There is a new COPS like show on MTV called “Busted”, it focuses on young people who have been busted for one “crime” or another. I have seen several episodes at this point and frankly it is a disgusting example of police stomping on the civil liberties of young people everywhere.

Here are a few tidbits of things the police have done on the show that upset me:

They stopped a guy who they claimed “was having trouble walking”, he said he was drunk and was calling a cab. He called the cab and then the cops arrested him for public intoxication and they claimed it was for his own safety. He was not acting violently at all.

They pulled this kid over for “having a broken taillight”, but then before they even actually had made the full stop the cop said “if this is the same guy driving he doesn’t have a license”. The kid was not drunk or high, he did not have a drivers license but was not driving dangerously. They then searched his car illegally and found a penis pump, then the cop said “I decided not to charge him for having the pump in his car”, news flash for the cop: it is not illegal to own a penis pump. This was a witch hunt and the cop pulled this kid over just because the cameras were there.

The cops stopped these guys who they claimed someone had called them saying they had been seen swerving. Then it became clear that these guys were well known to the cops. When the cops started harassing these guys they were stopped at a convenience store and not even driving. They ended up taking one guy in for “being under the influence of a controlled substance”, however he was not acting intoxicated, they never gave him a breathalyzer, they never clarified what he was supposedly on, they just had him watch a flashlight and then arrested him. They also arrested one of these guy's girlfriends for “interfering with a police investigation”. Her crime? Asking the police why they were harassing her boyfriend when he had done nothing wrong.

There was one episode where the cops started harassing two young people who were sitting on a lawn. There was no crime being committed. The home owners had not called the police about the couple sitting on their property, the cops were just driving by and decided to harass these two. They ended up arresting them for being drunk and under 21.

Every episode is chocked full of police harassment, arrests for consensual crimes, illegal searches, police posturing, etc. What the show is missing is real crime, I did see an episode where the police broke up a fight, but that is as close as it has got. Most of the time it is a show about college town cops harassing college students for partying and if you love liberty the way I do, it is a show that will get your blood boiling.

