Cops

Two cop incidents last night:

I was walking down Marshfield after the NHS board meeting and saw a couple of cop cars sitting north of the viaduct. Our sergeant was out of his car, parked on 48th, and was standing talking to an officer in his car, parked on Marshfield.

I went by and said hello, thinking, "How nice to see a cop I know out on the beat and not harassing anybody."

About 90 minutes later, around 8:30, Dawn called me and asked if she could come over. I went out and opened the front gate. It turned out Julian and his buddy Chava had been stopped by the cops just a few minutes earlier. There was a report of a shooting on Paulina, I think--we weren't sure--and the cops went out stopping every young man within a few blocks of the incident. They made a mess out of Julian's bike--knocked the tire and tube off his back wheel and we don't know why. At least they didn't rough up the boys or take them to jail.

Which reminds me--Tony stopped by Sunday night while we were eating hamburgers, and told me he had been picked up by cops and held for 72 hours because he doesn't have any ID. They can hold someone that long while checking their fingerprints to see if they have any outstanding warrants. He didn't. He says the last thing on him was the order of protection, which expired a year ago and which his "baby mama" (for lack of a better description) did not renew.