An Encounter With the Police

Jessica Ng

My family and I have been mostly fortunate enough to avoid any spectacular incidents with the police. In fact, the only specific incident I can remember occurred when I was about maybe ten years old, when I was in the car with my parents, and my mother was driving. We were driving on a large road, when we were pulled over by the police. It turned out that my mother didn’t stop for a school bus’s stop sign. My mother thought that since she was driving two lanes away, she didn’t have to stop. (Actually, she was in the wrong by luckily, she was let off with a warning, and that was it.)

However, I think I can still remember the stress in that moment. We had no idea what we were doing wrong, and I remember checking if I had fastened in my seat belt, or wondering what was happening to us. In the moment the policeman talking to us, it seemed like every little thing was something that we might be in trouble for.

I respect the police force. I think they fulfill an important role in society. But I also think they hold a tremendous authority that in the wrong hands can be abused. In the light of many police-related incidents these past few years, I don’t think it’s wrong to have some transparency and oversight in the actions of policemen.