Long story short . . .
The police wanted to talk to me yesterday.
I told then no.
This is how I told them no.
It all started when two friends who were out of town ask me to have a seat on their front stoop for a bit and to welcome a visitor for them.
Really, it was a simple enough request.
But a neighbor of theirs who didn’t recognize me (and who didn’t know them either) came at me ready to pick a fight.
For whatever reason he wasn’t in the mood to talk. He pretty much said “leave or I’ll call the police.”
Well, I told my friends that I would handle this greeting of a visitor, so I wasn’t leaving and I didn’t really want to talk to the police.
The unfortunate truth is that, attracting the attention of the police and getting into a conversation with them dramatically raises the likelihood that you will not live to see tomorrow, that you will be maimed, or that you will see the inside of a cell. Absent the attention of the police, the likelihood of any of those three things happening on any given day is pretty close to zero.
The man came back out and made a big show of calling the police on me. While on the phone he started saying all kinds of lies about me.
This was gonna be fun.
But then as soon as he got off the phone, he did something pretty chicken.
He got in his car and left.
Well, this was yesterday afternoon.
Not long later, some cops drove by, parked down the street, and then quietly came toward me while I was on private property. I looked up, pulled out my camera and told them that I was recording “for their safety and mine,” a phrase the police are apt to say. I then directed them, gently, to get back onto their side of the property line. They did so immediately and then had lots of questions for me.
Officers generally do not like being told what to do, not even by someone who is right. Perhaps especially not by someone who is right. But they listened mostly.
Three times I had to give that same direction though to get behind the property line — one time for each officer that showed up. They acted like the driveway was theirs. I reminded them that they are welcome to speak to me from the sidewalk like any other member of the public is entitled to do.
I did not own the private property but they did not know that. They asked several times though. I was not volunteering any information about myself.
In response to their inquiries about me, I merely asked if I had committed a crime. I did that with discipline, like a broken record, over and again, letting no new information about me come out of my mouth — not my first name, not my ID, not acknowledgement if I was or wasn’t the property owner. Nothing. And definitely not acknowledgement of the lie that some male Karen neighbor called in about me.
I wouldn’t answer a question any other way and kept saying that I was going to go back now to what I was doing (which was sitting on the stoop of the house, 20 or 30 feet back from the sidewalk and reading the Bible).
Frustrated with me keeping my lip zipped so well, one of the officers changed his story from me not having committed a crime (told to me over and over again). Now he claimed to have spotted a reason to claim an investigation was being conducted. Once that happens it can be difficult to keep your lip zipped without getting into some trouble. That’s what he supposed he needed to do in order to get me to start answering questions — to make up the pretense of some crime having been committed. He looked around and spotted some evidence that a crime may have been committed.
While standing on the sidewalk — he spotted a broken doorknob on the property. This now provides him with some cause to legitimately arrest me for suspected robbery if I didn’t cooperate with the investigation. Alternately he could just arrest me for obstruction. Though he knew he was stretching his authority and fabricating things for which their was no proof, like many officers, he knew that he could show me a lesson and walk away with clean hands in the eyes of others, by putting me through the system and letting the judge sort it out 6 months and $20,000 later.
I wasn’t having it. I immediately asked for their supervisor.
He showed up.
They tried to pry more information out of me.
I wasn’t having it.
What eventually settled things was me calling the property owner and asking him if he wanted to tell the cops to take a hike. I came back to the police, gave them a first name and a phone number. It was not the name they had on file for the property, but they accepted it as real. I could have been calling anyone honestly. They really had no idea who they were talking to on the phone, who may have been masquerading as the owner.
But they went on their way as soon as I gave a first name and number.
In the police corporal’s words it was a “stalemate.”
My last run in with the law over something stupid didn’t end so well. I got a bogus fine, lost in court and then lost on appeal.
Yesterday was a good reminder that we still live in a nation of laws and that sometimes cops follow the law.
But at the very beginning, as soon as I instructed them to get back beyond the property line, they turned into pussy cats. It’s been a while since I’ve seen cops act that way. The video camera helped. The refusal to say anything other than asking whether I have committed a crime helped. Asking for a supervisor helped.
And once they resolved to get going on their way and to stop making me an object of their attention, I started the only conversation I actually like having with on duty officers.
“Humor me for thirty seconds,” I said, “There’s something I do every time I meet an officer…”
“Heavenly father … “
And with that I was praying for these men. They weren’t a threat to me any longer and now I could get to the more important work.
The corporal said “God bless you” as he went on his way.
All three waved friendly waves when they drove off.
Soon enough, I was back to my work of awaiting the visitor who was due any time now.
Who was that expected visitor — some bureaucrat, looking to illegally step foot on the private property and cause trouble.
The county, the city, the state — they had all kinds of regulations that allowed the bureaucrat to be anywhere he wanted. And the problem is that most people bend to such stupidity. Not my friends. Not me. They knew I would go there and find joy in standing toe to toe with people like that and telling them politely to behave themselves — which means to operate in respect of the rights which I refuse to surrender.
Some bureaucrats, you might be surprised, go their whole career without being told by a member of the public to behave themselves. Instead what they hear so often is “yes master, please master, anything you want master.” And then we act shocked when we are treated by the same bureaucrats as if we were slaves.
What other message could we have possibly thought we were communicating to them?
This was one silly and dangerous way to handle a very legitimate police inquiry. The police received a call that you were a trespasser. They responded in an attempt to protect your friend and his property. You became confrontational and made their job difficult.
You have no idea what is going on in their sector, neighborhood or lives. You have no way of knowing what they expected to find. You could have simply welcomed them, like a gentleman, disarmed them of any fear they had in approaching you, showed them respect and offered to confirm that you were the owner's guest.
Instead, you made everyone's job more difficult, wasted the taxpayers' money and placed yourself in danger. I really hope nobody follows your example. This is High School stuff.