Tom Fitch: In high school I worked at a small, suburban Super Valu grocery store. The place was open until midnight and occasionally I would work until close on Fridays or Saturdays. Often there would be a couple other kids my age working the same shift (which wasn't really the best idea for the store-- customer traffic was often non-existent in such a small store after 10:00). Being young, with access to all the caffeine we wanted and leftover donuts from the bakery, we were never very tired at the end of the night. So we'd hop in someone's car and drive around listening to music. One evening we were tooling around in an old Escort and we hadn't gone too far from the store when the driver noticed a cop car behind us. I'm still not sure why he did this, maybe to be silly or to look for trouble, but he took a sudden, sharp left into a cul-de-sac neighborhood with no exit. The cops, having nothing better to do, flipped on their lights, followed us in, and pulled us over. They had us all get out of the car, searched us, questioned us separately, and then searched the car. They took out a mechanical pencil that was on the backseat and examined it for a long time determining if it was a "punch." I am still not entirely clear what a punch is, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with drugs. They seemed disappointed it was only a writing instrument and, after admonishing us for driving around looking suspicious (there may have been some curfew, too, but I can't remember now), they let us go. Not exactly a harrowing experience, but it was fairly alarming as my first brush with law.

Joel Jensen: This is really a very long story, but here's an abbreviated re-telling. I was traveling in China with a Buddhist monk kung fu master. We wanted to ride the train, but we couldn't get tickets, so my friend, Jing Kang, charmed the porter, who let us ride for free. When the conductor came by to check everyone's tickets we were found out. He wanted a bribe, which wouldn't have been that substantial by American standards.

I was willing to pay, but Jing Kang refused. Instead he pulled out his nun-chucks and attacked the conductor. I was able to break up the fight, but I was sure that I would soon be headed to a Chinese prison. The free ride probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but attacking the official surely meant serious consequences. Jing Kang already had a police record, too. Strangely, the conductor backed off and stopped hassling us. We were allowed to stay on the train, but we were very nervous; it just seemed too weird that we were let off the hook. We we arrived at the station in Xian we figured out what was going on - we were going to have to deal with the government authorities at the train terminal. It looked pretty grim, but as we got off the train, a man in front of us of got into an argument with the cops who were waiting for us. Seeing an opportunity, we just ran away. We jumped the turnstile, fled as fast as we could, and disappeared into the city.

Mark Kalar: October, 1991. Halloween was on its way, and my friend Steve and I figured it would be fun to take our girlfriends walking through the cemetery - spooky, right? So we go walk through the cemetery; coming back, I see a couple of cops looking in the windows of my car with flashlights. My first thought was someone had broken into my car. As soon as we come down the hill, the cops tell us we are now the prime suspects in a recent anti-Semitic vandalism spree, and they throw us in the back of their squad car. After some time of them talking to our girlfriends, one of the guys gets in the car and asks for our drivers licenses. He starts asking questions about why we were they, and why we ignored the sign saying the cemetery was closed (a visit the next day confirmed that no such sign existed). We tell him we just walked around-- he tells us he's going to go check things out. He gets out and joins the other guy. They sit out on my car's hood with the girls, while Steve and I sweat in the backseat. Finally, after close to an hour of sitting in the back of the police car, they let us go, saying they were keeping our information on file and if any vandalism was found, we'd be going to jail. On the way home, we find out the cops were just out flirting with our girlfriends the whole time, and by the way, wasn't it funny how nervous Steve and I looked in the backseat.

Keith Pille: Whoa. I'd planned on writing about a fairly standard teen vandalism run-in (a friend of mine and I got questioned by cops when we were caught walking around Blair, Nebraska after curfew; we were sweating because we'd just been trying to start a revolution by spraying a bunch of graffiti at the high school. Somehow, we never got fingered for the vandalism, although we were briefly suspects for some burglaries that happened that night), but the I remembered a brush that really was harrowing... I get sort of uncomfortable thinking about it now.

At the end of my senior year of high school, I was a finalist for an internship/work study program with the CIA (my politics were a little bit different in the early 90s). I flew out to Washington a few times, did some interviews, took a battery of tests, and went through a full security screening. For part of the security screening, I had to take a polygraph test, and that experience may well be the shittiest hour of my life. It's tough to explain-- I was a squeaky-clean 18-year-old (the above mentioned graffiti outburst was by far the worst thing I'd ever done at that point) whose worst ethical transgressions involved fudging the amount of Experience Points my cleric received after a D&D adventure (sorry guys); but sitting in that bland, nasty little room with all of that shit hooked up to me, and with some guy's voice cooing questions from behind me, it really didn't take more than ten minutes for me to feel like I was goddamned well guilty of something and I'd be lucky if they even let me call home before shipping me off to Leavenworth.

