I was shopping with my local grocer this afternoon, heading out the door with my bottle of aloe drink, and crossing the street, when I spotted a familiar figure on the wooden bench, unused now for these next six months at the snowball stand. The man is in his mid to late sixties, and like many retired men, makes a ritual of purchasing his groceries daily as something to do. He has always nodded respectfully to me or gave a smile and said, "Good morning," or "good afternoon, sir."
For a full fifteen years, as the grungy longhaired knife-toting creep in the trench coat, I was left alone by everyday people and rarely threatened by those who were not willing to attack outright. Now, as I find myself back on the menu of the common thug, I also find that I am sought out for advice, directions, and sometimes protection, by complete strangers. I was in another one of those situations, which, as a writer has earned my a fair bit of material.
This fellow seemed distraught and had his hand to his chin, opening it to do a half wave without removing it from its pondering place. His eyes were a little watery I noticed, as I neared. He stands five foot eleven, and is perhaps 180 pounds in his white slacks, white polo shirt, green button sweater vest and brown loafers. He wears a matching leather cap, "an old man hat" as the youth of today call it. He is not a very physical looking guy, not a former athlete I would wager.
As I neared and said, "Good afternoon, sir," he gathered himself, raised up, shook my hand, and asked, "Sir, could I bother you for a moment, please? You seem like a fellow that knows his way about, and, you know, you're a white man and that factors in. My name is Jarvis, Sir, and I am a might distraught over something that just happened on my way from church to the market."
We took a seat next to each other, and looked at each other with one eye, our elbows on our legs and our hands together. Then he quipped, "Do I look crazy to you—I mean that seriously? I'd like to know if I've become odd in my old age and might seem threatening. You know, people change. I have seen it."
He seemed serious, so I leveled my eye with his and said, "You seem perfectly lucid, though clearly agitated. If you were suddenly put under intense stress I think you would find yourself responding unfavorably. I do not, however, sense any hostility in your voice or note any aggressive mannerisms. You seem hurt, emotionally."
Jarvis looked up in the sky, sniffled back some tears, and snarled with a quiver to his mouth, "Brought down to boy just like that! I ain't so sure of myself as I supposed. I feel better though, about what you sayin'. Truth is, I was pulled over by the poleese today, a single, white poleese, seemed a clean cut decent poleese when he come up to my window and tell me I neglected my turn signal. I apologized and he told me to get my license and registration, and, as I reached for my glove box for the registration, he said, calm as can be, "Do you want to die today?"
"I cain't remember what else he said. I didn' know if I should even open the box. But he said to, and there I was reaching for the registration, wondering if I was going to eat a bullet.
"He looked things over, addressed me by name, gave me a citation, and told me to be careful, and was gone back to his car. I made it here, but I'm half afraid to drive home. I just do not follow it. I was very respectful. I'm not walking round with a gold chain and sunglasses in cargo shorts en a shirt I don' know how to wash. I have never been in wit the law—never in a bit of trouble."
The rest of the conversation was repetitive, more interactive, and was broken by my explaining my answers to his questions. It is doubtful that I could do more than paraphrase it. Honestly, I wanted to preserve his tearful monologue. Working out his feelings about the cop, I did manage to avoid using the word pig because I was working on calming him down. I did—I hope—help him come to understand that, though the BPD has never been a friendly force, it is becoming dangerously alienated from the ordinary citizens, and, facing what everyone believes is another riot on the horizon, cops are paranoid. I also questioned the level headedness of anyone who has become a cop in the last ten years, after he informed me that this cop had been on the young side, in his late 20s, he thought.
To my queries Jarvis admitted to being locked up for the weekend once some thirty years ago for public drunkenness, and also that he has been robbed a few times at gunpoint by young black men over the past five years. He was actually thankful to have been stuck up rather than rolled and beaten like some of is friends. As he told me, "I stick exclusively to the daylight hours to avoid all that mess—and then this cop done scared the beJesus outa me!"
I advised Jarvis to drive with his registration on the dashboard—anything not to have to take his hand into a place where a gun could be kept—and box it before locking the car to go to his house. Other than that I suggested he talk to his pastor. I offered the opinion that the situation with the police is not going to get better but worse, because we now have insane women and sissies running the world from the top and violent thugs running it from the bottom, and all we can do is try and stay dry in the shit storm. With the cops, I specifically told him, that in my opinion, a man who would want to be a cop in Baltimore City was either looking for violent adventure, or was a weak-minded person who had failed to impose his will in his youth, and now sought membership in the biggest gang in town so that he could tell people what to do, and that nothing good could ever come from arguing with such a man. I left Jarvis with this statement, "Cops scare the shit out of me, because there is no one more dangerous than a scared sissy with a gun."
