Replying to Why is Michael Brown dead and we are still alive?

In before cool story Hansel.

People who have been on here for awhile know that I am a dad and a Freeride coach. I did my share of really stupid shit and had the unfortunate experience of having a loaded weapon aimed at me twice. It's a pretty intense experience. Once was when we were walking back from a 7-11 to our dorm in college and stopped to take a leak on someone's fence. A guy who lived across the street thought we were about to break into the house and pulled a gun on us. The other was by a Town of Vail cop, and that was really terrifying because it is so rare that they ever have to pull their guns out, they're likely to pull the trigger by mistake.

A friend of mine and I had been out shooting skeet and shooting a 22 rifle at targets. Later we went out to a bar and I left the guns in the back of my Subaru wagon(STUPID). My shotgun was wrapped up in blanket but my 22 was laying out. It really didn't look much different than a BB gun so I wasn't really worried about it. Anyway, after a few hours and a few beers I had forgotten that I had them in the back of the car. We headed back to my car so I could drop him off at his car, and on the way out of the parking structure we saw a large group of drunk folks coming into the structure and I decided to have a little fun with them. My Subaru had a quirk that if you revved the motor and then let your foot off the accelerator, it would backfire. I did this and the car backfired by these people and they all hit the deck like a bomb had gone off. We continued on our way, but noticed someone at the exit of the parking structure talking into something. Turns out he was a rookie cop they had posted there to call the station when they saw drunks driving out of the structure. We made it to my buddies car and right as he was about to get out of my car, a bunch of cop cars swarmed us. The cop comes up to my window, and asked for my license and registration, but before I could even hand it to him, he noticed the 22 in the back of the car, yelled "GUN", pulled his gun and stuck it in the back of my head. In retrospect it's kind of a miracle that I didn't shit my pants.

Another time I got busted for open container. I thought I wasn't doing anything wrong and I was probably acting a bit like a dick. I found out that they usually just ask you to dump out your drink and throw it away and that's usually it. Because of the of the way I was acting, one cop looks at the other and says, "there has to be something we can bust this prick on". They ended up writing me a ticket and I had to go to court, all because I decided to get lippy.

What's the point, you ask? At no time in any of my confrontations with the police, did I ever consider trying to fight back, point a weapon at them or try to take theirs. That is why I am alive to post this.

Seriously question though, why do you think people now consider it a viable option to fight back against the police? Yeah, if a cop pulls you over, makes you drop your pants and starts unzipping his fly, fight or flight would probably kick in. But people are going this route for no reason at all. I am just trying to figure out what has changed so much, that people are willing to risk their lives over something really trivial like getting busted for shoplifting, in Brown's case.

Post your stories of dealing with the police, because you are alive to tell the tale.

Sparknotes: We all do stupid shit and have to deal with the PoPo. Why do some decide to roll the dice and try to fight when they really don't need to? Post your worst police encounters.