Every month after the 15th or so, a strange ritual takes place across America and that is, cops look as if they are doing their jobs…almost. Driving east along Howard toward McCormick between now and May 31st will be a challenge to some motorists for certain.
There, in one of the several vacated buildings parking lots along Howard (and close to home), sits a blue Skokie police cruiser with its motor running, hoping to catch a speeder to fill their monthly ticket quota.
Having attended & graduated from the Evanston Citizen Police Academy a few years ago, I have heard different instructors, both former and current law enforcement officials say there is no such thing. Well, if that’s so, then why do we see so many police officers out and about in heavy rotation after the 15th of the month? Incidentally, the first speed trap in America was established Evanston, Illinois, and a suburb just east of Skokie in 1901.
Speed traps are what keep police departments in the black nationwide. It is a natural fixed income for law enforcement’s never-ending battle to keep a regular flow of money in their coffers. It is a wonderful way to keep departmental revenues rolling in the dough, whether they care to admit or deny such things. Or it could be viewed as another form of creative crime.
Ah, creative crime. Creative crime is nothing new for law-men; they’ve been working hard at it for years, everything from roadside safety belt checks, sting operations to enforcement of obscure laws, such as jaywalking.
Although cops have been painted up over the years as heroes, that image has been tarnished over the past several years with more and more reported outbursts of police brutality, the most famous of these beatings came with Rodney King and the chaos that followed, after the officers who committed the actions were acquitted…initially.
Seemingly, after 911, their image changed yet again. The average police officer became a TV star, thanks in part to all of those idiotic cop reality shows and the biggest, yet lamest program, COPS.
Speaking of cops and TV, I had mine own similar experience over 10 years ago in 1995, while driving through the northwest suburbs of Arlington Heights, then into Mount Prospect, where an Arlington Heights cop pulled me over for having a loud muffler. Can you imagine any crime more creative than that?
After pulling over on the median strip as he had instructed me to do, he steps out of his squad car, roaring, “Are you trying to be a smart-ass!”
I politely responded, “No, you just told me to pull over, so I did.”
He then instructed me to pull off the median strip and pull into the residential area immediately that was adjacent to it. No sooner did I stop the car & when Officer Friendly pulled up behind me, step out of the cruiser and remark, “What’s up with your backseat? Looks like you have all your worldly possessions in there.”
That was it! I felt that cop went over the line so-to-speak, so I copied down his name, badge number and decided to shoot a letter in triplicate out to the Arlington Heights chief of police, the Arlington Heights mayor and the Arlington Heights city council.
A couple of weeks later, while working at the corporate bookstore (the job I held at the time), I received a phone call from the assistant deputy to the Arlington Heights chief of police. The phone call from him was refreshing to say the least! He apologized to me profusely about the officer in question, stated he was out of line with that remark & promised me, not only would the officer be disciplined but would have my letter be placed in his permanent file!
It’s no small wonder why I haven’t been pulled over in Arlington Heights since. My opinion of police officers has changed over the years as well, from good to bad to good to bad to good and to bad again, where my keystone cop meter currently rests.
That terrible nightmarish image of that cop exerting his egotistical power behind his badge will forever haunt me, so to me, the fuzz is the fuzz is the fuzz is the fuzz is the fuzz. Just as a pig is a pig is a pig is a pig is a pig.
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