Tonight I observed a crime, and it's probably not what you are thinking. I was at work helping a customer. The customer needed to make a phone call related to the transaction that we were working on, and while she made that call, I proceeded to play the most popular game ever made for a smart-phone...Angry Birds. As I briefly indulge in the game while sitting at my desk, a man leans over the counter behind me and says, "Are you just going to play your game or are you going to help me?"
I was a bit surprised as I put the Motorola XOOM down on the counter and I told him that we were all assisting customers, and since he had signed in to be helped, we would assist him as soon as one of us were free. He continued to complain about how the customers I was helping had come in after him, and had not signed in - which was a lie - and how I wasn't doing anything and he shouldn't have to wait to be helped, etc, etc. At this point, I reemphasized the fact that we would assist him as soon as we were free. At that point, my customer actually butted in and said, "Sir you are being really rude. He was helping us and still is helping us, and what you said and how you said it was completely unnecessary."
So the man replies, "You don't want to go down that road." "Why not?", she said, "You don't have any reason to be as rude as you just were." The man replies, "You really don't want to make a big deal about this because you don't know who you're talking to or who am I or what I do." Now at this point, I'm thinking he's about to clap all of us - real talk. I didn't know what to think about how brazen this dude was acting...well that's actually not true. The first thing that came to mind was "white privilege" but I'll leave that one alone for now because it got even better.
The man's daughter began asking her Dad to calm down, relax, and leave the situation alone - but he wouldn't. He kept going on about how no one wanted to make a big deal about the situation. But the truth was, he was being ridiculous and my customer just had the balls to say it. So the man, in his final act of desperation, reaches into his pocket...and pulls out his wallet...which contained a badge...A BADGE.
This dude was a cop. I couldn't believe it. The last thing I thought he would do would be pull out a badge and claim that he would call a squad car on the woman for BREACH OF PEACE!? My dude, you are the breach of peace. Truthfully, he was picked on in school, and found that he could wield some twisted form of judicial power by becoming a police officer and asserting some asinine representation civil servitude. He ended up leaving after asking the manager on duty for my name and card and she refused to give it to him.
I have heard all the cop stories, all the harassment and abuse tales in the "streets" and such, but I have never seen a police officer OFF DUTY flash a badge and claim BREACH OF PEACE on PRIVATE PROPERTY because a grown woman told you that you were being obnoxious? If that's not a power trip then I've never seen one. He completely put a bad taste in my mouth about the law, and for all the good cops that exist in the world, that purpose to serve the community justly and with honor and dignity, there still must exist that jerk that can only feel like a man when he makes himself look like a douche. Sorry to be distasteful on the blog post, but that was an outrageous display of disrespect for not only the law that he is supposed to represent, but the respect he should have for other human beings.
