Yesterday I made a call to the Fort Worth Police Desk Sergeant about the way I was treated by a Fort Worth Policeman after visiting a friend. My phone had died and I had stopped at a local gas station to use the payphone to call my friend and remind him of the meet up time later that evening with several others. The Fort Worth policeman did not follow me off the road. However, I looked around and suddenly saw a Fort Worth policeman paying special attention to my car. Now, I would like to note that my friend doesn't live in the best area and the gas station I had stopped to use the phone at was in a predominantly black area with a lot of police activity. My car is also a very nice car. A somewhat expensive vehicle.
The policeman stared at me for several minutes while sitting in his car and behind my car and kept looking at my car. When I hung up the phone he got on his speaker and called me over. He stated to me that my tags had just expired, even though my stickers were still current for the month. My tag had expired the day before and I was scheduled to go and pick up my new tags that day. However, I was curious as to why he would even run my tags when I wasn't violating any law and I was on private property and fully within my rights. I understand that police randomly run tags when a person is on a public road or public property. However, it was unusual to me to be parked in a parking spot in a gas station and have a police officer simply pull in and run my tags. There should have been no reason he would do that.
He was nice about it and let me go on my way as my tags had just expired the day before. However, he couldn't have known my tags had just expired without running them. My registration sticker was still valid as well for this month. He never gave me a reason for running my tags either.
I am certainly no lawyer, however, It was my belief that cops would only come onto private property when 1) they were invited to do so 2) they were witnessing a crime in action and/or 3) they had followed the person off of a public road. None of these were the case in my situation. It was an invasion of privacy.
I called the Fort Worth Desk Sergeant and informed him of my displeasure of being what I felt was "profiled". He stated that businesses are public property such as a street or public road and that cops could come onto their property at anytime without any provocation to search people who were going about their business such as at Walmart or any other business. I informed the Fort Worth Police desk sergeant I had never seen officers running tags of people who were parked legally at Walmart and shopping or going about their business. I also informed him that business property was considered as private property just as personal "homesteading" property was. A business has the right to have cops leave their property if they don't want police on their property unless the cops either are invited, witness a crime in action or follow someone from a public access road or street and or have a warrant to come onto their property.
The Desk Sergeant clearly grew frustrated at this and stated he would not argue with me and the call ended.
According to what my friend stated this is an often occurrence in Fort Worth Texas in the black neighborhoods. Let me conclude with this. I have all due respect for the police as my stepfather is a retired policeman. And yes my stepfather did say some years ago that police were randomly running tags of people they were curious about but who were not doing anything wrong. I understand that the ACLU has taken on the fight to have this practice curbed or stopped as it violates the rights of Americans. However, the police argument has been that when an individual is on a public road they have no privacy and can have their licence plates ran at the discretion of the police officers. However, I was not on a public road nor had I been followed off a public road. I was on PRIVATE PROPERTY and abiding in a LAWFUL manner. There should have been no reason a police officer would take it upon himself to randomly run my tag. Yet he did.
Americans must stand together to stop the continuing loss of our freedoms in this country. We must continue to be diligent about our right to be "left alone" when we are abiding by the law.
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