ARREST ME!
By; Speaker Gerald A. Polley
It is extremely sad how one person's ignorance will multiply
through a chain of events and cause a whole community to lose the glory
that is intended for it.
I was working in a department store and we were having a tent sale. In
order to get electricity out to the tent we rigged a pole by its corner
and strung the extension cord overhead. There was ample room for ordinary
cars to pass under. We hung warning signs on it, and put a warning sign
below that the cable was overhead. I suggested to my manager that we put
a vehicle in the gap to keep other cars and trucks from coming through.
He said no, it would be too inconvenient. So we left it like that.
Several hours later an RV came flying through the gap between the tent
and the building, knocking down the cable.
The driver became totally irate, coming into the store screaming at the
cashiers and the manager that we shouldn't have had the cable there, that
he'd knocked the stuff off the top of his RV and damaged it. He was informed
that there had been ample warning the cable was overhead, but he had ignored
it.
I went outside on a break, not knowing this person had called a police
officer. As I was standing there, a man walked up to me and asked, "Isn't
that cable there a little low?"
"No," I answered, "there's ample room for cars to get under in an emergency,
and it was two feet higher than that before the fool in the RV knocked it
down!"
Suddenly the police officer was in my face, screaming, "Give me your name
right now! Who in the hell do you think you are? Give me your name right
now or I'll arrest you! I'll have you fired!"
"Whoa! Whoa!" I said, "What's the problem, lady? I'm just standing here
talking to this guy, minding my own business. Don't come screaming in my
face!"
"Don't talk back to me!" the police officer screamed. "Give me your name
right now or I'll have you fired!"
"You tell me what the problem is," I told her, "and I'll GIVE you my name.
But you just don't come up to me screaming at me, demanding my name and
refuse to give me a reason why you want it."
"I don't HAVE to give you a reeason," the officer screamed, "I'm a police
officer! You don't question what I do! You do as you're told. Now you give
me your name right now or I'll arrest you here and now!"
By now I was really getting irritated.
"Listen, bitch," I told her, "that uniform, that badge and that gun don't
impress me at all. You're just a civil servant. You have no right to demand
anything of anybody! If you've got a complaint, if I've done something wrong,
you explain to me what I've done and I'll be more than glad enough to cooperate.
But right now all I know is I was standing on the sidewalk, that man asked
me a question, and I answered it! Now if that's a violation of the law,
you tell me why!"
"I don't have to tell you anything!" the police officer screamed. "I gave
you an order, you obey it, you don't question it! If you don't respond immediately
I will arrest you."
"Then, arrest me," I told her, "or shut up, get out of my face, and stop
harassing me. But I don't think