Big brother would be proud!

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops.

One night (when I was working nights), on the way home I was stopped by the police. I was driving up Broadway trying to get over to H&H to get a bagel to take home when the lights came up behind me. I was really annoyed.

See, I had seen the cruiser when I stopped for the light going up Broadway at Columbus Circle. I hadn’t paid particular notice of it. As I made my way up Broadway, I have to say I was more tired from a long shift than anything else. Being just after 5am, my main interest was getting a bagel and getting home. The drive home is always more leisurely than the drive to work. Broadway is bumpy in the sixties so I didn’t feel like going fast (banging up the car in the process) but, I imagine my slowness must have piqued the curiosity of the boys in blue.

After following me for a few blocks in their cruiser (ironically which had a defective non-working headlight - an equipment violation), I was pulled over.

At this point in life, it’s the exception rather than the rule when this happens. It’s never something I eagerly anticipate but, at this moment in my day it’s just plain aggravating, especially when I'm not speeding or doing anything else. I turned the car off, turned off my headlights, rolled down the window and lazily leaned back against the headrest as the officer warily approached the car (his partner flanking me on the passenger’s side in the very best police trained fashion). In between getting pulled over, shutting off the car, I pulled the lap belt over and latched it. I don’t often ride with the seat belt in use and it’s become just another reason to get a ticket.

The officer approached. I initiated our dialog, “Is there a problem, Officer?” My voice was laced with no small amount of impatience at the interruption of my journey to a welcoming bed.

“Um...” there was a pause as the officer tried to come up with a reason for the traffic stop. “Well, you didn’t have your shoulder belt on.” He could plainly see the lap belt strapped over me stymying his ability to write a ticket for that specific violation. “Can I see your license and registration please?”

When I was looking for the registration, I had thumbed open the glove compartment, prompting the officer‘s partner to shine his flashlight into the glove compartment. Meanwhile, on the passenger’s seat in a misshapen pile were my warm winter coat, my bag, another bag containing remnants of whatever food I had taken to work with me to snack on and the newspapers. Quite the unshapely bundle next to me there. I didn’t have the registration but forked over my license. As I waited, they went back to the cruiser and performed whatever intrusive magic PO’s perform in this brave new electronic age.

I must to point out, now, when the rare occasion presents itself and I am pulled over, the officer is usually much younger than me. There is something less fearsome in being pulled over now than there was as a teenager or a younger man. Then, the officer was a bit of an authority figure, now they are just another wet behind the ears eager beaver.

A few days prior to this I had been walking along the street and had another officer yell at me after I approached him regarding a continuing nuisance out in front of the building I’ve been working in.

A string of loud profanity to erupted from the officer when I interrupted his contemplative moment. Staring off into space, he looked as if he was trying to mentally note where the closest Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts shop. It seems, I was the third person who had inquired as to whether or not the police could provide some respite from our problem. As the third person in a string of people, I had lit a fuse in the young man hence the barrage of the profane.

My traffic stop, happening as closely on the heels of my prior negative experience, found a certain amount of residual contempt for my present blue stalwart. He returned indicating everything was in order and all the while I am thinking - DON’T YOU HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME?

In the interim, I get a phonecall from work (of course). I loudly rant into the phone about being stopped for no reason and about the idiocy of even being stopped in the first place. I am speaking in very loud, easily audible tones, as the officer sheepishly approaches my car to return my documents. Rather than get off the phone or better still, start to drive off while continuing to talk on the damnable phone (a sure moving violation), I remained sitting in the stopped car with the cruiser behind me. The officers impatiently waiting for me to start my vehicle and pull out so they can continue forward without backing up.

Needless to say, I stayed on the phone long enough for them to get antsy and back into one of the side streets and turn around and go back down Broadway. Now looking back, I wonder what I was thinking but, at the time all I was, was very tired.