Imagine driving down the street minding your own business when all of a sudden you are pulled over by the police. Nothing to worry about right? You weren't doing anything wrong. Heck you were even clean shaven and wearing your brand spanking new BME shirt. Now imagine the officer walking up to your window taking a good look at you and saying "I can tell by the shirt that you are wearing and the fact that you've got your lip pierced that you are probably drunk." Probably drunk you ask? Because I have my lip pierced? The last time I checked, if you were wearing a shirt that had a BCR on it and the words "guess where?" under it that it meant you had a secretive piercing, not that you had been drinking. Now one could understand being pulled over for having their license plate in the wrong place, but shouldn't the officers concerns be in regards to the reason he pulled you over, and not with whether or not you have a piece of metal through your lip? The end result of this meeting was a modified person standing on the side of the road with a 24 hour suspension of his license based on suspicion of driving under the influence. SUSPICION? Pardon me? You mean there wasn't even a Breathalyzer test administered to determine the truth of the situation? Well that just goes to show how sure of himself the officer was based on his deductions due to an individuals appearance. This of course will be fought to the fullest and due to the lack of evidence against the modified individual good things are expected.
At A Glance Author Uncertain Contact [email protected] IAM uncertain When N/A Now imagine a second scenario. You take a wrong turn and end up at the border. You realize your mistake so you turn around in the designated lane. Hell you even use your signal despite the fact that no other cars were even around. While heading back pull up to the booth and the officer asks you where you are coming from. Before you can even finish answering him he cuts you off. He hands you a piece of paper and tells you to pull around to the covered area. Now take into consideration that you have your conches pierced at 2guage and you have you ears stretched to 1". If I was the officer in question I would have asked the modified traveler who his piercer was and where he got the beautiful streaked ebony tunnels in his lobes (thank you bmeshop), but apparently that is not the customary response to meeting an interesting individual. Instead you are supposed to suspect him of drug smuggling and detain him for as long as possible no matter how ridiculous it is. So you wait for further instruction. Two officers instruct you to get out of your vehicle and immediately you are faced with aggression. You are asked if you have any drugs in your possession. "I'm not into drugs, it's not really my thing" you answer. The officers reply is "that's not what I asked you, are things gonna be difficult or are you going to co operate? Do you have any drugs in your possession, namely marijuana?" So now of course being modified makes you a stoner. You answer back "no" .You are then subjected to a thorough search and then left to sit on the bench. They begin searching your car and after about 10 min they find something. In the bottom corner of a guitar case they find 1 piece of a marijuana leaf stem and a few leaf crumbles. These were 2 year old remnants that were so insignificant that the owner of the guitar had not even noticed them since he quit smoking a year and a half ago. As soon as "the drugs" were found immediate ownership was admitted too by the owner of the guitar case who was riding in the passenger seat of the car. The owner is unmodified(very sad I know) and he has FULLY admitted to complete ownership of every little crumb that was found in the case. We have now been detained for roughly 15 min. The officer starts talking about smuggling charges, arrests, criminal records and all the other wonderful things that the two of us will be subjected to. Now you might be wondering why the officer is addressing both travelers even though one of them has admitted full guilt. That is a great question and if you think of an answer please let me know. Now as the officer goes inside to begin the paper work you think to yourself... "Aren't we in British Columbia? Is this officer so concerned about this minute amount of shake that he is willing to spend his entire night doing paperwork just so he can bring us down and brag about the bust he made last night?" Apparently so! Roughly 2 1/2 hours later you are released with a "customs record" which can not be viewed by the police and is only available to custo ms officers. WOW that was a great use of 2 1/2 hours.
It was later discovered that customary procedure for such an even would be to write a ticket for possession and hold the vehicle until the fine is paid. It was also then discovered that there is not even a fine for the amount of drugs that was located in the guitar case. And finally if someone admits full ownership of the contraband then the fine is given to them and any consequences are theirs and only theirs unless the arresting officer has reason to suspect anyone else in question(BTW having your ears stretched is not enough to suspect someone of criminal activity). Also an interesting question to ponder, how do you smuggle drugs if you do not leave the country?
Now for final thought after reading the two above incidents, are these really the kinds of people who should be in control of our justice? Could a possible child molester go free because he has no modifications and is wearing a suit while tax dollars are spent detaining the modified on suspicion of bogus accusations? It is stuff like this that makes it even more important for us to educate ourselves on our rights that way we can intelligently defend ourselves against the ignorant people out there who were unfortunately given the power to hold some control over us. So go out and learn as much as you can that way the next time someone in a position of power tries to discriminate against you a full arsenal of knowledge will be at your disposal allowing you to stand up strongly against their close minded ness.