At about 12:30 a.m. on June 27th, I became a criminal.
After a long day at work preparing both the Duck Life magazine and our weekly newspaper for press, I locked up the office and started my way home.
A few cars sleepily cruised by as I headed down 13th, but other than the occasional transient asking for money and faint noises streaming from Max’s, the streets were quiet as a mouse.
I reached the crosswalk on Oak Street right by the Circle K. A large red hand glowed brightly across the street as if to say, “There’s not really a reason for you not to walk, but don’t walk anyway.”
Like anyone else would late at night, I decided to ignore the red palm and simply look both ways to decide whether or not it was ok for me to walk.
There was a police car at the intersection slowly driving through the crosswalk I was standing at, and just as it proceeded to pass, I began to walk.
Back in Portland, I probably jaywalked about 100,000 times in front of police officers and never got so much as a second look. And we all know that in Eugene, the streets may as well be sidewalks late at night.
It almost seems like an implied social norm: After midnight, nobody really waits for the crosswalk to tell them what to do.
Apparently, the officers in the car that drove by me thought otherwise.
As I began to walk, the policemen must’ve either seen my first two steps as their vehicle was in front of me, or they spun their heads 180 degrees to see me in the middle of the street. Either way, they awkwardly slammed on their brakes, and then drove around the block, stopping me just as I walked past Max’s.
Now why would the police stop me at almost one in the morning for walking across an empty street? In Eugene, Oregon, where jaywalking is practically as normal as smoking hookah? Maybe because I looked drunk? Criminal? Suspicious?
You be the judge.
The officers got out the car and did the whole “get your hands out of your pockets” routine and then asked me why I walked across the street when the sign clearly said don’t walk.
“There were no cars coming,” I said, “so I looked both ways and decided that it was safe for me to cross.”
“Well what if a car decided to run a red light because it didn’t see any cars coming?” The officer said.
Good point, Mr. Officer. Because we all know that my five-foot ten, 160-pound self is comparable to a two-ton motor vehicle. But of course I didn’t say that —  I was trying to avoid a $150 ticket.
It just felt like one of those episodes of Cops where the police officers are practically jumping out of their uniforms hoping that they stopped someone who was more than a traffic law violator. I was waiting for him to ask me if I had crack cocaine on me or something.
The officer who was doing all the talking carried a rather condescending tone, as though he thought I was a lesser citizen because I walked across an empty street. He continued his mini-lecture about why crossing the street against the sign is bad, and then the other officer asked for my information. While we were waiting for him to clear my information, the officer decided to fill the air with some small talk:
“So you go to school here?”
“Yeah.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“Just getting off of work.”
“Where do you work?”
“The Daily Emerald.”
“Oh, and what do you do there?”
“I’m the editor.”
“Editor? Like the editor, editor?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s really cool! Must be a lot of work!”
Suddenly, the condescension in his voice ceased, and he began to talk to me as though I was an equal, as though I was actually capable of understanding basic reasoning.
He spoke of how he thought my job was cool, how his wife was the editor of her high school newspaper and how he went to the University as well.
If it were any other time it would’ve been quite the conversation. But after being stopped for jaywalking at one in the morning, when I’d just spent 10 hours at work, it was no time for idle chit-chat.
After the cops verified that I didn’t have a warrant or any other skeletons in my closet, they let me off with a warning and skated off. As they left I wanted to shout an apology to the officers for not being a drunk freshman, or a wanted drug dealer; I know how lame late nights can be.
Given the racial makeup of the city I am in, and the petty violation I was stopped for, it’s impossible for me to think that I was stopped exclusively because I was jaywalking. I’m sure they would’ve taken any chance to stop me and check my identification and criminal background; I could’ve been one of those “trouble-making gangsters from Northeast Portland.”
As irritating as it was, my experience that night did teach me something: the next time I’m at a crosswalk, I’ll make sure to stop and look both ways — for bored cops.