Fuck tha police! (or, I fought the law and the law won)

I had my three minutes in court this morning over a trumped-up $60 "fare evasion" ticket. The fact that the MTA and the police had clearly colluded to create a ticket-giving entrapment fiasco failed to sway the judge. The fact that I was holding my unlimited-ride MetroCard IN MY FUCKING HAND at the time didn't matter either. So, as I understand it, the law works like this: if you swipe your card and it doesn't work, you can get frustrated and jump the turnstyle (see the case of Jeremy Boyd, as recounted in The New York Times, May 25, 2004). If, however, you have your card but get confused and follow a bunch of other people through a wide-open, unguarded, and unmarked gate, you have committed a crime. How silly... I thought the crime was TURNSTYLE JUMPING, not "failure to swipe." Fuck the police, fuck the MTA, and fuck city hall. How's that for eloquence? Eat my ass, all of you. You know why there were five undercover cops waiting on the other end of that gate, ticketing a long line of people who had paid MetroCards on their person? Because the PREVENTION of crime is not a profitable enterprise. The police intentionally created a set of conditions that engendered the commission of crime on a large scale, specifically to bolster a revenue stream. Entrapment, fraud, and a steaming pile of horseshit. Your tax dollars at work. Is this why we need more cops?