Frisked and Manhandled in Amarillo, Texas
You will obey our traffic laws or you will be frisked and manhandled.
Place:
The curbside of an empty street in Amarillo, Texas.
Time:
Sometime shortly after midnight on a bitterly cold January morning many years ago.
Participants:
Alan: Driver of the car, completely lacking in the nuances of Texas traffic laws, and was recently discovered to have an intense fetish for the male buttocks.
Lance: Front seat passenger, map reader and navigator, purveyor of navigational pearls of wisdom such as:
- “That’s the exit we want…way back there.”
- “Last chance gas? I can find cheaper gas somewhere in the vast empty desert in between Las Vegas and Arizona.”
- “Don’t worry, we can drive for miles on empty; long before we run out of gas and are cannibalized by a family of desert dwelling inbreds.”
Matt: Backseat passenger, frustrated driver with serious blood pressure issues (issues exacerbated by questionable passenger-side navigation).
Me: Backseat passenger, provider of sarcasm, semi-blind (evidently thirty miles is “way too far to go back” to retrieve a pair of glasses from a motel room in Flagstaff Arizona).
Four big imposing Texas cops: Big, imposing, very uncordial, rough hands, no perceivable sense of humor.
The Events:
We were on a two week road trip from New York State to Las Vegas and back. We were passing through Amarillo in the early morning in search of somewhere to eat. Alan made a left turn out of the wrong lane and we were swiftly pulled over by the Amarillo police.
We sat there on the side of for several minutes as the police made no movements. Suddenly another squad car came flying in from the other direction with its lights flashing. It came to a screeching halt and within moments there were four police officers surrounding our car, with their hands on their guns. “Get your hands where we can see them,” one of them screamed.
“Holy crap. What the hell did you do?” one of us said to Alan.
They removed Alan from the car and began to frisk him. They swiftly found the case of darts in his jacket pocket and presumed them to be some form of ninja weapon. Evidently people in Texas don’t play a lot of darts, because I could hear Alan trying to explain the concept to the officers, “you throw them at a board,” I heard him say repeatedly.
They moved Alan to the first squad car and removed Lance for his frisking. As Lance was being frisked Matt and I sat in the car and discussed how seriously they take their traffic laws in Texas, and whether or not speeding might result in the death penalty. As we talked we evidently dropped our hands because one of the officers screamed at us to get our hands back up.
“But with our hands up, we can’t reach our weapons,” I wanted to say, but thought better of it.
Then it was Matt’s turn and I was sitting there alone the car with my hands in the air. I had never been frisked before, it was going to be my first time, I was a little excited–It was weird.
Then it was my turn. Alan was still in the squad car. Lance and Matt were standing on the side of the street shivering and laughing as they watched me being frisked. They offered the police officer some friendly advice as he manhandled me:
- He resisting; rough him up.
- Use your nightstick on him.
- What good is a taser if you don’t use it?
- Do a cavity search; it’s the only way to be sure.
Each bit of advice punctuated with cackles of laughter.
“Do you have any guns?” the cop asked as he frisked me.
“No.”
“Do you have any knives?”
“No.”
“Weapons of any kind?”
“No.”
“Are you carrying any drugs?”
“No.”
“Do you have any explosives?”
“Why would I have explosives?”
“Do you have any or not,” he screamed at me.
“No.”
“Do you have any contraband?”
“I’m not really certain what contraband is.”
“It is what I say it is,” he bellowed.
“Okay… I’m going to go with no.”
“Where do you live?”
“New York State.”
“Do you live in the city?”
“Do you mean New York City?”
“What do you think? What other city is there in New York?”
“Well, there’s Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, White Plains…” I didn’t even have a chance to get to Yonkers or Albany before he rudely interrupted me.
“Are you trying to be a smart mouth?”
“I’m not really trying.” It was really no effort at all.
“Where are you from exactly?”
“I’m from a small town called Westfield.”
“What? What’s the nearest city?”
“The nearest city is Erie, Pennsylvania.”
“I thought you just said you from New York.” His voice was a combination of anger and confusion.
