This morning was Albemarle County Officer Eric Kudro’s make-up day in Waynesboro General District Court. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to miss witnessing it for nothin’. I believed he was going to get away with his hit-and-not-run charge -- which he did -- but how it played out exceeded even my expectations.I pulled into a favorable parking place near the courthouse slightly before 9AM. When I crossed the threshold of the justice building, I immediately saw a third-rate printout taped on a four-foot-high signpost stationed between myself and the metal detector. After reading its message, I promptly spun about and headed back to my vehicle.
Being somewhat familiar with courthouse policies, I typically carry a mere two items with me when visiting such an establishment: the solitary piece of formed metal that opens and starts my car, and my cell phone. Unlike the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County courts, according to the public display I’d a moment ago seen, Waynesboro’s bans cellulars, period. Won’t be long, I think, before even my single key is going to be forbidden.
I tossed the contraband in my auto console and engaged the lock again.
Upon reentering the edifice, I deposited and recovered my one allowed object into and from the guard’s obligatory Gladware, stepped through the security device without incident, and took the door “on the left” that’d been pointed out to me. Traffic court was already in session.
The boyish-looking policeman I’d come to watch was easy to spot. Aside from lawyers and other cops inside the partitioned-off bench area, Mr. Kudro was the only person in the room dressed in a full suit. I’d figured he’d either wear that or his ACPD uniform. No way would he dared show up in normal attire.
He was sitting in the right front pew, on the far left side. I chose a seat three rows behind him, on the far right side. I spent the next forty minutes or so listening to victims and officers tell their tales to the judge while I observed Mr. Kudro’s stop-and-go habit of chomping much too enthusiastically on the gob of gum in his mouth.
There was the guy who was “only stopping fer a cuppa coffee, your honor,” the one who quetched about being racially profiled and denied resembling a drug dealer, the fellow who inebriatedly bailed on his alcohol-aroma-ish sedan leaving $28 dollars worth of damage behind, the woman in pajama bottoms and one sock, this speeder, that speeder… finally the nine o’clockers were over.
There was a nod to Eric Kudro by, I presume, an attorney and the judge called his name. I simultaneously scampered up to the same bench the baby-face-with-a-badge had just abandoned to better hear what would transpire.
I kid you not, whatever happened took less than thirteen seconds. Not even thirty -- thirteen! I blinked once and it was over. No account of the violation. No explanations. There was no pretense of legal procedure. They barely went through the motions. It took me longer to pick my jaw up off the floor.
At the courthouse after the… oh my gosh, I don’t even know what to call it -- other than a ridiculous farce, I spoke to someone in the know and learned the case had been dismissed because Officer Kudro “took care” of the other driver involved. Short of contacting that party, I guess I’ll never know what went on.
Maybe some things are better left to wonder about. Plus there’s always next time. Yessir, there will be a next time. We are talking about Eric Kudro you know.
