It was about 4:30 PM, I was driving through downtown Charlotte. Unexpectedly, the motor in my car stumbled, then within a few seconds it stopped running. Sizing the situation up, I look at the gas gauge and surprisingly my gas tank is empty. I’ve run out of gas in a traffic lane on a street in downtown during rush hour. Eek.<\/p>\n
I called my nephew, who did eventually arrive with gasoline \u2013 but he was a fair distance away. Not surprisingly, after a few minutes, a police car from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department pulled up behind me and turned on his flashing lights. After saying hello and hearing that the problem was that I had run out of gas, he made a proposal. He’ll run over to the police department garage and pick up a gas can that they have there and be back in a few minutes. Before doing that he directed traffic so that I could drift my car back out of the traffic lane and be out of the way of the rush hour traffic.<\/p>\n
It was a bit warm today \u2013 in the 90s. He was a little bit concerned about the heat but I assured him that it would be okay. After about 10 minutes he arrived with a gas can and tried to put the gasoline in my tank without much success \u2013 fortunately my nephew showed up with a better gasoline can and solved the problem.<\/p>\n
Once the car was out of the road and gas in the tank, I asked the police officer what the procedure was to reimburse him for the gasoline. He indicated that the city of Charlotte was paying for the gasoline and he would do the same for anybody who lived in the city of Charlotte.<\/p>\n
While I’m confident he looked up my license plate, he didn’t ask me for my drivers license or my proof of insurance \u2013 he didn’t issue me a ticket. He didn’t ask to search the car, conduct a cavity search, taser me or shoot my dog. He was serving the public \u2013 not only me but the commuters who needed to use the street.<\/p>\n
I have this general sense that the people on reason.com who seem to have issues with police often are causing their own problems. While there are bad police and there are police that are ill-equipped to do the job, most police are very decent people as long as you are decent and respectful to them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was about 4:30 PM, I was driving through downtown Charlotte. Unexpectedly, the motor in my car stumbled, then within a few seconds it stopped running. Sizing the situation up, I look at the gas gauge and surprisingly my gas … Continue reading