“I am. Westfield’s about sixty miles from Buffalo, near the Pennsylvania state line.”
“Is that near New York City?”
“Compared to Amarillo, Texas: yes; compared to any other place in New York State: no.”
After a thorough groping, he sent me to side of the street to stand with Lance and Matt as the other officers searched the car. We stood there shivering, cracking jokes, laughing and offering tips on where we’d search if we were them. They ignored us.
It seems they saw our New York license plates and presumed that we were drug runners, transporting a shipment a drugs from Mexico to New York City.
Once they realized we were just a bunch of hicks from a small town in Western New York, they became cordial and even friendly. They gave us some instructions on where to find something to eat, and sent us on our way.
As we pulled away, Alan made a turn out of the wrong lane, but this time they let it go, after all, we were just a bunch of hicks.
Learn service through knowledge at the Amarillo Police Academy (groping optional).
Well, at least you all laughed about it. One wrong move, and it could have ended a whole lot differently. Just ask the last guy they stopped, may he RIP…
Being frisked isn’t much fun. Watching your friends being frisked is surprisingly entertaining.
I believe that’s what the Marquis de Sade said too.
Slightly different context.
That sounds terrifying! I’m not entirely sure what would be classed as contraband either – it sounds like they can just make it up as they go along, which is worrying. Glad you laughed about it afterwards though!
We were too young and stupid to be afraid, besides we weren’t doing anything wrong.
Don’t they have to have a warrant to search your car?
They asked for permission. They were already searching the car when they asked, but they did ask.
Nice of them.
I got stopped, handcuffed, frisked the whole nine yards.
After it was determined that I was not who they were looking for, they un-cuffed me and said, “get outta here.”
So I said, “That’s it? All of this and you do not apologize? What you got for me?”
He looked me in the eye and said, “You’re lucky you did not get shot.”
Bad cop … No donut.
Welcome to Oklahoma, please set your watch back 50 years.
LDS
Sounds like your experience wasn’t as entertaining as ours. We didn’t even get handcuffed.
T’weren’t fun at all. Kind of like losing my first bicycle or a bad case of the flu.
LDS
This is a wonderful story!! Stupendous really. Your writing reminds me of Neil Simon and your diologue reminds me of Eugene Morris Jerome’s in Biloxi Blues. You should write a screenplay–
Thank you very much, that is high praise indeed. I have to admit this was easy to write because it’s just what happened that night.
that’s very funny. I love your suggestions about where to look – remind me never to go on a car trip with you.
It’ll be okay; we’ll just stay out of Texas.
Next time, warn me. I nearly snorted coffee out my nose. Keep writing!!
I’ll keep that in mind; hot coffee through the nostrils can be painful.
Thank you for contributing to my irrational fear of police officers… and Texas.
You’re from Canada; you’d be fine in Texas. The most they suspect you of is being too polite.
I just found your blog tonight, so pardon me if my comment is late, but:
I LAUGHED MY BUTT OFF!
Of course, having been to Amarillo more than once, I was picturing the whole thing in my head . . . and laughing harder!
That’s only one third of the Amarilllo story.
So of course, I have to hear the rest you know. . . story for you – my ex was from Amarillo. We were both living in California, me as a body builder and model, him as an architect and occasional photographers model. His grandfather was passing from cancer, so we both hopped on planes from different parts of the world. My luggage got lost, so I arrived in tights, a sports bra, and a leather jacket with spiked leather high heel boots. . .
There was no food at his parents house I could eat, so we popped in to the market to grab fruit. Todd, of course, was his same self, waist length curly black hair, torn jeans, motorcycle boots and tattoos . . .
I REALLY didn’t think we were going to get out of there alive! People were actually following us around the market, and someone must have called the po-po, cause they wound up following us from the market to the hospital, where everyone had to drop by the room or walk by so they could gawk.
Of course, I was much younger, and MUCH more beautiful back then! ROFL
Ah, those were the days . . .
It’s nice to be noticed. They presumed we were drug runners, transporting drugs from Mexico to NYC because we had a NY license plate. I think both cases could be defined as profiling.