So I always thought cops were shitheads. I thought they were systematically turned into bastards if they weren't one when they started. But my hate was not pure.
I was the designated drivers for myself and some friends coming back from a concert. It was most of the day. We got there around 4 and didn't leave until around midnight. Since we had so much time, I had a few drinks at the very start. ~3 fluid ounces of pure alcohol, or 5 standard drinks. Front-loaded and over an 8 hour period, in a 180 pound adult man under 30. I was inside of a cashless, no outside food/drink venue for the last 6 of the eight hours and I can prove I bought exactly one drink during those times through my bank statements. I had a few friends with us, and I was dropping the last one off. She was going through a difficult time. She's a close friend of mine since I was 12, and was sharing with me that she had seen her friend shoot himself in the head in front of her when we were in junior high. I had an inkling of what had happened, but I never knew it was that bad. She had moved that month and it was my first time going to her new place, so I almost miss my turn. I get pulled over. My license plate light was out and I was using a lane improperly.
They want me to do a field sobriety test. I have a minor physical disability. You wouldn't notice if I didn't call attention to it, but I have significantly retroverted femurs. Because of the way they fit into my hip, my feet point outwards. It's a type of duck-footedness. This means I have poor mid-foot stability and struggle to balance on one foot. So I fail the field sobriety test. They arrest me, tow my car, and leave my friend on the side of the road. They arrest me and take me to the station. I have a lawyer in the family, so I immediately ask to speak to an attorney. They've already read my miranda rights and everything, and I've always heard that, when you're arrested, you don't do anything until you've talked to a lawyer. They tell me I need to do a breathalyzer first. I say I need to speak to an attorney before I consent to anything. They tell me I can't talk to my attorney yet. We go back and forth like this for a while, then they say "you can talk to your attorney after you sign this." They hand me a sheet of paper. I read it over, and as best as I can tell at 2am after a massive concert, scared shitless by my first encounter with the cops, it's a statement claiming I understand the consequences of refusing a breathalyzer. I figure there's no problem signing that, because I'm not refusing. I sign, I call my lawyer to tell him the situation, and I only ask if I should take the breathalyzer. He says yes, so that's good enough for me. The phone call, once they actually let me take it, took less than five minutes. I hang up and say I'm ready to take the test. Then they tell me that I've already refused and am no longer allowed to take the test. They take me to jail. It's fucking miserable, and the very first guard I interact with started joking about me gettingremovedd once he saw I marked myself as bisexual on some of the paperwork. After the worst night of my life, I'm able to get out on bail.
So now I've got a DWI charge. They offered me a diversion program since I've never had any sort of criminal history. I've never even been pulled over or ticketed before. I get excited and think it's going to be a chance to dodge a bullet. But the terms are fucking awful. Between all the fees and tests I have to pay for out of my pocket, it costs roughly $10k. I have to have an interlock device with camera on my car for a year. I have to do 50 hours of litter cleanup, attend substance abuse counseling, a mothers against drunk driving panel, a driving skills course, and be completely clean of any drugs or alcohol for two years. They make sure using specialized blood tests that can tell if you've had any alcohol within the last week or so. This, of course, also includes legal weed, even if you have a prescription. You have to check in every weekday to find out if you have a test or not that day. It comes with other fun terms, like that they can modify your program however they like at any time for any or no reason, and that you are responsible for not drinking an excessive amount of water, which would cause problems for the drug test results. They won't tell me how much that is, of course. But yeah, all this for two years. In some respects, this is a worse deal than if I had just gotten convicted. The catch, however, is that you can eventually get your records expunged. It would be 5 years before I could get the arrest expunged and 2 before I could get the charges expunged. A typical first time offense like this is two years probation, but could also include two months in prison. So they're extorting $10k out of people in order to keep their arrest record clean.
Part of me wants to fight this. I have a good logical argument why I wouldn't be drunk: I have images with metadata showing me inside of the concert venue 7 1/2 hours before I was pulled over and my bank statements showing that I purchased only one drink. I have witnesses who can attest that I had not gone anywhere else between the concert and the drive home. I have clinical records from a year before showing that I have midfoot instability and poor single-foot balance. But if I want to argue it, I have to give up the diversion. I have to risk jail time and a permanent mark on my record. And at they end of the day, a good logical argument isn't necessarily a good legal one, and they're likely to just assume I'm guilty rather than prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I'm guilty. It's a very conservative district that likes to brag about their high conviction rate. I don't have a ton of money, but I think I could manage the costs, somehow. I can't sleep anymore. I lie awake at night freaking out. I graduate in two years (went back to school) and I'm afraid this is going to fuck me out of getting a job. And two years straight-edge sober would suck, and also hurt my already pathetic social life. Fuck this. Fuck all of this stupid bullshit. I didn't hate cops enough.