It is late at night, I am restless so I decide to take a walk to the little food spot that is open 24 hours. I am walking down independencia and a PN pickup pulls up and ask for ID, pat me down the whole 9. I don't as much as have beer on my breath. Next they tell me to get in the back seat. I explain I am simply taking a walk to the store.
So they drive me to the store and on the way there they outright ask for a propina and I play stupid. I go in the store and one of the PN follows me in. Next thing I know he picks out about 150 pesos worth of snacks and motions to the guy behind the counter to put it on my tab. Now what am I supposed to do besides pay it. I am fuming buy I know they would blow me away in a heartbeat. So the best I could do was tell them to drive me back to my apartment and chalk it up as taxi fare.
This is the main reason I try not to be out on the street after 10pm unless in a taxi.
I've been talking about this rising issue in the capital since a big increase over the last 18month/2year. And it does not need to be after dark, they've spun up on me two's up on a moto while I've been standing on a ZC street corner on the phone, patting me down, asking which drugs I do, looking in my wallet, and waiting, just waiting and looking at me for some reaction. As if I should know to offer them a bribe for not giving me sh1t.
I refused on Autopiste San Isidro about a year ago, and they put me inbetween them on the bike and hauled me off to the little station n the Autopiste. They were arresting me for refusal to give them money. Didn't lock me up, but kept me sitting there outside the Capitans office for about 30 minutes until I figured this was a waiting game and so I called my next door neghbour a retired Colonel to come and sort this out. Which he did, but not after the Capitan still asked me for something for wasting his time, lol. And Hector (Colonel) just kept acting as if there was nothing wrong, or this is the norm. Kind of when I began to think that the downhill gradient of living in DR was getting steeper. My neighbours reaction did it for me, not only my neighbour but friend, we have kids who went to school together, play tgether after school, we went weekly shopping together, whole families and kids, all that stuff. You could say we were good friends, but him not flinching at what was going on, nor comment that it was out of order spoke volumes to me.
They have never been what we know as a Police force, they are more of a threat when walking the streets than anything else. I just don't walk anywhere in the Capital anymore, people might not believe this but my experience shows that if I am walking down the street alone and PN see me, then I stand a 50/50 chance of being stopped and searched, harassed.
Countless experiences with the clowns over the years, but now I am intimidated by the sight of them, I physically try to avoid them around the city where there are not crowds. If there was only me and PN on a quiet road in the city and I was on foot then I would turn around and walk the other way. It's a joke now, ruthless, more so than ever!!!
I'm not worried about them outright mugging me, or harming me, but they can and will ruin my day, and so it is easier to turn the other way. People will say, that is no way to live, and I agree, it is becoming more and more difficult to be an average joe and just go about your business. People might say I we must be doing something to draw attention, well, no walking down the street being foreign is not really looking for trouble.
