Polizia

I had to wait a few days to blog about my encounter with the Roman Polizia because I was really upset about it. But I think I'm basically over it now so I will share it with you. First, I need to break down how the Roman transportation system works. You can buy essentially a one-way pass to anywhere in the city for 1 euro. You can buy a 3 day pass for 11 euro or you can buy a monthly pass for 30 euro. Or the secret other option that no one tells you about is there is a student monthly pass for 18 euro. I live about a 45-50 minute walk from where my classes are so I take the tram/bus there every single day there and back. Which means that it would get expensive to continue purchasing one-way tickets, not to mention I usually use take the bus on the weekends and in the evenings to different places too. The better deal is clearly the monthly pass. My host mom advised me to buy the student pass because it is cheaper and about half of the students in my study abroad program (so about 50 or 60 students) also bought the student pass. There is usually no one checking tickets on the bus. You just get on or get off whenever and it doesn't matter. But my program warned us that if the police come on the bus and check your ticket and you don't have one, they fine you 50 euro. Needless to say I was not going to risk it.

On Thursday I caught the bus after class back to my house and as soon as I got on the bus I saw 3 policemen checking tickets. One came over and asked me for mine and I showed it to him and he looked at it and gave it back. No big deal. I got off at the next stop and there was another police officer waiting at the stop checking tickets again so once again I was asked to show my ticket. When I did, he saw that it was a student pass and asked if I was a student. I answered that I was and he asked which university and I told him it was a study abroad program and he asked to see a student ID. Of course, I am carrying zero forms of identification on me at the time. I explained I didn't have one and he once again asked for the name of my school. Since I knew telling him the name of my study abroad program was not going to help, I told him the name of an Italian university that we are allowed to take classes at if we want to, Roma Tre. He then goes on to tell me that only students that go to Roma Sapienza (a different Roman university) are allowed to purchase student bus passes. At this point, I know that he just hates me because I am American. He asks for my passport and I don't have it. And then, like I had already figured out was about to happen, he told me he was fining me 50 euro for carrying an invalid bus pass. Now at this point, I am very frustrated because he doesn't speak any english and I have clearly run out of things to say to him in Italian so I just keep repeating "sono studente" or "I am a student" and he just keeps shaking his head at me. Then he changes the law. He tells me that not only do I have to go to Roma Sapienza, but I also have to be a Roman citizen. I only had 20 euro and my visa card on me so I told him I don't have 50 euro and he says that he can take me to the police station which I was just about to agree to but then a friend of mine who is in my study abroad program saw me and came over to ask what was going on and gave me some cash to pay for the fine. I walked back over to the officer with the money in my hand, he grabbed it out of my hand and shoved it in his pocket and said I was free to go.

It's terrible that this is how corrupt their government is. There was clearly nothing legal about what he did me. I was basically robbed and taken advantage of by this police officer but there wasn't really anything that I could do. Roman citizens barely have any rights much less an American. This has sadly changed my view of Italy for the worst.