American Police State

A traffic stop has me asking questions

Law and society

American Police State

A traffic stop has me asking questions

Adrian Lyles

I’ve traveled to 49 different states. The goal is to cover all 50 states before my teenager graduates from high school. After this trip, Idaho will be the only state in America we haven’t visited. On Christmas night, we flew from Atlanta to Kansas City, Missouri. The new states we conquered on this trip were Montana, Kansas, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska. We drove over 1,500 miles throughout the Midwest in eight days. The topography on the eastern side of the Dakotas is remarkably flat, while the western part is filled with rolling hills and changing vegetation. America is such a large and diverse region of land. From the vineyards of California to the peach trees of Georgia, I’ve seen it.

One thing I love about America is how things are rather uniform. When you go to a restaurant in Oklahoma, you can expect to leave a tip just like you would in West Virginia. Football is almost a universal language in the U.S. You will see people wearing Vikings jerseys in Minnesota and Seahawks jerseys in Washington State. You can’t pump your own gas in New Jersey, though, which I find patronizing. I did find it unique that single-use plastic grocery bags were prohibited in Hawaii. It sort of makes sense when you see how much they seek to preserve the environment there. If sacrificing plastic bags is what it takes to stand on the shores of Oahu, then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make every time.

A fundamental right of being an American is the freedom to travel from state to state without obstruction. Some states have toll systems that can be confusing, creating a financial penalty for those traveling from out of town. What is strikingly consistent across the entire country, however, is the practice of police officers hiding in obscure places seeking to extract money from unsuspecting citizens for the infraction of driving at a speed in excess of the posted limit. On the surface, this may seem like a measure to increase road safety for all drivers. If you’ve ever gotten a speeding ticket, it’s likely that you simply overlooked the sudden change in the posted limit and just maintained your speed with the flow of traffic.

Figure 1

This was my experience while driving through the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. When the red and blue lights showed up in my rearview mirror, I was certain that I had gotten too close to the bison (Figure 1) in an effort to capture the perfect photograph. When the park ranger approached my vehicle, however, all of the American commonality ceased in that moment (Figure 2).

Figure 2

He commanded me to roll down all the windows in the vehicle. I leaned out of the driver’s side window and asked for clarity, as the temperature was below freezing. In the passenger seat was my wife, and in the backseat were my two boys (ages 15 and 6). The ranger insisted for a second time that I roll down all windows so that he could see inside the vehicle. While I’m not a lawyer, I do know that I need not comply with any order that would subject myself to an unreasonable search. I had given the ranger no reason to suspect a crime. I chose to comply with the request because at this point I still didn’t know why I was being apprehended.

I was issued a citation for driving 44 mph in a 25 mph zone. The entire park has posted signs of 35 mph except this one road. I didn’t argue with the ranger about my alleged speed. I was then told I had to provide my Social Security number. This made me extremely uncomfortable. I own and operate a financial planning firm, so spotting financial frauds is part of my training. Almost every government agency that will request your Social Security number as part of the verification process already has that information. That was not the case in this incident. When a guy with a gun comes to your car window making unusual demands, what are you supposed to do?

This ranger informed me that because of the passage of the Federal Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, I was required to provide my Social Security number when issued a citation by a federal agent. I took a minute to research this during my apprehension and found it to be true. There I was in one of the most remote parts of the country being demanded to provide sensitive information to a guy with a gun who exhibited behavior like nothing I’ve ever seen before in America. This made me rethink the experiences that others have told me about their encounters with law enforcement. Of all the things that should have some consistency in America, apprehending free citizens should definitely be at the top of the list.

As of September 1, 2024, three officers had been killed in the United States that year responding to crimes in progress like bank robberies and home burglaries. During that same time period, 16 officer deaths fell into the category of “drug-related matter, wanted person, [and/or] traffic violation stop.” So it could be statistically more hazardous for a police officer to pursue a dad taking photographs of bison with his young sons (Figure 3), than to chase a bank robber. Of course, there’s some distortion in the data because of the sheer number of traffic stops compared to the number of bank robberies. Still, an awareness of these statistics could lead to a law enforcement officer having a heightened perception of danger during traffic stops.

Figure 3

I have challenged the idea of issuing citations for minor speeding violations when there’s no other concurrent crime. Almost all traffic citations are issued to citizens who have no criminal records and have no malicious intent. The punitive nature of traffic citations overwhelmingly impacts the poor. The citation I received has a fine of $125. This could also cause my car insurance to increase $200–$300 per year, and thus, over a two-year period, the cost of this ticket could exceed $700. When we consider that nearly 50% of Americans have less than $500 in savings, these types of fines can be debilitating.

Much of my public work has involved educating people on how race-based data distorts meaningful progress. I’m not naive about the likelihood that the apprehending park ranger noticed the Texas license plate on the rental I was driving. This was something that stood out among the other tags. I would also be naive to deny that the officer might have been influenced by inherent biases related to people with dark brown skin. While the officer said or did nothing that suggested that he was stopping me because of a perception related to my phenotype, there are very few people with my appearance in the entire state of North Dakota. Race is infused throughout every part of law enforcement (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: The author and apprehending officer in yet another traffic stop, this time in South instead of North Dakota.

Ironically, Georgia driver’s licenses do not list race on them but part of the information that the officer completed on the citation I received was a section for race. Are we as a nation ready to ask what happens to the psychology of armed agents who are being forced to constantly reify the concept of race? This can’t be productive.

One thing that is consistent across America is the insertion of the concept of race into a wide range of things, from marriage licenses to medical treatment. I have argued that these practices are regressive and deleterious. The same can be said for extracting sums of money from free citizens for modestly exceeding recommended speed limits. If we hope to move closer to a society that values life and liberty, we will challenge both of these practices. There are many colors, cultures, heritages, and nationalities, and yet we are all still part of one human race.

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Adrian Lyles is a business owner, church leader, and family man who wants to help unite rather than divide people and send the message that we are more alike than we are different. Lyles is the president and owner of Lyles Wealth Management and is also founder of the P.U.L.L. (People United in Life and Liberty) movement, a social advocacy group that campaigns for human equality. As the founder of P.U.L.L, his mission is to dispel myths about race and present the concept that there is only one race—the human race. Through P.U.L.L Lyles seeks to educate, empower, and encourage people to take a broader view of equality. He personally funds college scholarships and counseling in areas of race, relationships, career, and finance to three Gordon County, GA high school seniors annually. Lyles is also the board chair of Voluntary Action Center, which offers free meals, a food bank, financial assistance, and more to Gordon County residents in need. His previous publication for the Journal of Free Black Thought was “A Historic Race,” about Trump’s 2024 victory.