SMILE . . .You're on Candid Camera

Well, they never showed up. It was all for real real real folks, and I think it is mostly over now. Acutally, much much earlier than I expected. (I am posting this from home instead of via Blackberry from the courtroom, which is what I expected to be doing right now.)

So to get the ENTIRE story, and since you asked for it:

I'll take you back to August 25 at 9 am. I was coming home from taking Erin to school. I was less than a block from my house when I heard the blip blip of a police car behind me, and looked in my rear view mirrror to see the blue and red lights flashing. DAMN IT!! I reached in the glove compartment and got out my insurance card, but knew it was pointless to get my registration out becuase - you got it - EXPIRED.

Police Officer came to the window, asked for what I knew he needed and made sure I knew my tags were expired. He also told me I ran a stop sign two blocks ago, but that he had decided to stop me when he saw my tags. (I had stopped at the stop sign between here and there, but for those two blocks I guess he had been behind me and I just didn't know it.) After the eternity it takes for a police officer to come back from his car when you are pulled over in your neighborhood and your three year old is in the back seat saying, "Why aren't we going Mommy?", he came back to my window and said, "Your insurance is expired too." He showed me the card I had given him, which was an old card. I looked in the glove compartment again, realizing that I had given him the wrong card, and handed him the current card. He said, "Well, I can't take this out of the computer now." And here is the important part of this part of the story. He continued, "Just get your tags renewed and it will all be taken care of. I am not writing you a ticket." Uh-huh.

The next morning, Jillian and I took Erin to school and proceeded to the County Clerk's office, where we renewed the tags on both our cars. This, in my mind, took care of it. The end.

Sometime around Sept. 25, I received a letter dated Sept. 17 from the Driver's License Division saying they had been notified that I had not taken care of a traffic violation, and that if I didn't take care of it within 30 days of the date of the letter my license would be revoked. The letter included an address where to send my fine, with a place where I assume my fine was to be listed. However, there was no fine listed. (ie - I had no fine.) There was also a phone number listed. So I called the number. After trying all the options (which, of course, never resulted in a human being) I chose the operator. But in order to talk to the operator, you must be an attorney or agent of the state (or something like that) and the phone system knew by my phone number that I was not. It would not let me complete my phone call and I was disconnected. After that happened three times it became apparent that I would have to drive to the courthouse and figure out how to avoid having my license revoked. I put this on my list of things to do before Oct. 17.

Meanwhile . . .Chance School does not have busses, and parents drive on all the field trips. If you are interested in driving on a field trip, you have to complete a criminal background check. Whatever results Chance gets back you also get back to your home address. Friday morning Oct. 3 I received my records check back (the same records that Erin's school received.) Would you like to know what it said?

In bold type, all caps: FUGITIVE I had a bench warrant out for my arrest! My bail was listed as $1,000 cash. This was all printed right there in front of me. I immediately went to the courthouse, totally blown away by the whole situation!!

The people at the courthouse said that I had missed a court date for the citation I had recieved (HUH?!) and, although I had my insurance card and registration right there with me, they could not accept that there. I had to re-docket my court case. The woman at the window said, "Would you like Monday or Tuesday?" Both girls are in school on Tuesdays so I automatically said Tuesday. Invisioning having to do this five different times, I asked her what I was going to need that day. She said to bring my registration and insurance card. She added, "But sometimes the judge wants a letter from the insurance company saying you had insurance on that day. It's up to the judge." Okay . . .I asked how to get this all of my record and she gave me a wishy-washy answer, then gave me a peice of paper with my court date on it and said, "Now, there is a warrant out for your arrest. Are you sure you can't come on Monday?" What?!?!?! She was looking at me like, honey you better get in here right away 'cause they're coming to get you. So I said, "Sure I'll come Monday." Then she said, "Now you keep this peice of paper with you all the time because if you get pulled over they can arrest you right there. At least this shows you're taking care of it, but they can still take you." HOLY CRAP!!

