Tennessee Cops Harass Old Lady After Mistaking Buckeye Bumper Sticker for Pot Leaf Bumper Sticker
If you thought the war on drugs couldn't get any dumber, then you aren't using your imagination.
If you thought the war on drugs couldn't get any dumber, then you aren't using your imagination. Last week, the former president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Ohio State Alumni Club was pulled over in Tennessee while driving from her mother-in-law's funeral in Ohio back to Texas. The reason? Tennessee police mistook the Buckeyes sticker on her ride for a pot leaf sticker, and thought it meant she was trafficking drugs (because people do that). The Columbus Dispatch reports:
They were in the westbound lanes of I-40, a few miles east of Memphis, when a black police SUV with flashing lights pulled them over, Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni said. A second black SUV soon pulled up behind the first one.
"Knowing I wasn't speeding, I couldn't imagine why," she said.
Two officers approached, one on each side of the car.
"They were very serious," she said. "They had the body armor and the guns."
Because the couple's two schnauzers were barking furiously, one of the officers had Jonas-Boggioni exit the car so he could hear her better.
"What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?" he asked her.
She explained that it is actually a Buckeye leaf decal, just like the ones that Ohio State players are given to put on their helmets to mark good plays.
"He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language," she said.
At that point, Boggioni got out of the car to show that he was wearing a commemorative sweatshirt from the 2002 national-championship season, complete with a Buckeye leaf.
The officer then explained that someone from outside his jurisdiction — apparently another officer — had spotted the leaf sticker and thought it might indicate that the car was carrying marijuana, Jonas-Boggioni said.
Before they let her go on her way, the officers advised Jonas-Boggioni to remove the decal from her car.
"I said, 'You mean in Tennessee?' and he said, 'No, permanently.'
Jonas-Boggioni refused to take down the sticker, saying, "This little old lady is no drug dealer." Good for her, standing up to those idiots. And if it had been a pot leaf? Turns out that's not reason enough to pull someon over, according to a spokeswoman for the West Tennessee Drug Task Force. Perhaps she should tell her officers?
Previously in drug war stupidity: Fifteen Hundred Plants Seized During "Biggest Outdoor Marijuana Bust" In Town's History Are Actually Just Daisies
H/T Tom Angell