Another day in “Law and Order” Kent

Today I observed what has become an all too common occurrence in Republican Kent, WA: a motorist “pulled over” by an unmarked “civilian” police car. As I walked past the scene, I yelled to the cop “How long is it going to take for these people to learn?” and pointed at the grill of the vehicle, which stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. These vehicles also have what appears to be small “dorsal fins” running along the top, the oddity of which should be a tip-off to motorists that something is not quite kosher when they see this, and should be on their guard. 

Since the number of these vehicles in use seems to be increasing—especially west of Central Avenue, which seems to be the dividing line between the well-off white and the more diverse sides of town—it wouldn’t surprise me if the KPD eventually has at least half its squad cars being souped-up “civilian” vehicles. Frankly, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been any complaints about the ethics of this policy, let alone if it actually deters crime like a marked police car would. Perhaps that is the “point” of using so many unmarked vehicles—not to deter crime or traffic violations, but to encourage them in order to pad arrest statistics. It certainly will do nothing to alter the plans of, say, a hit-and-run mugger.  Perhaps it will take one of the local Republican gentry to be discomfited before questions will be raised.

Every time I walk down the sidewalk and see one of these vehicles in a parking lot or a traffic trap, I shake my head or say something like “Who are you fooling”—apparently a lot of people. I’ve fallen into the habit of watching and learning the habits of the local constabulary; unlike Seattle police, Kent police always seem to be looking for “trouble.” This "trouble" often found me when I hit the roadways in my 1988 Beretta, when I was working at a sports apparel warehouse in Kent; it was the last car I ever owned, and frankly I was happy to be rid of that piece of junk that cost me $4,000 in repair work (all on credit) before I finally called a junk man to tow it away far out of sight. 

But even when it was still running, it was a magnet for trouble--but more likely because I was in it. I recall one incident where I was leaving work and pulled up to an intersection in the left-turn lane. I was too late for the left-turn signal, so I waited for the through traffic to pass before I made my turn. While I was waiting I noticed that curiously there was no through traffic going in my direction passing by in the right lane, and it was at that time I heard a symphony of horns from the cars behind me. When I looked to see the reason for the disturbance I observed that a Kent police car was sitting on my blindside; the drivers behind him were clearing becoming impatient with his stationary pose. 

Why was the cop hiding behind me? Probably because he was waiting for me to turn into traffic, or close enough to give him an excuse to pull me over and see if this “Mexican” had any outstanding warrants or some other reason to make his life miserable. When the cop observed that I had caught wind of his designs, he proceeded to drive on; but it was frequent incidents like this that finally persuaded me that I needed to make it “tougher” on police to concoct excuses to harass me, by walking instead of driving. 

Kent cops don’t bother me as much as they used to, but I still won’t drive anywhere except at work, which is about 90 percent of my job. I know that the local cops don’t appreciate my “rap.” I recall one early incident in which I arrived in town after a trip to an electronics store in Renton. I immediately went to the public library to check my email, and a few minutes later I was on my way to the next order of business. But not without distraction: No sooner had I walked into an adjoining parking lot, by then mostly empty, I was accosted by several cops. 

What was their business with me was unclear. First they asked me if I had a cell phone, then they asked me if I had a gun. Trying to restrain my annoyance I replied in the negative on both counts; after some additional chit-chat I learned that someone had called 911 on their cell phone to report that he or she (probably some older provincial, unhappy about the dilution of the pallid landscape, making a false complaint) had allegedly seen someone with a gun near the library. 

I suppose that wouldn’t “shock” me, I mean people with guns; before they remodeled the library there was a front lobby with a bench, and on one occasion when I sitting there someone who was just being “friendly” showed me his weapon stuck in his pants. It seems that some people have this impression of me that I am either criminally-inclined or culturally in-tuned with gang “culture,” neither which is true. It has taken Kent police a long time to learn this, and these days they generally leave me alone.

But that was still a long way away. The “discussion” I had with the cops continued to “escalate,” and soon I found myself surrounded by a whole platoon of them. Instead of intimidating me, that only aroused me further. I launched into a dissertation about the recent string of killings involving police and unarmed or mentally-disturbed victims—including one in Kent where a bike cop shot and killed a motorist who was allegedly driving “erratically” in the town’s usually devoid-of-life downtown (maybe the cop wanted to keep it that way). The cops seemed bemused by my lecture, and perhaps to hear no more of it they let me continue on my way.