Cops on Broadway Street Tonight

Just a little past midnight (Saturday night) I went out to get something to eat. I was driving past Broadway Joe's Bar (near Catablu restaurant) and several police cars began converging there from all directions. I drove back up to see what was going on and they had Broadway St. closed off. There were about fifteen people standing in front of the bar and three guys across the street. Two officers were searching and cuffing these guys while a third stood watch with his gun drawn.

I figured that it was over, so I went to get my food. I drove back there about twenty minutes later just to see if things had cleared up. There were now about six police cars , but they had opened the north bound lane up to traffic.

There were about thirty people standing in front of the bar. I've been inside Joe's several times before. It has been my experience that when the police show up there, those who can leave do so, and rather quickly. I didn't see the police searching or arresting anyone else, but it did appear that the bar patrons were being held there by the police.

My thoughts here are not so much about the police action as they are about our local media. It is very likely that there will be little or no mention of this event in the newspaper, and I can understand why they won't do a front-page story for every little police action. But if it's enough for the police to shut off a main road, draw their weapons, and detain a very large group of people, it seems like at least some small explanation might be in order.

I know that I have witnessed some events in the inner city that were under-reported or never reported at all. I always wonder why this is. Is the news media just not paying attention and fails to actually see what's going on? Do they under-report certain items at the request of the police? Or am I just expecting too much?

About a year and a half ago I was driving on Broadway St (near the GE building) when I saw something that startled me. The police were conducting a raid on a house, and that is something I had seen before. But this was much different. There were about thirty or forty officers, all wearing riot gear, carrying shileds, and with their entire faces except for the eyes covered up, standing around the perimeter of the house. It would be more apt to describe this as a military action rather than a police action.

I parked and took a few pictures from across the street. I crossed over and took a few from the side, but at a distance of about twenty yards from the edge of the property so as to not get in the way. As I came around to the back, there were only a couple officers there. One of them called to me and said "Put the camera away." I began to politely protest, saying "You all have your faces covered, and I'm too far away to get any real detail..." He interrupted me saying "NO PICTURES!"

Well, constitutionally speaking, I think he was in the wrong. I was far enough away so as to not be interferring with them, and their identities were so well concealed that even their own mothers' probably wouldn't have recognized them. But he had a gun, and I was there alone, so I left. The pictures turned out like crap because I used a cheap disposable camera. You could make out the police cars and the ambulance, but everything else was a blur.

Several months later, I was searching the newspaper archives to find this story. I couldn't remember the exact date, so it is possible that I simply missed it. I did find one mention of a police raid. It was in the same block as this house and around the right time. It was only one or two sentences long, so it certainly contained no details.

In the past three years the following events have occurred within a one block radius of my house. Two arsons, one individual being set on fire, two cross-street shootouts, and one man walking down the sidewalk with a rifle slung over his shoulder. These are just the few events that I am aware of and that I know involved police action. I don't know, maybe I have too much personal bias because I am in the center of it. But it seems to me that someone in the new media should really be interested in looking into this for the larger story.