Shakedown, Breakdown, I'm Busted!

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha' gonna' do? Whatcha' gonna' do when they come for you?

Maybe the allure of a COPS TV camera would have given me enough temporary insanity to prolong the "chase." That would have provided the time to pound a 12-pack of Old Milwaukee beer just before road spikes deflated my tires. After driving on my rims for a mile and really making some sparks fly, I could have jumped out my truck while it was still moving. After a 50-yard dash and a hogpile by 10 deputies, I'd be an instant crime reality TV star.

But I just pulled over instead.

I'll rewind this story a bit to catch you up to speed. I had just gotten off of work at 11:15 PM Thursday night in Bloomington and started taking the scenic 18-mile route home to St. Paul. The speed limit on the curvy four-lane road I take for about half the trip is 35 MPH. I always see a cop on that road, so despite my 100 percent German ethnicity, I don't think it's the autobahn.

I was driving through the last big curve on the road and saw there was a car ahead of me doing about 25. Naturally, I switched lanes to the left to pass the slowpoke. That's when I saw The Fuzz coming from the opposite direction.

Instinct made me immediately look down at my speedometer. The needle was just under 40. I looked in my rear view mirror, where I spot The Fuzz doing a quick U-turn as if I'm behind the wheel of a Krispy Kreme delivery truck. I was a bit confused because it was just me and slowpoke on the road. I thought he surely must be going to protect and serve someone else, but he stuck to my truck like a bumper sticker.

This is never a good sign. Sure enough, about a half mile later, The Fuzz lights up the cherries of his black-and-white Adam 12 squad car, so I pulled over.

As the officer walked up to the car, I immediately noticed he was about 5-foot-4, 130 pounds and didn't look a day over 16. He should have been policing the acne on his face, not pulling me over for some mystery violation.
The kid looked fresh out of the Police Academy, but seemed too young to have a cool cop name like Hightower or Tackleberry. My mind started to wander as to what nicknames he might potentially have at the police station. Maybe it was Gummi Bear. Perhaps it was Peach Fuzz. I decided Dirty Harry Potter fit him the best.

"License and proof of insurance, now!" he interrupted, shining a flashlight in my face with one hand while keeping the other on his service revolver just in case I tried anything "funny."

"Sure, I can get you those documents, but may I ask why you pulled me over?" I replied.

"You were going a little fast, weren't ya?" Dirty Harry Potter snapped. "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?"

"Yeah, I have a pretty good idea," I said. "I was going about 38, maybe 40."

"I clocked you at 50!" Dirty Harry Potter yipped.

"50?! No way!" I said.

"I don't want to hear it!" he yelled. "Just give me your license and proof of insurance now!"

I gave him my license right away and start looking for my insurance card.

"Do you own this vehicle? Do you even have insurance on this vehicle?" he asked, probably thinking what a lowlife I was, all sweaty and unshaven, driving my rusty but trusty 1994 Ford Bronco.

"Well this isn't O.J.'s Bronco," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. "And yes, it's insured. I've got the card, just give me a minute to find it."

Dirty Harry Potter starts grilling me with a line of questioning that leads me to believe he thinks I just left a bar instead of a grocery warehouse.

"Where did you just come from?" Dirty Harry Potter asks.

"Work," I reply.

"Where's work?" he asks.

"Just a few miles back at the Chowtime* Food Warehouse," I reply.

"Oh, yeah, and where's that?!" he asks, obviously unconvinced it exists.

This area of Bloomington is sparsely populated and spread out. The food warehouse is huge, over 300,000 square feet. Not knowing that it exists in the neighborhood he regularly patrols is akin to Gorbachev's wife not noticing that huge red stain on his forehead.

But I gave Dirty Harry Potter detailed directions on how to get there anyway and told him he can do a stakeout with Richard Dreyfus and Emilio Estevez to prove I show up for work each day.

"OK, I guess I believe you," Dirty Harry Potter said. "Keep looking for that insurance card. When you find it, hold it out the window."

I start searching for my insurance card again. Usually I have all documents in place, but for some reason, I was having a hell of a time locating that card. Dirty Harry Potter was losing his patience, but maybe it was because he was in a hurry to attend night classes at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Well, tell you what I'm gonna do tonight," he said raspily. "I'm only gonna cite you for the speeding. I'll let you go for not providing proof of insurance."

"You're not really giving me a break on anything," I replied. "I can prove I have insurance at your station tomorrow morning and that citation would get thrown out anyway. I wasn't even close to going 50."

"Yes, you were!" he squeaked, handing me the citation.

"Oh, I was not," I said.

"Too!" he yipped.

"Then I want to see it on your radar," I demanded.

"We don't do that," Dirty Harry Potter said. "It's erased now anyway. But I got you going 50 and leading traffic!"

How fitting that Dirty Harry Potter had made the radar reading disappear. And how was the one car I was "leading" considered traffic?

Dirty Harry Potter told me to slow down and started to walk back to his motorized broomstick. I started reading the information on the citation, which lists a flat fee for any moving violation at $142. Now I was furious with that son-of-a-witch. Luckily, I controlled my urge to flip off Dirty Harry Potter as his radar would have read 200 without a doubt.

"Don't worry about it," insisted one of my co-workers yesterday afternoon. "Fight it. They'll probably just make you pay court costs. They might even hold the speeding ticket from going on your record if you don't get another one for a year."

That might be a longshot with Dirty Harry Potter casting his spells on the roads I take to work every week in Bloomington, where all types of law enforcement seem to hate me.

Need proof? One night on my way home from work, I pulled over at a grocery store to pick up some supper. I parked next to a K-9 police car. The German Sheperd inside was going nuts, as if I was a bank robber or drug dealer.

"Settle down, Rin Tin Tin," I scolded him. "The 50 pounds of crack down my pants is the legal kind - Buttcrack!"