I’ve been pulled over by cops twice. Once in the 1970s for forgetting to switch my West Virginia license plate when I moved to Virginia and a second time in 2000 when I decided to test how fast my 1994 BMW convertible could go on Interstate 39 in Wisconsin.

Very fast.

I was headed home in the wee hours to Rockford, IL, from the Milwaukee airport. Open road as far as I could see. I’d hit 120 when I saw the laser flash and knew the night was unlikely to end well. I mean, that’s a jail-time, drivers license-suspending, budget-busting oops. I pulled over. And waited.

The tall, lanky cop (interestingly, he was a local, not a statie) walked up to my window and gestured for me to roll it down. I did. For a few seconds he stared speechlessly, a void I filled with an (un)wisecrack: “You didn’t expect to see your mother at the wheel, huh?”

Well, not his actual mother. But old enough to be and that had him momentarily flummoxed. When he recovered, he asked if I knew I’d been speeding. I nodded and asked “how fast?” Ninety, he said firmly, not even a flinch at what we both knew wasn’t true. Anything more, he added, and he’d have to take me in. Lotsa privilege in play on that stop.

I paid the $200 ticket roadside with a credit card. He suggested I slow down for the rest of my trip, which I did sorta. Eighty is OK, right?

I don’t know about you, but people in uniforms with flashing lights scare the daylights out of me. Seeing them in the rearview mirror causes that frisson of anxiety and a quick mental rundown of why they might be after me.

So when Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay nonchalantly told us on Dec. 4 in a radio interview that “if you haven’t done anything wrong, just comply,” I wondered if he really was that clueless about the fear-generating traffic stops paralyzing the Keys and Key West.

Sheriff, if ever that were true, it sure as heck isn’t now. Ditto, by the way, Key West Police Chief Sean Brandenburg, whose officers also assist Immigration and Custom Enforcement and the Border Patrol in these random traffic stops.

Just ask the young blond woman in green medical scrubs who, while screaming “help me” and “I am a U.S. citizen,” was dragged from her car, zip-tied and forced into a waiting SUV. The two-minute video is sick-making.

Just ask Key West High School senior Elvis Garcia, stopped Dec. 2 on his way to school and six days later deported to Honduras. No one knows why this student-athlete who has been here since he was a toddler was so quickly removed. All the right things were in place for an emergency stay. But the deportation system outran the legal system. His attorney says there may be a path to return, but it could, she said, take years. He’s with his grandmother.

Just ask the 30-something Cuban-American woman, long a U.S. citizen, who was stopped because her license plate bracket covered the word “Florida.”

Oh, you didn’t know your bracket could get you arrested? Welcome to Florida, where pretty much any frame around your tag is illegal. On October 1, 2025, Florida outlawed license frames, stickers or decals that cover up the word “Florida” or in any way obscure the information on the plate. A single offense can get you jail time and fines. I suggest you check yours, because it can get you pulled over. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong. Even if you don’t fit the ICE profiles.

Think about laws that mandate seat belt use and ban texting while driving. Both are aimed at saving lives, and had educational grace periods, after which drivers were merely ticketed. Now ask yourself what life a license plate frame threatens. Why is it grounds for arrest? What agenda of fear does it serve?

God help you if you get stopped for a plate violation and you’ve not got your driver’s license or passport or registration or insurance with you or you’re driving someone else’s car. You might think you’re safe because you’ve done nothing wrong. Or because you think you look and sound “American.”

Key West Peace | Nothing is right about this

You. Are. Not. Safe. Every law enforcement officer, local, state and federal, knows you are not safe and they know a random traffic stop generates at best fear, confusion and anxiety. That’s the point. Even if they smile politely when they let you go, they know what they’ve done. We have become, thanks to overly zealous and marginally legal roundups over the past few months, exactly what has been intended all along, people afraid of law enforcement. We have normalized the disappearing of people into the maw of immigration enforcement and the terrorizing of the rest of us over a traffic stop.

For Christians, week two of Advent is the promise of peace. I’m unsure there is peace for an island morphing into a place in which we fear flashing cop car lights. A place where Nativity scenes should have no Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus or Wise Men. Just the Wee Donkey and a sign: “ICE was here.”

Nothing is right about this, though I tell myself “This too will pass.” I fear that before its passing, things will get much worse. We are not safe.

How long, I wonder, before it’s simply OK to require pink triangles for gay men and yellow stars for Jews? How long before I must wear a red triangle because I’m an academic or political dissident? Or a green one because I am deemed a criminal because I have a traffic ticket? Or a black one because I am homeless, a lesbian or a nonconformist? How long before displaying a rainbow flag and picket fence or a “resist” bear and frog sticker on my car marks me for special attention?

I cannot stay in that paralyzingly dark place. Instead I reach for the “peace that passes understanding,” the transcendent and profound inner peace that lies at the foundation of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism. You may find that peace in AA’s “let go, let God,” or in the Serenity Prayer. Find it. Even for a moment. And may that peace be the respite we need to sustain us for the battles ahead.

Peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the presence of justice.

Learn more

1. What happened during that violent traffic stop? Read and watch the video from David Goodhue at the Miami Herald
2. Explore Gwen Filosa’s immigration and traffic stop overview that includes Elvis Garcia
3. Peace was easier last year when I wrote: “We call it the Key West Bubble.“