My first interaction with the police was in college. I had locked my bike to a bench near the student union. Might have been obnoxious, probably shouldn't have, but it was also very common for students to lock bikes to those benches. Someone from the University's parking and transportation department had come by and double locked my bike with a notice saying it would be impounded and I'd have to come by the Parking and Transportation office to pay a fee and pick it up.

It didn't seem right to me that I would have to pay a fee for something that everyone did and that wasn't counter-indicated anywhere I was aware of. I did a little reading and discovered what I thought were two relevant city ordinances! I forget the exact language of the ordinances but it was something like "There needs to be a visible sign prohibiting locking bicycles in the area or to the fixtures to issue citations" and "Citations should be issued by police officers only who should be specifically named in the citation." I thought both of those applied to my situation as my citation was issued, not by an officer, but just generally by the Parking and Transportation department and there were no signs about not locking your bikes to benches.

I made the case to the woman behind the desk at the parking and transportation department. She was unmoved and insisted I had to pay the fine to get my bike back. I tried arguing along the lines that taking my bike against my will and in disagreement with the law was basically theft. She countered by saying that if it was theft I should call the police. When I repeated the accusation that it was theft she slid her desk phone across to me and told me to call the police again. Writing this, it seems crazy to me that I actually did - but I found it hard to back down in the moment and thought I was in the right on a legal basis. So, I called the non-emergency number for the campus police and explained the situation. The police person told me they'd send someone by.

A few minutes later a couple of cops showed up and asked to speak to me outside. I stepped outside with them and tried to explain the situation. Pretty quickly, before I even got into my legal arguments, one cop said "We got a call that you were disturbing the peace in there. That you were threatening people and acting violent." The second cop stepped extremely close to me, coming face to face in a threatening manner and asked me something like "Why are you threatening people?"

It was, first, completely untrue. I had never raised my voice or been threatening. I actually enjoy such arguments and I had been having a good time trying to rescue my bike. The Parking and Transportation Department woman had been unamused and maybe a little cynical or dry, but certainly never acted like there was a threat of any kind or like I was being hostile. And, of course, ultimately, I knew they were lying because I was the one who had called them and I definitely hadn't reported myself as causing a disturbance or being violent.

Realizing they wouldn't help me, I thanked the police for their service and left. From their perspective, they probably felt they had solved the problem. They got called over a problem and they made the problem go away. I've always felt the situation was a bit galling but looking back on it I see I was navigating the system the wrong way. The police are physical problem solvers, not legal arbiters, and should not be called for non-physical problems. And, maybe I was morally wrong anyway to lock my bike there.