Singing the Sky

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I can see where NWA got their attitude. Since being on the “wrong side of the law” with my son, I have had new experiences that really lead me to dislike living in Texas, and particularly in this town. If these are the sorts of experiences that the people ranting about the police have had, I can’t say that I blame them.

Today, I was taking Sky to his group “therapy” at the probation office. On the way, there were two cop cars facing each other on the side of the road. Their lights were on, and they were outside their cars, chatting in the grass. I just drove on by. Pulling into the probation office’s driveway, a very short distance away, I saw lights in my rearview mirror.

The cop told me that I had failed to get into the other lane when I saw flashing lights. They were chatting, for crying out loud. It wasn’t a damn emergency, it was a set-up. When he asked me how long I’d been living in town, I replied, “Ever since I’ve been working at _______ Alternative School.” When he found out where I worked, his demeanor changed instantly, and he gave me a warning.

He said, “There are too many of us that get hit when people don’t pull over, you know.”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying that the side of the road was not the best place to have a chat.

Meanwhile, his partner was interrogating my son. He had him out of the car, had demanded to see his ID, asked him why he was on probation, accused him of being high, inquired as to whether or not he had any drugs or weapons on his person, and so on. He called in his ID number and name on the radio.

Then he came around to my side of the car and asked me if my son was high. I said, “Officer, if you have reason to suspect that he has been using, I’ll ask his probation officer to test him right now. Do you?”

“No, I don’t, but you are keeping a close eye on him, aren’t you?” he replied. I made another remark about where I worked and the conversation came to an abrupt end.

It is good that I work where I do. It helped today. It isn’t fair though. They set up a trap near the probation office. Most people would have been paying a ridiculous ticket. More importantly, they violated my son’s civil liberties when they asked for his ID. He is not the one who broke the law, I did. They had absolutely no probable cause. Can I prove this? Absolutely not.

My dad told me about the time my brother got searched because he was playing basketball with some black kids, and according to the police, blacks and whites don’t mix unless the whites are buying drugs from the blacks. When my parents complained about this treatment to the chief of police, he told them, “They patted him down because sometimes the kids carry guns like this one.”

The chief proceeded to pull a small gun out of his desk drawer and lay it on his desk, with the barrel facing my father. Surely a trained police officer knows about gun safety? Or was it a threat? You decide. It all ended “happily” when the chief’s daughter, who had a crush on my brother, walked in.

So I live in a world where people act like they believe my mild mannered child would be bringing weapons to the probation office. Where it is scary to refuse to refuse to hand over an ID because what would happen then? Where blacks and whites cannot play ball together without being under suspicion. Where my son’s probation officer tells him that he can be proven guilty by association.

We are arresting children. A six-year-old girl who threw a fit at school was arrested. A seven-year-old kid who merely took the cover off a fire alarm at school was arrested. A four-year-old kid was arrested for supposedly feeling his teacher’s breasts during a hug. Everything is criminalized.

In TYC (Texas Youth Corrections), there are almost one-hundred kids incarcerated for breaking curfew and the possession of small amounts of marijuana. This is not right.

I am scared. I feel like running away. I am too afraid to fight, because my son is still in the system. What will become of Sage? Perhaps I should not raise him here. What the hell is wrong with this country??? Is there a place in the world that is not like this? I despise what our country is becoming. National ID…Police State, here we go.

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