As I left the courthouse I realized I better get that letter from the insurance agent before Monday morning because I sure wasn't going to do this again. So I went directly to the insurance agent's office. I told her I needed a letter that stated I had insurance on Aug. 25, and she said, "OH, you got pulled over!" I explained the entire situation to her, excpet I left out the whole bench warrant part. She told me that police officers can take things out of their computers, but they are usually unwilling to do that because it requires them to write a five page report on why they had to delete something. Interesting.
As she was typing my letter, she said, "Just the other day we had a guy come in here who thought he just had to take his registration in. Then he got pulled over for only having one headlight and he found out they had a warrant out for him. They arrested him right there and he spent a night in jail!!" I cluthced my folder full of papers, including my own bench warrant, and innocently said, "Oh my, I can't believe that. It would be awful to find out you ahd a warrant out that way. That's just crazy." My eyes were as big as saucers.

I left with my letter and drove home, praying to God that I did not get pulled over and that no one hit me. I decided I could not drive anywhere until my court date Monday morning, and that would keep me safe. That was Friday afternoon.

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. I had taken a late shower, and was in the bedroom still in a towel. Mark was in the front room on the computer. He yelled back to me, "There's a police officer walking up the driveway." Now for the past 36 hours there had been much joking and teasing among Tablers about fugitives and handcuffs and breaking the law, so I yelled, "Shut up!!" And in a very not-joking kind of way, Mark said, "No, I am serious." YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!!! I heard him open the door before the doorbell rang, and go out the porch, closing the door behind him. I debated about just letting him take care of it, but I figured I should know what was going on so I threw on a tshirt and jeans, quickly combed my hair and went out to meet my fate.

Police Office: Hello Kim
Me: Hello
PO: How are we gonna take care of this?
Me: I went Friday and got re . . .
PO: Instated?
Me: No . . .
PO: Docekted?
ME: Yes! Re-Docketed. I have a courtdate Monday morning. But you need to know something . ..

And I told him the entire story - how the first cop never told me I had an original court date or citation, how I had the insurance card the entire time, how if I hadn't got the records check for Chance I would have never known this had ever happened, etc etc etc. He said, "He didn't give you an isntruction sheet?" Well this was the very first time I ever heard of such. I said, "NO! I have had NO instructions this entire time." He proceeded to tell me exactly what to expect in court Monday, I would have to talk with a prosecutor first and then stand before the judge, it was all alphabetical and I would be there a really long time . . .When he left, he said, "I am not here to arrest anyone on such a minor traffic violation." I replied, "Well I appreciate that." He acutally said, "Sorry to bother you." And then he left.

It wasn't until we both came back inside that I found out that might not have been the case. Mark said that this is the part of the conversation I missed while I was getting dressed:
PO: Are you Mark?
Mark: Yes
PO: Where is Kimberly?
Mark: She's in the shower. What's this about?
PO: DON'T lie to me.
Mark: If this is about the bench warrant, it's taken care of.
PO: It needs to be taken care of NOW.
And this is where I stepped onto the porch, with my obviously wet hair, having just come outof the shower.

Apparently they had caught all the other criminals that day.

Just to give a little closure to this story - Traffic court this morning was only S-Z, so I was called to meet the prosecutor very early on. (At the beginning, right after they read us all our rights, they warned us we'd probably be there till at least noon, but I left by 9:30)He asked for my registration, and for the letter from my insurance company (he had no interest in the card at all; thank GOD I went to that office Friday afternoon.) He was able to dismiss my case without me having to stand before the judge. I asked about my records check, and he said I could come back in 24 hours to get a printout that said my case was dismissed, and that I could come back to court in 60 days to have it taken off my record completely where it would never show up. I will have to go into the office at Chance tomorrow and tell this whole ridiculous story to them, so they understand I am not a FUGITIVE. (They are on fall break today.)

Here are the lessons. The obvious one is renew your tags on time. The other is throw away all your expired insurance cards. Third, CLARIFY with a police office what you are supposed to do because assuming that things are taken care of can land you in jail, or worse, send a letter to your daugther's shcool telling them you are supposed to be in jail.

UNBELIEVABLE.