By POLITICO staffThe first time I drove through the new city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, it was a jarring experience.
My car sat on the highway, a sign of the time, as I drove into town.
I was surprised to see that it was still in use.
As I approached the intersection where I’d been pulled over, the driver in front of me didn’t look up at me.
The lights were green, the horn was sounding, the horns blaring.
“I don’t care about your traffic,” the driver said.
“You’re not a real person.”
I was still standing, I was looking at him, and he was clearly confused, even in the bright, fluorescent light.
The first time, he didn’t even bother to look up from his radio.
And as he said that, he drove me down the road for a second.
Then he stopped.
He didn’t know that I had stopped.
When I returned to the car, he said something to the effect of “I hope you don’t get hurt, because I’d rather not get hurt.”
The next time I was pulled over by a police officer, it took me about 15 minutes to realize that I was stopped.
And every time the officer asked me questions, I could tell I was confused, and didn’t think very clearly.
After a few days of frustration and frustration, I found myself in a state of frustration with police officers everywhere.
The city of Detroit has been a hotbed of police brutality.
A Detroit police officer stands guard in front to block traffic as demonstrators take to the streets in Detroit, Michigan on March 13, 2020.
Detroit has been one of the most deadly cities in America for decades, and the city has been plagued by widespread police brutality, particularly during the riots in 2016 and the police shootings of Black men and boys.
But when I drove around the city, I saw that there was no sign of any real change.
In fact, when I pulled into my driveway in the middle of the day, it didn’t take long to find an empty parking lot.
“I just don’t know why people are so angry,” said Joe Fagioli, a former police officer who lives in the city.
“It’s just not like we’re doing anything wrong.
There’s not that much that we’re not doing.”
Fagiolis, who now works in law enforcement, said he was also frustrated with the police department.
When I first got here, I thought the police were here to protect me and protect the city from the criminals, he told me.
And I thought they were protecting the city for me, too.
But the last few years, they’ve started to become very aggressive.
And there are some of us that have become very disillusioned.
There’s this feeling of injustice, Fagio said.
And it’s a feeling I’ve been feeling for years.
I can’t understand why this hasn’t been addressed sooner.
The city of Flint, Michigan was also recently rocked by a crisis.
As I drove to the airport to fly home, I noticed the new sign on the side of the highway.
It said, “Detroit Police Department,” but it wasn’t a department.
It was a billboard for a company that was advertising a new service: an app.
I noticed it on the other side of that billboard, too, but I didn’t want to bother looking up to see what it said. I didn