As the officer approached the front of our vehicle he screamed at the passenger in the front seat. "Hey, what are you doing! What are you digging for!" and drew his gun. The driver told him immediately, "He's getting the registration! Are you going to shoot me because he’s getting the registration?!"

The officer replaced the gun in his holster, then told us we had been pulled us over because "There's been an armed robbery reported. Four people. I pulled you over because you have four people in the car." He then ducked his head, glanced in the car, and pronounced that, "Okay. You don't fit the description. You're free to go."

As he walked away from the window, and the shock of hearing that we were stopped and threatened with a gun for something so stupid wore off, a passenger asked incredulously, "Wait. You stopped us because we have four people in the car? Are you serious?" The officer responded threateningly, so the passenger requested to have his badge number.

As soon as he heard this, the officer went into a rage, immediately called for another police car and told us we were not free to go. Clearly, we were now being detained because we asked for his badge number.

He then asked us for identification. Since we had been told only moments before that we were "free to go," we refused. We had done absolutely nothing wrong and were being harassed for asking for a badge number.

Never at any time did he provide his own badge number, despite repeated requests. We finally got his badge number from the ticket he wrote out.

The officer then pulled every person except the driver out of the car and searched them, claiming that "If you don't have ID then we'll take you down to the station and take your fingerprints and we'll keep you in jail until we figure out who you are."

When the passengers still refused to provide identification, he announced that "if you don't give me your IDs then she,”referring to the driver,“will be getting a citation.” The back up officers looked at #409 in obvious confusion while he explained that he was dealing with "failure to ID at night." The passengers protested that there was no such law. Officer #409 repeated, "You wanted to make this hard, we'll make it hard."

True to his word, the officer returned to his cruiser. While searching us he had improperly and illegally stolen identification from our wallets. For about 15 minutes he and made a show of "running" our IDs to see if we had any outstanding warrants. We of course did not. Officer #409 then handed the driver a ticket citing a broken left tail light and two more citations for "refusing to ID at night.”

The citations on the ticket were very peculiar.

Defective tail light. Citation: 90/7. The tail light was not broken, he had not mentioned the tail light initially and he had told us we were "free to go."

Refusing to ID at night. Citation: 90/11. There were three passengers, but surprisingly he only charged two passengers with "refusing to produce ID at night."

There are only three lines on the ticket we received. Adding a third erroneous ID charge would have forced him to fill out another ticket. So although the officer was abusive of power and physically threatening with both his body language and his gun, he evidently was too lazy to fill out another form! The officer’s "at night" addendum is also as irrelevant as it is pathetic.

Anyway, he knew the citations were complete fabrications.

For those of you who may not know, Chapter 90, Section 11 of the Mass. General Laws requires motor vehicle drivers to ID but not their passengers. Passengers are not required to provide a driver's license because... they're not driving!

Drawing his gun at the very beginning of this altercation, stopping us because "you have four people,” telling us we were "free to go,” dragging passengers out of the vehicle when asked for his own badge number—this is the behavior of an officer not fit for duty.

Either the officer does not know the law and therefore should not be on the streets in "law enforcement," or as I suspect, he knowingly fabricates laws and should not be on the streets as a "bully with a badge."

[On January 18, Robert Dalton filed a complaint with the Cambridge Police Review and Advisory Board, which is still piggybacked on the offices of the Human Rights Commission. For good measure, Dalton went with an outside witness and hand-delivered the form. He was told that “an initial investigation” would be conducted, and that then his case would go before the Board. As we go to press, he has heard nothing—The Bridge Troll]