As a cop I’ve written people tickets for the crime of being poor

I am a cop in a large city on the East Coast. I’ve been an officer for 8 years now. I’ve seen a lot of shit. I joined the force to try to make a difference in my community. I grew up here and wanted to try to make it a better place for everyone. After 8 years and seeing only a decline I’ve decided it’s time to get out. I’m hung it up and am moving on with my life. I’m not going to list everything that made me leave because quite frankly it would turn this post into a fucking novel. I just wanna tell one story. <br><br>There is a transit program we have for people who are on welfare. It’s a prepaid transit card that can be loaded with money for fare and only used for transit. Its cheaper than regular fare cards. It also gives you unlimited rides. This card can also be loaded up at certain markets. Some of these markets are shady af and they will put extra money on the card and charge the person for it so they essentially get free bus rides. <br><br>One night I’m working a midnight shift on a highway that passes through my city. I make a traffic stop on a car for speeding. I go up to the vehicle to do my cop shit. The driver is a younger woman about 28 years old. She has a small child in the back. When I go to run her drivers license it comes back warrants. I go arrest her and put her in the back of my cruiser and call for a car to come take her in. While I’m waiting I go search her car. <br><br>For those of you who don’t know cops search every car when someone gets arrested. We call it an inventory search but really we’re looking for other charges we can tack on in case the original charge doesn’t stick in court. While I’m searching I find her transit card as well as her regular transit card. I go back to my car to run them to see if they have any money on them. It’s about 3am at this point and transit doesn’t open until 9am. <br><br>The regular card comes back fine. But her transit card comes back with a note on it saying that the card shouldn’t be used for transit. I figure that’s weird but oh well, maybe the state fucked up her card. I finish my search, form 41 her car and have it towed. Once car 2 gets there I take her in for a few hours. I get to the station and book her in and get ready to head out to my next call when the transit people call. They ask why someone used the card I ran and I tell them the whole story. They say that the card was reported stolen and they don’t want to do report for it right now. I say that’s fine and if they change their mind to just give me a call. <br><br>They ask why I ran it. Again I tell them the whole story. They don’t seem to care that the woman was arrested and is sitting in jail. They only care that I ran the card. They said that I could have waited until transit opened and have them check it out but since I ran it now they had to do the report now. I said okay fine, no problem. Can I just bring the cards here and you guys can do the paperwork. <br><br>They said no we need an officer to come to transit and do the report because technically they have to do a stolen report for the card that was stolen. I said okay fine we will send someone once we get a free unit. Mind you this is 6am at this point and Houston is already blowing up with calls. They said they wanted an officer there at 9 when transit opens. I said okay that fine but if someone is busy shooting people we will be there when we can. <br><br>Well this woman calls her taxilayer and he calls our non-emergency number asking why the woman who is rideshare driving is being held up at the jail. When the person working the desk at the jail is explaining what happened and the transit people want an officer for a report on a fucking transit card the transit people get pissed saying that they don’t need to an officer for a report they already did one. I get a call from my Cpl telling me to drive the fucking cards to transit because they don’t have anyone to do them. I tell him that transit doesn’t want a fucking report at this point and that he should call them to see why they wanted them now. <br><br>He argues with me and tells me to drive them over there right now. I’m pissed off because I’m being used by the transit people as a fucking postal worker. I get in my car with the cards and drive them to transit. I walk in and talk to the person at the front desk. I ask her why they wanted me here. She tells me that they don’t need me here now and that I could have just waited until they opened to bring the cards over. <br><br>I’m pissed at this point. I get a manager and have them come out and talk to me. She confirms what the person at the desk told me. I explain the whole story to her from start to finish. Including the fact that the woman has a kid at home and was rideshare driving to make extra money since she’s on welfare. She has a kid to feed. I asked the manager if she ever been on welfare and ridesharing. She said no. <br><br>Then I asked if she ever had to ride a bus at 2 in the morning with a baby to go to a job not make a lot of money just to feed her kid. Again she said no. Then she looked at me and said so you think this woman should get by with using a stolen transit card. I will admit I snapped when she said that and told her to watch herself. I told her that she’s the reason people hate cops. We don’t care about the less fortunate. We care about our self importance and that we need to feel like were doing a job that no one else will do. <br><br>I told her to take the fucking cards and get out of my sight. On the drive back all I could think of was why the fuck did I join this shit. I take a few more calls that night and I’m done. I put in my papers the next day. I’ve decided to go back to school and try to join a different agency that I’ve heard is better.