Police treatment totally blown away and crestfallen

[Ceezeesplee]

Hey all...

I am a heroin/meth addict and have been for over 5 years with some bouts of recovery ... I was really at a low point at the end of April and was able to stop using street drugs, and was able to cope with just my methadone... I am basically homeless and work is very sporadic lately, however I often stay with friends and occasionally will pay for a motel and if it's not too cold I sometimes will sleep in my car.


So this brings me to the morning of June 2... At this point I have over a month clean off hard drugs, however although things have been improving I am still struggling financially and not quite able to afford a place to live yet. So after working till around 2am on a project for a client on my laptop I drive to my childhood neighborhood to park and sleep because it is a very safe place generally and don't have to worry about people trying to rob me etc...

So at around 8:30am I get a knock on my Window and there are 2 police standing outside my car... Apparently someone called 911 to report a suspicious looking person sleeping in their car... :/... My car is pre 2000 Honda civic so I guess It stands out a bit in this pretty rich neighborhood? Anyways, I know that I'm sober and my car is totally clean of all drugs/paraphernalia so I'm not too worried, I comply with them, let them search my car etc .. they are being pretty rude and talking down to me already, and then one of them finds 3 of my methadone carries in my glovebox, and makes a huge deal about it... Saying that I'm not allowed to drive on methadone...I tell him that it has been pretty much 20 hours since my last dose and that I have been on the same dose for well over 6 months so I am totally used to it... They proceed to do all the road side sobriety tests, which I pretty clearly pass....

Then the officer says that im getting a 24hr DUI and that my car is being towed.... I'm speechless, I try to argue but they start getting really aggressive and threatening so I just accept it, at this point on of the Cops says he is going to make sure my car is driveable (so that it can be driven on the tow truck?) And Suddenly I hear these huge POPS, and I'm like "what the hell was that???" Then the officer outside the car tells me "oops I guess he forgot about the spike strips". Apparently they put a spike strip infront of my tires when I was asleep in case I tried to drive away...not sure if this is standard protocol but I have zero police history... Then the cop gets out and they are laughing with each other and I'm just in shock...then they tell me I need to leave and I can't take anything from the car other than my wallet and phone and a sweater because everything is 'evidance' I walk away almost in tears... Fortunately, because of the circumstances my dad lets me spend the night at his place and drops me off at the tow yard.

Obviously I can't drive a car with both front tires totally fucked, I only have 1 spare tire...so after I pay the $230 just to get it out of the impound I need to spend another $100 to tow it to Canadian Tire and another $200 to replace both tires.

That was almost all the money I had been saving towards first month's rent and damage deposit on a new place... Oh and get this, during their careless searching they somehow managed to break my laptop screen (fortunately it seems to be functional otherwise) and they confiscated my 3 methadone carries even though they are totally legal and prescribed to me... I was really really hoping that they didn't do that because at this point i've gone well over 35 hours without methadone and the withdrawal is getting really bad...

At this point I'm so fucking pissed I just say fuck it, withdrawal the $60 remaining in my bank account and pick up some heroin.

I feel totally betrayed and totally Mistreated by the police because they just saw me as a piece of shit junky. Like seriously how do you forget about a fucking spike strip less than 15 minutes after you put it there? I'm 90% they intentionally ruined my tires and possibly even intentionally broke my laptop (which is my only means of making money). I have zero faith in law inforcement and now I'm pretty much totally fucked. I don't have money to fix my laptop screen, fortunately I finished a small project the night before this all happened so I am expecting a $300 cheque in the coming days which should at least cover the screen replacement and gas for a week or two.

I finally got my next week worth of methadone today so am once again going to try to commit to recovery but fuck I'm really discouraged after all this shit.


Thanks for taking the time to read my rant..I feel a little better having got it out there... And in case anyone is wondering I live in Surrey, BC, Canada and the police were RCMP.

 

[Nurse Ratched]

Wow. That sucks. Not a whole lot I can say as it already happened to you but those cops were dicks for sure.

Seems like they made you the poster child for " This area not suitable for overnight parking" I'm sure the neighbors got all freaked out seeing the strange car in their hood. I'm guessing you will pick a low rent hood next time or a park or the woods for that matter . Not sure why you picked a nicer hood seeing as you thought your car would stand out but that's not the issue. The cops were dicks for sure.

I know why you got the DUI even though you passed the sobriety tests. They did it because you had control of the vehicle and had methadone in the car which made you able to drive it and operate it if you had decided to take a swig once they left. Just like alcohol. The methadone ( even though it was legal to possess it } fucked you because it was in the car. I know you are homeless and had no choice but if it had been in the trunk in your luggage you might have been okay. It was within arms reach and they got you on a technicality. Very expensive lesson learned.

Withdrawing your last $60 to score heroin is cutting off your nose to spite your face. I know why you want to do it but then you will be broke and even more upset. Sorry this happened to you. It happened to me too with alcohol. I was in control of the vehicle ( which means I had the keys ) and the booze was in the car and not the trunk. I got the DUI.

 

[Lovecraft]

This is very upsetting. Just another example of the fallacy of the law enforcement approach as an intervention in societal problems. Law enforcement and the daft (and increasingly white supremacist) morons that staff it only contribute to society's problems. It's amazing in this day and age that we still have the ancient and non-effective policing and prison model that we currently do. It's akin to the days of insane asylums where mentally ill people were tortured because it was half-believed that they were posessed by the devil and somehow abusing them would make the devil leave their bodies?

 

[n3ophy7e]

This is very upsetting. Just another example of the fallacy of the law enforcement approach as an intervention in societal problems. Law enforcement and the daft (and increasingly white supremacist) morons that staff it only contribute to society's problems. It's amazing in this day and age that we still have the ancient and non-effective policing and prison model that we currently do. It's akin to the days of insane asylums where mentally ill people were tortured because it was half-believed that they were posessed by the devil and somehow abusing them would make the devil leave their bodies?

Agreed.

I feel totally betrayed and totally Mistreated by the police because they just saw me as a piece of shit junky. Like seriously how do you forget about a fucking spike strip less than 15 minutes after you put it there? I'm 90% they intentionally ruined my tires and possibly even intentionally broke my laptop (which is my only means of making money). I have zero faith in law inforcement and now I'm pretty much totally fucked. I don't have money to fix my laptop screen, fortunately I finished a small project the night before this all happened so I am expecting a $300 cheque in the coming days which should at least cover the screen replacement and gas for a week or two.

It's that feeling of betrayal, mistreatment and injustice that is the worst huh. Just when you are trying to do all the right things in life, trying to be good, trying to do the right things and trying to NOT be a piece of shit junky, life can still sometimes kick you in the guts.

I am pretty sure you know this already, but getting heroin is going to make you feel 1,000,000% times worse. Please don't do that.

The very best thing you can do is just put your head down and focus on doing what's best for you.