Arrest-Proof Yourself (12 page)

The next day she served him with divorce papers. He moved out of their magnificent house and into a studio apartment with a chair, a bed, and a TV on cinder blocks. To console him, his construction buddies took him out to a gentlemen’s club—really just a glorified strip joint. He had some drinks, ogled the dancers, and had a so-so night. His buddies assured him that the divorce wouldn’t be too bad, since this was a “no fault” divorce state.

They were right. The divorce was simple, but the child-custody proceedings were not. His wife’s attorney subpoenaed the GPS tracking information from his car and discovered his visit to the strip joint. They also ran a background check and uncovered an earlier arrest. Years earlier, when he first arrived in America, he had had a passionate romance with an American girl. He had been 22 and she 16. The girl’s mother, however, had been outraged and had had him arrested. The charge was lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor. He was puzzled. In Cuba, sex is the only activity
not
regulated by government. In many American states, however, it is illegal to have sex with anyone under the age of 18. Fortunately the girl had loved him and refused to testify, so the charges were dropped.

At trial, his wife’s attorney described this arrest in detail and kept repeating the words “lewd and lascivious.” The lawyer always referred to his former girlfriend as a “minor child.” At trial no one mentioned that the girl had refused to testify against him and that the charge had been dropped.

His having been to a strip joint, said the attorney, was evidence of sexual maladjustment and a love of pornography and perversion. The club had a magazine and video rack and sold sex toys, which the attorney described in detail. As a violator of children and a pornography addict, the attorney concluded, our man was an unfit father and should not share custody of the children. The judge ruled in the wife’s favor.

Our man was denied access to his daughters, except under strict supervision, and ordered to pay child support, even though his wife’s income was many times larger than his. He went into a deep depression and spent weeks on sick leave. His union protected him from being fired, however, and he was able to return to work.

THE MORALS OF THIS STORY

1. The electronic plantation extends even into private civil matters. The assumption that an arrest is the same as a conviction often goes unchallenged.

2. All the whizbang gimmickry of modern life, such as GPS tracking and entry and exit records at gated communities, can be subject to subpoena and used at trial. Do you really want people to be able to know your goings and comings?

3. Construction is the only industry in America that hires large numbers of people with arrest records. Our subject would find it difficult to work elsewhere.

4. Minorities often do not understand how the system works and are more frequently blindsided in courts, both civil and criminal.

2

TO HUNT AND ARREST IS THE QUEST OF THE BEST

C
ops! To stay free, you’ve got to avoid them like the plague. You’ve got to stay out of their sight, off their radar screens, and out of their freaking computers. They’re the gatekeepers of the plantations. They alone have the power to transform indiscretions, stupidities, and recreational drug use into a lifetime sentence of shame and low wages. This chapter is all about cops, the good and the bad, the noble and the ignominious. In many ways cops are extraordinary people. What’s absolutely certain is that they are not at all like you. When you need them, they can be lifesavers. When they need you to make their daily arrest tally sheet look good, they can be life destroyers. To know them is to avoid them, so settle back and learn all about those boys and girls in blue.

Pop quiz. Good police officers spend the majority of their time in which activity?

1. keeping neighborhoods calm by encouraging communication

2. setting an example with courteous, professional behavior

3. serving and protecting the weak and helpless

4. hunting the two-legged beast

The answer is . . . 4. If you selected anything else, you’ve been listening too much to Officer Friendly, the public relations guy giving smiley speeches in school auditoriums and community centers. To arrest-proof yourself, however, it’s important to understand real cops, the guys on the street who can bust you. They are the first group of criminal justice players.

What you’ve got to understand is this: cops
like
to hunt and pursue. They
enjoy
arresting people. I refer to good cops, not time servers trudging toward retirement or social worker types who decide, after a few bloody scuffles with angel dust-crazed psychotics, that maybe it’s time to get that teaching certificate after all. The animal cops hunt is that prince of prey, the two-legged beast. Human quarry are smart and wily. Often they draw guns and knives, or ambush you from inside their cars and their houses. From a cop’s point of view, that’s real sport.

The above paragraph is one of the most important in this book
. Cops are hunters—period. Once you understand this, police tactics will make sense. Cops are the hunters; you are the prey. Avoiding these hunters, hiding from them, and not antagonizing them are the essentials of arrest proofing. As I noted in the introduction, the fact that cops are hunters is not a bad thing. Without intensive policing, our cities would be uninhabitable.

The important thing to understand is that almost all police effort is put into hunting and arresting people. Everything else—serving and protecting, fostering community—is way, way down on the list. To street cops, law and order, peace and quiet, and community understanding are
byproducts
of hunting and arresting people.

The way cops think about it is this: toss enough bad guys into the can and—bingo—law and order happen. Peace and quiet break out like roses on a vine. As for community understanding, the community can understand that if they start breaking laws and getting into it with cops, they’re going to get hammered. This, ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, is the cop’s point of view.

Confusion results because city police departments and municipal governments are administered by elected sheriffs and mayors. Understandably, politicians downplay the hunt-and-arrest activity and play up the serve-and-protect angles. It’s the mayors and police chiefs who show up at community meetings to soothe aggravated and overarrested minorities. The patrol guys, of course, are generally too busy to attend community meetings since they’re out on the street arresting people.

Think this isn’t so? Here’s a reality test. In most big cities, police headquarters have public displays of things cops think are interesting. If you stroll down the display hall in my city and look into the glass cases, will you see photos of black, brown, yellow, and white people standing together in smiling, interracial harmony fostered by sensitive, empathic law enforcement? Nope. How about noble sculptures of little old ladies serving cupcakes to the officers who serve and protect? Nah! What you will see are

machine guns

revolvers and automatic pistols

sniper rifles

car bombs

gas masks

surveillance cameras

tear gas grenades