James, sad story, urban cops are punks, most of the children in our part of the county would catch major shit for a comment like that! we had a highway patrolman, cutting someone elses grass, his patrol car got beat to a pulp, "strange" nobody turned him in. Ishmael
JL:
Yeah, how 'bout a hoodrat whose firearms training comes from watching "New Jack City", using the sideways spray and pray grip. And certainly aware that on full auto the barrel tends to rise.
Aimed fire do seem a forgotten skillset.
Collateral damage, now that's a different story.
When de po-leece treat everybody like they are an occupying army, then you get the resistance. See France, the Balkans, various places.
For some reason, folks don't cotton to tyrany.
Yes it is a sad case indeed. A similar thing happened to me once. I was detained and questioned by police on suspicion of armed robbery. I went to town one day and suddenly found myself surrounded by police. A plainclothesman approached, flashed his detective’s badge and told me he wanted to ask me some questions. I asked him what did I do? He replied that that is what they wanted to find out. The detective asked me numerous questions about my whereabouts. I subsequently learned that two men had robbed a supermarket in town the previous day, one that had a bank branch in it. I fit the description of the perpetrators. That evening I had occasion to see the local Crime Stoppers TV PSA. I learned that I was the spitting image of the police sketches of the perps. I was even wearing the identical outfit as the robbers that day: an olive drab army field jacket and a black wool knit cap. Evidently somebody thought he was going to collect the reward on me and called the cops. One of the uniformed officers, a man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties took my driver’s license to radio in and see if they had any wants or warrants on me. He said to me, “Don’t move now because we wouldn’t want to have to shoot you in the head.” His threat surprised me. I thought it was uncalled for. I let it go and kept quiet. After all the older policeman DID believe he was dealing with someone who might possibly be a violent criminal and was probably more frightened than he wanted to admit. Plus I thought if I made an issue of it the cops would likely became more suspicious of me and detain me longer. Nevertheless the idea that the police might think I looked dangerous was at the same time startling and amusing. How could that be? People told me I looked like “Richie Cunningham” from “Happy Days”. I always had a baby face. But then so did Lester Gillis, Alias Baby Face Nelson, the criminal who killed more FBI agents than anyone else. Another uniformed cop, a mid-thirtyish man, came up to the detective and remarked that I looked just like the perp they were looking for. I quipped that he must be a good looking guy then. The cop gave me a side-ways grimace. Ok it wasn’t all that witty but obviously the cop had no sense of humor whatsoever. Presently the police decided I was not one of the perps they were seeking and let me go on my way. In the aftermath I wasn’t as traumatized by my experience as was Jarvis. To me it was a big joke rather than a threat to my being. Something to share with my buddies. Sure the cops acted like pompous dipsticks, as they are wont to do. So what else is new? I didn’t imagine that the cops might shoot me, unless I provoked them by acting all belligerent and threatening, instead of meek and cooperative as I did. It’s a stupid idea to try to frighten people with guns. You might succeed in frightening them into shooting you dead. When people are profoundly scared, especially cops and soldiers, people whose job it is to act brave, they tend to talk tough, use profanity and make threats. Particularly since all the movies and TV shows they have watched all their lives led them to believe that is the way tough guys act. They are not necessarily sissies, they are instead dismayed and disappointed in themselves to discover that they are more frightened than they thought they should be. I have had men who were in the war zone tell me that in those exact words. I have found one of the most stressful things about being in a war zone is having to deal with so many people every day who are stressed out. I must suppose living and working in the crime-ridden Ghetto can be similarly stressful.
Thanks floor the story, and you make a good point.
I once had the cops looking for me—to kick my ass—because I really did look just like this dirt bag that busted up an emergency room and then knocked the mirrors off their cop cars.
A girl I worked with lied that I was not in the store, unknown to me as I was in the freezer pulling out freight.
I'm glad they didn't come back looking for me because she said they were pissed.
As for Baltimore City, I do think most of our male [the chicks are just in it for the job security and benefits] cops are either wimps or whack jobs, but I also don't see this in the surrounding counties, so understand that it might be a local anomaly. I am an inclined to think that other mid sized cities like Baltimore, might also have the same low quality cops, but have no real evidence.