Submit to Anarchy or Submit to Leviathan - What a Choice: January 1997

Fort Wayne has a weekly newspaper, Frost Illustrated, that’s largely focused on African-American issues. Frost is more likely to carry stories about poor conditions in jails or about inner-city residents being harassed by police than mainstream media sources. I used to read these stories and laugh, not because I though what happened to these people was funny but because I didn’t believe them.

Did someone seriously expect me to believe that they were doing nothing wrong when suddenly police swarmed down on them, pulled them out of their car, threw them on the ground, and searched their car. Then, when nothing was found, the police simply left as quickly as they came with no explanation for their behavior. Get real, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen here, in America. We are a land of laws, and these laws apply equally to the police as they do to ordinary citizens. - Yeah, whatever!

The longer I live in this neighborhood, television shows such as “The Wire” and “The Shield” begin to look more like the History Channel than fictional stories. The following story is my first encounter here with the FWPD.

At about 3:30 A.M. I went out to start my car. Arlen's daughter, Barbara, and her friend Richard were standing on the sidewalk in front of Barbara's house, holding hands and talking quietly. Suddenly, several patrol cars arrived and surrounded my car. Four officers got out and approached Richard. Barbara and I both immediately withdrew to our own front porches. After five minutes of repeatedly asking Richard why he was there, with the officers standing on all sides and about 18” from him, Richard asked what the problem was. One of the officers replied “A guy was stabbed at a bar earlier tonight, and your car matches the description."

It was interesting that while Richard’s car was parked only a few feet away, not one of the officers even went to look at it. Everyone knows that cops like to look around, but they didn’t even glance towards his car when they mentioned it. I really don’t think they even knew that was his car. I think they saw him standing there and stopped to question him for some other reason. When he showed no signs of guilt they began intimidating him. They continued to badger him for another five minutes, even ignoring Richard’s own request for them to search his car to satisfy their curiosity.

My car had been running for ten minutes now, so I approached the officers to ask if they could move one of their cars to let me out. I stopped about eight feet away from the group, waiting to be recognized. One officer turned around, scanned me from head to toe, then turned forward again without saying a word to me. I waited for a few more minutes, as they stood there silently staring at Richard. They were acting in a manner that seemed designed to intimidate Richard, and perhaps cause him to resist. Richard simply stood there motionless and silent.

It did not seem like there was any urgency to the situation. There were four officers, and there was no crowd of unruly people shouting at them, so they obviously had the situation under control. So I spoke, saying "Excuse me officer..." That’s as far as I got when one of the officers turned towards me and shouted “Do you want to be arrested?” I replied “No sir.” and stepped back to my front yard. He then moved towards me and continued shouting “It is a violation of Indiana Law to interfere with an arresting officer.” I simply replied “Yes sir, I understand.”

I went inside my house and called work to tell them that I would be late. My boss was mad that I couldn‘t tell him how late I was going to be. He actually suggested that I go ask the cop how much longer they were going to be there. I think my exact response to that was “Are you fucking insane? They already threatened to arrest me just for talking to them. I’ll be there whenever the hell these assholes decide to leave.” My boss thought I was overreacting to the situation, but hey, I guess you had to be here.

I then went back out to my front porch and waited. After a few minutes, the officers began leaving, so I went to my car. As the last officer was about to get in his car, he stopped and turned towards me. With a grin he said “I bet you want to get out of here, don't you.” I just replied “Yes sir, I need to get to work.” - And they wonder why some people in this area of town don’t like cops!

I can still recall this event with clarity, even though it happened twelve years ago, and I’ve often wondered why it left such a strong impression upon me. I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve always had a lot of respect for police officers. I guess that I just assumed that they held the same respect for the citizens they worked for. But this event made me reconsider that. These guys seemed to be on some kind of power trip, and there was no apparent reason for them to be questioning Richard, or to threaten me with arrest.

If it had been just another guy on the street who shouted at me, I probably would have forgotten about it by now. But when someone you trust and respect spits in your face, just because you want to get to work on time, it has a greater impact. I can honestly say that was the first time I had ever thought of a police officer as being an asshole. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last.

I understand the activities in this area require the police to employ some unconventional tactics at times. I still think these four cops were assholes, but so are many of the drug dealers. And that is why I (as a taxpayer and voting citizen) have created this Leviathan - to keep the criminals in check. It wasn’t anything worth filing a complaint over because, all things considered, I’d still prefer the occasional rogue officer over no police at all.

Leviathan was written during the English Civil War; much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war. Any abuses of power by this authority are to be accepted as the price of peace.

I often find that the best way to let go of anger is to replace it with humor, so I had a “retarded cop” video that I was going to attach here. But I decided this video was more appropriate for this post.

My attention here was not so much drawn to the accident itself, as to the officers’ reaction to it. I think any sensible person, after shooting themselves in the foot, would immediately go to seek medical care. This guy not only tried to continue with his speech, but even brought out another weapon. Judging from the reaction of the crowd, they did not consider that to be a wise move. Yet his pride and adrenaline rush kept him from immediately recognizing that his audience was scared.

But here’s the overall point I want to make. We expect cops to go (psychologically speaking) from zero to sixty, then back down to zero in only a few seconds time. Then we are perplexed when they leave a few skid marks. What we expect from them sometimes is in defiance of the human condition. Maybe the cops I spoke of above had just left a scene where the crowd was shouting and throwing bottles at them. And if their adrenaline was still pumping from that, it would help to explain their overreaction here.

But at the same time, they should try to realize that there is no way I could have known about the circumstances that put them in a bad mood. They should have tried to look at this situation for what it was, which was a non-threat. Instead, they reacted as if I had thrown a bottle or was cussing at them. There may be an explanation for why these guys were mentally traveling so much faster than those around them. But when I’m the one who gets hit by the speeding train, I’m still going to be pissed off.