Julie (with papers), My Favorite Dominican Cop, Myself and Jamie at the "Office"
We didn’t mean to nearly run over an officer of the law, but when he chased our van and swerved right in front of us to stop us, our bumper came within inches of his motorcycle.
Maybe that was what made him so mad—or maybe it was the fact, that our driver Julie was driving the wrong way on a one way street. Regardless, when we stopped, boy did we get screamed at. I could see the veins in the officer's neck popping out. He took our identification and registration and then told us in 'Spanglish' to follow him to his office. Since it was Palm Sunday, the police station was closed, so his office was on a street corner between the money exchange place and an ice cream vendor.
Now, I have talked myself out of a few tickets in my day, but here we had a very angry officer. He called us "the three criminals" who almost ran him over. It appeared to me that he wanted to make sure that everyone at his corner “office” got the message that he was in charge and nobody gets away with anything on his watch. So, we stood there taking all of the insults that he could throw at us in two languages.
“No, you listen to me!”
Julie, our normally meek, mild, and darling driver, had enough. She put her hand on her hip, stuck out her chin, and pointed her finger at the officer's chest and said, “No, you listen to me…!” My heart sank, and I imagined that we were well on our way to handcuffs and jail time, complete with worm-ridden slop with no utensils and cell mates that steal your flip flops…
When I heard those words roll off Julie's tongue, I shifted into emergency survival mode. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, I knew we had to come under the authority of this angry officer. It was as if the words I was to say were falling from the sky, like the Matrix movie where Neo can see the code which makes up the universe.
I said, "Sir, we acknowledge your authority, and we submit to you and the laws you enforce. We say in the presence of all of these people listening in your office, that you are in charge and we humbly ask for your mercy." Silence fell. We were guilty, and we needed mercy fast. I prayed for mercy from the ultimate authority.
“You are a criminal and I am taking you to jail for three days!”
The officer pointed his finger at me and said, "You, I like, but you," He stabbed his finger at Julie, "You are a criminal and I am taking your car for five days, and taking you to jail for three days!" I could see that Julie was close to tears. I said quietly to her, "Humility—you must show him he is in authority over you and that you submit to this ability to throw your butt in jail." Julie made immediate changes to her body language, facial expressions and voice tone.
The officer calmed down and questioned me, "Where are you going next?" I said, "Well, sir, we were going to have a nice lunch and enjoy the beautiful day after our time in church but that will not be possible if you take our friend to jail and impound the car." I quickly followed that with, "Did I mention that we build homes for the poor here? We would never intentionally try to harm anyone that you are sworn to protect." Seeing that he was intrigued, I asked him, "Can I pray for you? We will pray for your protection, for your life, health, prosperity, and for your family? I know you must be under a tremendous stress with all of your responsibilities, and we'd like to pray for you. May we?"
“Can we pray for you and your family?”
He smiled and said yes. We prayed for him. When we finished, I just knew that I had to have a picture with our new friend—just for the memories of this day. Right after the photo was taken, he took the ticket from Julie's hand and let us go—no ticket, no jail time, no car impound, and no attempt to bribe us.
Lesson learned: Submit to authority, pray at all times, and don't let Julie drive!