Part of doing community health is visiting in the homes of the people we're serving. Unfortunately there is also a proportionally high amount of families with lengthy histories with police. One community on my route has one of those ticket mill police departments. I'm using my cruise control and driving at 10 and 2 religiously when there. My one family, one of the adults is frequently in and out of jail but is currently in sobriety. Just keeps getting busted trying to help her friends and winds up being charged as an accessory from a lot of wrong place/wrong time stories.
Unfortunate for me, my car is at the home a lot, doing check ins and other things related to my role. Sometimes this will total 2-3 hours per week. I've started noticing cops following me. I dismissed it as paranoia. I mentioned it in a meeting and my supervisor validated my paranoia saying, "no, they probably are monitoring if you're a drug dealer like the one person that lives there." I half joked I was going to pull over and introduce myself.
This week I wound up spending 3 hours in one sitting with the new, temporary, guardian as the parent is incarcerated. When we were closing up the meeting a cop did a quick stop of a bicyclist outside (the blue lights filled the living room). When I went to my car, I joked to the guardian, "well at least the cops are gone."
Not even 5 minutes later an unmarked unit pulls me over and has 4 marked units surround me. While he's talking to me on the driver side, another guy is flashing his flashlight on my passenger side. He tells me he pulled me over because my license plate is obscured. It's in a frame that came with it from the dealership and has been there for 3 years I've had it. And it wasn't an issue in prior traffic stops. Then he mentions my cracked windshield was his other probable cause. I stated yes, and replacements are expensive.
I hear his buddy running my information and the dispatch reporting my license as suspended. Apparently when we paid our 2023 taxes (late) the state department of revenue applied it toward our 2024 liability, leaving our 2023 as unpaid and state law dictates a license suspension after a certain time. This, my windshield, nor the plate frame came up in my March 2025 traffic stop by an equally predatory village PD. So the cop kept my physical license, tells me to fix my shit, and sends me on my way after determining I was a therapist working with the family of one of their frequent fliers and actually not a part of the village drug trade.
I had court in the same town the next morning. No where near enough time to settle my liability with the state nor get a replacement license. So I dressed up in the most formal attire I could find, used a seldom used pair of sunglasses, and took my wife's car to their "city" court, connected to the police department, did what I had to do, and then back roaded my way out of there, and still saw six units.
I have to drive a client on Tuesday. I'm hoping this shit can resolve Monday.
Every single person I've talked to with law enforcement experience says they never pull someone over for an obstructed plate if it's a dealer frame unless you're specifically trying to have probable cause on someone, like trying to figure out who the strange Caucasian ogre is visiting the trap house thrice weekly, sometimes in t-shirts, sometimes in dress shirts. Clearly a king pin.
