This report details how Officer Charles Carr, of the Moon Township Police Department (Allegheny County, PA), arrested me for absolutely no good reason. Please believe me when I say that I'm an honest guy and that I'm being totally objective about this now because the incident happened a couple of years ago. Read on and I think you'll agree that Carr was being totally unreasonable.
To clarify, I'm your average, friendly, law-abiding, 40-something guy (30-something at the time) who has never been arrested or even convicted of a parking ticket. And let me clearly state right now that I drink very infrequently and actually get drunk no more than once a year, if that, and it's almost always in the privacy of my own home.
On one night in particular, I was extremely upset because of a romantic issue, which I won't bore you with here. So I went to a bar in Moon Township with a female friend, hoping to just relax and forget about the day's worries. The problem was that I had a major (perpetual) crush on my friend, and that made matters even worse. So I drank three or four beers in a relatively short period of time, and that was all it took.
My tolerance for alcohol is very low because I hardly ever drink, especially that quantity in a public place. After throwing up on the bar's bathroom floor, I apologized up and down to the manager, and I even offered to clean the floor, but he was very nice and told me not to worry about it.
In any event, I was more than ready to go home, so I told my female friend I wanted to leave. But I saw that she, too, had been drinking quite a lot, and there was no way I would get into the car with her. I told her I would call a cab for us, and she got extremely angry. We walked into the parking lot and argued some more, and I held my ground and refused to get into her car. She yelled at me at the top of her lungs.
As "luck" would have it, a police officer—Carr—was on the other side of the parking lot. He came over and asked what the problem was. I told him my friend had been drinking and that I wanted to call a cab. He told me that cabs "don't drive drunks home" and that I should get into my friend's car. I refused, saying that she was too tipsy to drive. He didn't agree. Now trust me, I know my friend when she's sober, and she was NOT in any condition to drive, despite the fact that she hid her condition very well.
So Carr said, "You're either going to get into your friend's car or into my car." I said, "Well, I'm not getting into the car with her." So Carr handcuffed me and led me into the back seat of his car, as if I was a criminal. I told him that I was more than willing to call a cab for both me and my friend. Again, he said, "Cabs don't drive drunks home."
Needless to say, I was exceptionally angry at the injustice. All my life I've learned to call a cab when alcohol rendered me incapable of driving myself. How hard is that concept to understand? Yet Carr didn't care.
Anyway, the whole way to the Moon police station, I yelled at Carr, asking him for his badge number, but he would't give it to me and kept referring to me as a "drunk, " saying I needed to "sleep it off" in a cell. So basically the rest of the eventing, from about 2:00 to 6:00 A.M., I spent the night in the cell yelling how unfair the situation was. During that time, I could hear police officers talking about getting laid and using crude terms, such as "pussy, " "f*, " and "cunt." Real professional, eh?
They let me out of the cell and cited me for public drunkenness (a misdemeanor that didn't affect my record or driving points). What really pissed me off was that I was in the parking lot of A BAR, where EVERYONE was publicly drunk and where a large percentage of people got into their cars too intoxicated to drive safely. Yet there I was, a totally law-abiding, good citizen who wanted to call a cab and do the right thing, and I was the one arrested and cited for public drunkenness.
A month or two later when I went to the hearing, the judge (I don't remember her name) let me tell my side of the story. While I thought she would be wise enough to throw out the case, all she did was cut the fine in half. What a crock. I did all I could to get home safely that night, and I was the one who was punished. The way I figure it, if I can get into trouble like that, ANYONE can get into trouble for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Sure, I yelled at Carr on the way to the police station, and yelled some more after they locked me into the cell, but I had every reason to do so.
So if you ever see a Moon cop in the vicinity, especially Carr—a tall, bald, muscular, 30-something, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, stay far away from him because he won't treat you fairly no matter how good of a person you are. All he'll do is judge you and maybe even arrest you if his distorted brain perceives that you've done something wrong. I would LOVE to know how many other people have had a problem with the guy. If you're one of them, you should definitely post a comment here.
ConsumermanPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
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