Kilted encounter with my city's finest

[O'Callaghan]

I'm not trying to get into any argument. I can tell you from personal experience that some people are under the false belief that police officers do NOT have the basic rights that every citizen has - such as walking up and talking to someone.

I remember one night seeing a beautiful custom motorcycle parked in front of an outdoor coffee stand. There were a couple obvious motorcycle riders there (helmets, leather, etc.) so with a slight grin on my face, I asked, "Who owns this bike?"
I was immediately met with, "I didn't break any laws so I don't have to tell you s**t!"
I said, "No you don't. I was just curious if you did the work yourself and what you started with."

As I started to walk away, one of the other riders persuaded the first one to talk to me about his bike.

So I guess my "authority" to talk to this guy? It was the same "authority" he had to talk to me, or any of you has to talk with anyone you happen to see.

I realize this is drifting from Kilts, and I apologize.

Hector, I'm sorry you had such a negative experience with your local police. But based on your story, I don't think the officer originally intended it to be negative.

Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about authority to talk to someone. In fact anyone can ask anyone anything without exceeding their authority, even ask questions that they don't have a right to get answered (which is why we should all know which questions we do and especially don't have to answer, whereas most of those who do know that are either lawyers or criminals, LOL!).

The judge (sorry, forgot your user name) explained it better than I can. It's the police officer's ability to arrest people (which technically everyone has, but a citizen's arrest is pretty rare) and the fact that they are armed that I mean when I talk about authority. Someone without the badge and the gun has no option but to take a soft approach if they want to ask questions. I merely think that this is also the better approach even if you do have a badge and a gun.

As for getting a short response to an ordinary question just because you are wearing a cop's uniform, that's unfortunate. I guess people jump to conclusions and think that you have spotted some violation of the highway code, and I'm not even sure how you could phrase it to avoid that, short of literally prefacing it by saying there was nothing wrong with the bike.

I have to admit that if you saw an old hippie giving money to a bum on a street corner you might be likely to think it was a drug buy and not an act of philanthropy. It is profiling, though, and I doubt that most drug users actually have long hair in the 21st century. You wouldn't be able to buy drugs for what I gave him, that much is for sure!

The worst part is that I am sure there is some threshold beyond which donating too much money to a street person would lead to having to explain it down at the station, so it seems even charity can be dangerous to your health. I guess you're supposed to donate it to some organisation that will waste most of it on salaries, rent and their own electric bills! That, or risk arrest, apparently. Before now, I would never have dreamt that the police would see it that way, though.

Hector getting harassed just for eating lunch facing the police station/library is a little harder to figure, though. It's hard to believe the kilt doesn't figure in somewhere. Maybe they thought the Saltire represented some Arabian country, the kilt was a djelaba (sp?) and Chilean Hector looked like an Arab.

After all, the London Metropolitan Police (and I am originally a Londoner myself, FWIW) blew away a Brasilian electrician thinking he was a Pakistani terrorist and that the tools of his trade were part of a bomb. They claimed to have verbally identified themselves as police, but none of the eye witnesses heard them do that, and they don't even claim to have identified themselves visually. They have police baseball caps they can don in that kind of situation, but they didn't AFAIK.

I guess questioning isn't so bad after all, compared with being shot.

[Splash_4]

Ok guys, One final warning shot. The mods are looking at this thread very closely right now and are debating shutting it down. Any other attempt to violate this rule will cause this thread to be shut down immediately!

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Mike and the mode squad

[hospitaller]

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A little update, I work from home on Wednesdays so I couldn't go to lunch yesterday at my favorite spot.

I did, however, go today, and I had a delicious 'Classic' grilled chicken sandwich.

Sporting my Black Stewart, I decided to actually grab a bench in the little 'plaza' on the side of the building in question, which happens to be on the police station side.

Couple of cops actually stopped and chatted a bit about the kilt and the Louisville Pipe Band.

Besides, having a great 75 degree gorgeous day didn't hurt.
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[MrLion]

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A little update, I work from home on Wednesdays so I couldn't go to lunch yesterday at my favorite spot.

I did, however, go today, and I had a delicious 'Classic' grilled chicken sandwich.

Sporting my Black Stewart, I decided to actually grab a bench in the little 'plaza' on the side of the building in question, which happens to be on the police station side.

Couple of cops actually stopped and chatted a bit about the kilt and the Louisville Pipe Band.

Besides, having a great 75 degree gorgeous day didn't hurt.
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Sounds like all has ended well. Thanks for the update.