Don Pizarro: My most harrowing brush with the law was on a trip to the Philippines when I was 21. The brush itself wasn't harrowing - just a routine traffic stop that's quickly fixed by an even more routine payoff (roughly $20USD). The harrowing thing was my cousin, the driver, telling me that I shouldn't speak. I look Filipino, by my American accent would give me away, probably resulting in a much higher payoff. I stayed as calm as I could and luckily the officer ignored me completely.

Kelly Riordan: So you know what they say about the internet, and the whole sticking-around-forever issue? Well, I have the feeling that someday my daughter will see all of these Contributor Surveys. So I'll give you a tamer episode. Zoë, doll, don't be getting any ideas, now, y'hear? Now with that said...I used to go bridge-jumping at midnight off the Arcola Bridge into Lake Minnetonka when I was a bit younger. We once had the misfortune to mistime our jumps with the passing of a police boat, who apparently then radioed our (illegal) presence to a squad car. Occupants of said car proceeded to chase us off the railroad bridge, through the woods. They lost us somewhere along the way, and we were able to slink back to the car and make our sweet escape.

Simon Riordan: On the last Friday of April, 2003, I was apprehended by the Minneapolis Police Department at the corner of Riverside and 20th in Minneapolis. I was participating in a moving protest on bicycles: Critical Mass (www.mncriticalmass.net (or .org)). The mass of bicyclists had just ridden through the Carlson School of Management and was turning onto Riverside Avenue. The traffic light turned from green to red but the participants continued to ride through the light, much like a parade or funeral, as was the routine. As I made my way through the intersection, I noticed that a HUGE black truck was attempting to turn into the mass. So, I stopped, put my feet down, held my out hand, and kindly asked the driver to stop, so no one would get hurt. At that very moment, a squad car lurched out from the side of the truck and two cops leaped out demanding that I drop my bicycle. They also demanded the same for the gentleman behind me. We were handcuffed and verbally berated and I was ungracefully forced to fold my 6'5" frame into the crammed backseat (no east feat sans hands). The cops picked up our bicycles and threw them on the sidewalk, yelled at some onlookers photographing the event as the cops then threw our bikes in the trunk. I introduced myself to Jemiah, who took a picture of my cuffed hands. Then, the cops drove two blocks and called the precinct to say they were bringing us in, they were told to stay away and only to cite us (since Councilman Dean Zimmerperson had been notified of the apprehension and had already called the Chief of Police!). The beratement continued anyway as Officers Crewcut and Blade Sunglasses seemed to enjoy telling us how stupid we were and "you don't own the streets!" We were handed misdemeanors for blocking traffic, uncuffed, and after our release, I took great pleasure in rubbing my wrists - just like they always do on T.V.!
P.S. My bike was okay and I didn't have to pay the fine...
Minneapolis' finest!

Jonathan Shipley: In college my roommate and I made fun of the pizza delivery guy delivering a pizza to someone else in the dorm. We yelled out our dorm room window. He looked funny. He drove a stupid car. He delivered pizzas. We made fun of him. We then went back to our studies because we were in college and we studied. That's what we did. An hour or so later there was a knock on our door. I answered it and there was a policeman standing there. "A man was delivering pizzas here a short while ago and said you and your friends attacked him." "That's ridiculous," I said. "I study. That's what I do." "The pizza delivery guy says you jumped him and kicked him and stole his pizza." "I've been here the whole time. That's preposterous." The policeman said, "I think you're telling the truth." "The truth is we made fun of him because he looked funny and drove a stupid car and delivered pizzas. I didn't attack him though." The policeman said, "Sticks and stones can break bones, but words can, too." That made me feel sad.

Amethyst Vineyard: The first time I got pulled over I was seventeen and doing ninety-five in a sixty-five zone. My car's speedometer didn't even go up that far. I freaked out when I saw the lights behind me and pulled over on the wrong side of the road, hitting a patch of gravel and sending a sharp rock into the windshield of the police car and cracking it. I immediately started crying, hard, gasping sobs that barely let me answer the poor policeman's questions with my feeble, choked 'yes, sir's and 'no sir's, thinking about what my mother would do to me if I came home with a speeding ticket. Eventually the policeman let me go without even giving me an official written warning, so disturbed was he by my inconsolable weeping. I have never been able to cry so effectively again, and so I have gotten about four tickets since then.