Virginia’s new Community Policing Law is all ’bout Justice! The gubmint wants to know about the abuse of force, so police officers in the Old Dominion will be required to document or guess the race, ethnicity, and gender of everyone they pull over. ‘Cuz Social Justice, dammit.
Related: Republicans in Virginia Swarm Polls to Kick Local Democrats out of Office
I’m not clear on how those two things intersect in any meaningful way.
I understand the goal. To prove cops are violent racists. But I’m not clear on how officers are supposed to know who is speeding necessarily, ran a stop sign or red light, or whose vehicle inspection or registration is expired in order to act like a racist before they actually see or confront the alleged offender.
Officers will need to record the reason for the stop, the location, whether anyone was searched or arrested and whether a warning or citation was issued.
What if militant black lesbian feminists are more predisposed to speeding? Does catching them doing it make you a racist and a bigot if you didn’t know until you (were forced by law to) ask?
Is there some affirmative action component? 12.875% percent of transwomen who happen to be driving an uninspected vehicle need to be given ten additional days to transition from breaking the law into compliance? And how is not providing the same fanciful dispensation, not an injustice to anyone else?
The State has already warned the citizens to prepare themselves for this mandatory interrogation.
I’m not sure what’s to stop anyone from just blurting out some random gender because, you know, it could be anything at any time for anyone. It could even change before the end of the traffic stop. And what then do we learn from that except that more than a few smart-asses are committed to “F-ing with the Democrats stupid system.”
This is Virginia. You can dream a little dream, craft the bill on a slightly soiled cocktail napkin on the drive there, and get that across the Governor’s desk like sh*t through a goose. And how ironic. Isn’t that the very thing about which many of our founders (from Virginia) warned us?. The rapid capricious abuse or partisan power vested in the offices and officers of an expanding state in the absence of any checks and balances.
This feels a lot like that. It looks like you care on paper, but it’s actually just a big useless pain in the collective a**.
But then what about Democrat legislation does not fit that simple description? A do-nothing bill sold as a meaningful step forward in police reform. You will be interrogated! Get used to it. And that improves community policing?
Question? What happens to the people who refuse? Nothing?
It would have to be nothing because the officers are encouraged to guess and gosh, Wally, who thinks they’ll just guess whatever will make the fewest waves?
Wow, in the past six months, not one single person of color was pulled over by a traffic cop, and the number of tickets issues is down 250,000% ‘cuz racism and Justice.
The alternative is to what, cite them for refusing to be interrogated at the behest of virtue-signaling Democrats, a number that would then tell us what? That certain sorts of people have a lower threshold for this sort of nonsense? Maybe.
I wonder if they will try to do this in New Hampshire, where we have a constitutional right to privacy, whatever that means. Certainly not freedom from sealed secret warrants issued by the AG’s office.
