Member-only story
A Police Officer Peeked Over My Curtains at Night
My experience with police misconduct, civil complaints, and the 4th amendment
The knock at my door shocked me. It was a cold January night, three hours past sunset. My heart suddenly began racing, but I didn’t move off the couch. Just a week or two prior, two Jehovah’s Witnesses had audaciously come to my door at 8:30, ringing the doorbell twice and waiting so long for me to answer that I wondered if they would ever leave.
I figured they had come back and as such, remained on the couch, working on editing a video for YouTube. Even if I hadn’t thought it was the same pair of proselytizers, I still wouldn’t have moved to answer the door. I’m a single woman who lives alone in a house on the end of the street at the very edge of town. I don’t open my door after dark unless I know and trust the person on the other side.
A few minutes later, I checked my security camera footage, and my heart immediately began racing again — though this time, it didn’t stop.
I saw a strikingly burly man who looked like he could be a linebacker slowly and cautiously approach my house. As he got closer, I saw that his dark clothes were actually a law enforcement uniform — I could see the word SHERIFF on his lapel.
