request for a search." "You're refusing the search. You do realize that this looks very suspicious and casts you in a bad light" "Right. I fully realize this. I would just like to retain my 4th amendment right and not allow your request of a search. You see officer I'm a registered Libertarian and it's the principle of the thing. It's a purely political thing." "Purely political." replied the officer. Notice how he just kept repeating back what I said to him? "Right, it's political. One of those 'use `em or lose `em' type deals." After a few seconds he looks at me, and starts flipping through a small notepad he had taken out. "I don't even have to show you my ID, but I will just to make things go a bit more smoothly." I said, feeling pretty damn cocky at this point. "Well you didn't before but now you do." he replied. Uh oh, damn cop got me on a bit of the law I should have known. Flipside to refusing a search; you HAVE to show ID. Damn Virginia. I gave him my ID and relevant information when he said the funniest thing of the night: "We could go down to court and argue about this for hours, but for now we'll just let it slide in that grey area." Grey area. The 4th Amendment. My. White. Honkey. Ass. After that we started chatting for a few once they realize we were telling the truth; it helped Adam still had the receipt for the bag of chips. Adam let the first officer search him, even though he shouldn't have but that's another rant. We finished up with their questions, we all had a good laugh over the confusion and the cops went on their way. Adam and I still haven't stopped laughing about this. What burns me about the entire situation is we got pulled over and accused of a drug deal for trying to help someone out that is down on their luck. A random soul asked for help and we're accused of being criminals. Moral of the story: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. |
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