When I first moved to Baltimore I began working as a janitor and parcel pickup clerk at a grocery store. I used to clean this certain spot on the side lot where panties, pantyhose, condoms and bras would be found. Within a year and a half I was running the night crew. Then, one night Id discovered why all of the panties and condoms and such littered the one parking spot in the corner lot. I noticed that when I went to the office to set the alarm and bi-pass it that a cop car always parked there overnight. Sometimes two cop cars were parked there, with no visible person in the one, and the other with windows fogged up.

One might say my respect for the police, gained in rural Pennsylvania as a teen who was treated firmly and fairly by the sheriffs and game wardens, evaporated on contact with Harm City.

Recently. Upon listening to a young black coworker, who lives in the suburbs—and who was not able to name specific negative treatment of him by police—claim that blacks are mistrated by cops and that whites are not, I mentiond a figure that I tallied in my head one time, as to having been harassed eigt times by 11 cops, and immediately questioned it, because I knew it was incomplete, and will see to redress that here. Below are the bare bones of my negative encounters with police in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Maryland, none of which were nearly as bad as what happened to some of my friends, but have colored my perception of police as parasitic predators on the body politic. If something has been discussed in a book that is in print it will be noted rather than described.

1981: County, York and Timonium, morning, detained and questioned for the crime of walking on the side of the road—white cop

1981: County, York and Canterbury, day detained and questioned for the crime of being a passenger on Ron Bone’s motorcycle—7-10 white cops

1986: City, Belair & White, night, after two men attempted to beat me to death, and then charged me with assault, the responding police officer wrote down my name and address and gave it to them, then came back and told me that they would be coming to finish the job, and that I might want to call a friend—1 white cop

1993: County, Rolling Mill Road, Morning, detained and questioned for the crime of walking on the side of the road. The black cop held a gun on me while the white cop spoke with me from behind, as I was facing way from them with my hands on the back of my head, looking at the railroad tracks—2 cops, 1 white, 1 black

1997: City, Fort and Hilltop, night, threatened by a giant white cop swinging a riot stick on a thong, who stepped out in front of me, preventing me from crossing the sidewalk, and forcing me into the gutter. An older cop in a car spoke to the cop on foot, saying, “Lay down the law.” The giant pig and I were the only ones on the street—2 white cops

1998: City, Luerssen Avenue, day, When You’re Food—1 white cop

1998: City, Fort and Lawrence, night, I was pursued by 4 cops in three cars who I avoided, by taking alley ways on foot. When I got to work I punched in and went back to the walk-in freezer, closing the door and working in the freezer for two hours. When I emerged, the head cashier told me cops had been there looking for me, and that upon questioning her, they determined that I was not the guy they were after—4 white cops

1999: City, Fort and Riverside, night, pursued by cops [I don’t know why], who I evaded by cutting through the park and alleys, again, hiding in the freezer at work. The night captain came and got me after they left, having lied to them, telling them I had been at work for hours and was not the guy seen with the big knife resisting a righteous mugging by two blacks. A local white yuppie woman who saw this called on me for brandishing knife and scarring her pet negroes—2 white cops.

1999: City, Riverside and Fort, day, New Year’s Eve, I was followed, accused, questioned, threatened and then followed by a big redneck cop, who I was convinced was going to rob me, so when I got to work and picked up my pay I hid in a car full of female employees, who got me drunk, took me to a park, attempted to molest me, but was so drunk I could not get it up, so they dropped me off in front of my house, where my wife awaited non-too-happily—1 white cop.

2002: County, Patapsco High Track, morning, fur cops detained, and warned me about training in an open field with my sparring partner they had been sent by two EMTs who had tried t pick a fight with us and failed—4 white cops.

2003: County, Dundalk Community College, day, instead, challenged and threatened by a platoon of police cadets, while giving boxing lessons to a woman—20-30 white cops.

2009: City, Belair Road, night, an officer responding to a customer complaint about having her purse stolen was very helpful until he found out my security man was black he then began threatening me, the company, and recommending to her and her son to press criminal charges—1 white cop.

2009: City, Belair Road, night, an off duty Baltimore City cop demanded I open the store after hours for his personal shopping experience. When I declined he punched the glass tapped his bag—as he was not in uniform—touched his gun, and told me he would beat me up and arrest me the next time he saw me on the street—1 black cop

2011: County, Stemmers Run and Old Eastern Avenue, Taboo You, Officer ManFriendly—1 white cop

2012: County, Eastern Avenue and Hawthorn, night, a large cop made eye contact with me and glared at me with angry intensity before his partner motioned for him to come along. As he passed me he continued to glare at me. The African American anti-cop term “eye-fuck” comes to mind—1 white cop

2014: City, Glenoak and Northern Parkway, night, the narc Taboo You—1 white cop

2014: County, Hawthorn, “Legal Wide” in Taboo You—1 white cop

2014: City, White Avenue, morning, “Miss Piggy’ a black female cop, followed me at five miles per hour, for miles, as I walked and read Confessions of an Economic Hitman. She did not desist until I sat down on a stone wall and began writing down her car number—1 black cop.

2015: County, U.S. Route 40, dusk, a really cute, blonde cop of perhaps 30 detained and questioned me for five minutes as I mopped the drool from my lower lip—this babe was looking good in those working blues, and the vest couldn’t hide everything! Eventually, having determined that I was not a kidnapper of small children, but possibly of smoking hot, 30 year old natural blonde cops with a nice little dimple on her chin, who is most definitely a top girl if she is hetero and I think she is—she bid me ado and left me, old and alone on the side of the road—1 white pigless.

2015: City, Harford Road, night, Mescaline Franklin and I in War Drums, were stopped and warned by Military Contractors to abide by our masters’ curfew—4 muscled-up white super-cops

Total incidents: 20

Total cops: 58

Total white cops: 55

Total black cops: 3

Obviously, this race-based police harassment is due to my blackness.