How to (not) build trust for law enforcement.

So it's 9 PM and I'm sitting here in this parking lot beside the recreation center, contemplating how American policies tend to create distrust and even animosity between civilians and law enforcement.

Why are you sitting in your car crafting this particular post instead of working out, you ask?

Cause there's a campus police lurking around in the shadows, quietly sniping unsuspecting cars with citations, as their owners carry on blissfully in the gym, not yet realizing their whole week is about to be ruined by a $200 ticket.

Like a lot of these folks, I don't have the hefty parking pass to actually park here, but assumed I could get away with it so late in the evening with the lot so thinly vehicled.

But that doesn't matter to the officer. He's incentivized by policies geared around the creation of revenue, not by policies crafted with public service in mind.

So, for him, this is the perfect time to strike, not during the day-time hours when it would actually make sense to keep the lot cleared up for paying passholders, but in the dead of night when he'll catch the most people off guard.

You can blame the folks like me for playing loose with the rules, you can excuse him for just doing his job, but you can't deny that this sort of approach to law enforcement that makes police officers into antagonists on the eyes of the common man are simply not conducive to a better citizen-police relationship.

If we had decent policies, the guy would be hustling around the parking lot warning people not to park here without the right tag. Instead, I literally just watched him watch a group of students walk away before quietly sneaking over to take down their information.

This guy is, quite literally, hunting college students right now. His is the role of the predator, theirs the prey.

Yet we wonder why there's such a lack of trust for law enforcement in this country?

Again, I don't necessarily blame the guy.

I blame policies that turn public servants into predators.

Policies that make our hearts drop into our guts when we see flashing blue lights on the highway.

We should feel relief and safety, not crippling fear and anxiety around those blue lights.

But no.

Also I'm gonna go, now... it's obvious this post didn't kill enough time for the cop to go away. In fact I think he's eying my vehicle now. Time for an unnecessarily long walk.

Adios.