[109460] in Cypherpunks
CDR: A story about APD....
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Choate)
Wed Mar 24 23:19:29 1999
From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 22:02:59 -0600 (CST)
Reply-To: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Hi,
This ain't crpto related.
I thought I'd share the latest interaction with my local police.
About 19:30 this evening I was driving on the E. bound access road of 183.
I noticed a car approaching from my rear in the center lane, weaving into
both adjacent lanes. I thought it was perhaps a drunk driver. It got up
beside me and I discover it's an APD cruiser. I slow slightly and miss his
next swerve by less than a foot. I pull off the road into the Half Price
Book to call the police and report his erratic driving. The non-emergeny
number advises me that they can't help me and can't transfer me to the
appropriate person. They give me a number and I have to hang up and make a
second call. I contact this officer who advises that unless I don't calm
down, I hadn't used a cuss word or any disparaging remark, he wouldn't help
me. I had answered his questions clearly and to the point up to that point.
I take a deep breath and we finish the discussion. He advises me he can't
help either. He then says that the officers (car 1207) superviser will
call me back in an hour. An hour and a half later I'm still waiting on a
call. I call the second number again and am told the supervisor still shows
available and will call me in about 15 minutes. The supervisor calls me just
under the 15 minutes. He tries to justify the non-responsiveness by saying
nobody at the police station should be giving any sort of time lines out. I
replied that it wasn't my problem. I'm a tax payer and expect help not some
song and dance about their internal communications problem. He tries to
justify the erratic driving by saying the officer was on a call, I responded
with the comment that I would expect him to have his lights on so I could move
over and stop to get out of his way. The supervisor then advises me that the
only reason he can think that he would have been swerving was he was doing
something with his computers. I responded that would have been little
consolation to my insurance company or any potential injuries from a crash.
He then wants to know what kind of work I do (?). I replied I was as senior
engineer with IBM who handled crit-sit and sev 1 situations with customers
like the IRS, NSA, Bundesbank (sp), etc. That I did customer support for a
living and that in my opinion the APD customer support sucked. He asked if
there was anything else he could help me with. I told him no.
In short I got the run-around.
My next plan is to call my lawyer, make an appointment with the police
chief, and go to the next public city council meeting.
I bet there would have been no hesitation to take care of the situation in a
timely manner if the situations had been reversed.
____________________________________________________________________
The trouble with acting according to your conscience is that
once you start doing it, nobody can trust you any more.
Alexis A. Gilliland
The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate
Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com
www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087
-====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
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