Race-obsessed left-wing Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, who happens to be black, took to his keyboard the other day to hack out a passive-aggressive lament about a traffic stop in which a Latino officer pulled him over and did a professional "by-the-book" job in handling the incident.
In his April 1 Metro-section front-page column, "A traffic stop illuminates officer's need to do better," Milloy groused that Prince George's County Police Officer Jose Garcia should have "been familiar with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's guidelines... for making traffic stops" by doing things like sporting "A sincere smile" instead of being, in Milloy's words "expressionless" and "respectfully robotic."
But it wasn't until much further in the column that we get to the real beef Milloy had with Officer Garcia: he wanted to be let off the hook, feeling cheated out of that prospect perhaps because he's not a white woman (emphasis mine) :
After running my plates and registration, García returned to my car with an automated repair order. It was, in effect, a $70 traffic ticket that would be waived if I got the light fixed within 30 days. I asked García why he couldn’t just give me a heads-up about the brake light. I didn’t know it was broken and would have fixed it the next day.
[...]
Maryland’s 2014 Race-Based Traffic Stop Data Analysis showed that men are more likely than women to be ticketed, blacks more than whites, and Hispanics most of all. White female drivers stopped by police were least likely to be ticketed, according to the report, followed by Asian women, African American women and Hispanic women.
Was there anything I could do to get a break — short of becoming a white woman?
I know that traffic stops are among the riskiest tasks in law enforcement, but they also are likely to be the only time that most people encounter police officers. Lasting impressions are made in those few minutes.
I later mailed in a copy of my repair order, confirming that the light had been fixed. Then, last week, I received a letter from the Maryland State Police Automotive Safety Enforcement Division saying that my mechanic’s signature was illegible. If I didn’t provide a signature that was readable, my car registration would be suspended.
I couldn’t help but think of García, whom I’ve been trying to reach to get him to sign off on the repair order. But so far no luck.
For a little bit of context, I once got a ticket just like Milloy did for a burnt-out tail light, about a mile from my house by a professional, courteous Prince George's County police officer -- who happened, by the way, to be a black woman, not that it's material to the stop in any way.
As she explained to me, I had the option EITHER of getting a mechanic to sign off on the ticket before I mailed it in OR I could get ANY Maryland state, county, or municipal law-enforcement officer to sign the form witnessing that he or she had confirmed I'd replaced the burnt-out bulb. The officer need not be on-duty at the time, either. It could be a neighbor, friend, or fellow worshiper at church, for example, who could take all of 30 seconds to check out the light and sign the form.
So a few days later, the bulb replaced, off I went to my town's municipal police department and in about 10 minutes was on my way to work after getting an officer on desk duty to check out my replaced light bulb and sign the form.
Yes, it was a minor hassle to deal with, but as a local taxpayer, I appreciated the vigilance of the county police in having stopped me in the first place. But then, I'm not a left-wing Post columnist with an ax to grind.
