Weekend Report

Borrower Beware

I was cutting trees out back yesterday when my chainsaw died on me. I was working on it when Collin walked into my back yard. He was carrying a small electric chainsaw and he offered it to me. I only needed to do a couple of cuts before I got back down to ground level, and the lift was rented just for the day, so it was really good timing. I went back up to start cutting and Collin called up and asked if I would like to buy the saw from him.

He only wanted $15 bucks, but I really didn’t want to buy a tool that I would probably never use again. He said it was okay for me to go ahead and use it for a short period. A minute later, he called to me again, this time offering to sell it for only $10. My response was the same, and if he asked again I was just going to give the saw back and work on my own again.

A few minutes later I looked down and saw a police officer pull up beside my yard and call Collin over to speak with him. I assumed it was something drug related (it usually is), but said jokingly to my friends on the ground that I hope they weren’t here about a stolen saw. I watched as Collin was handcuffed and placed in the car, and I began to wonder about the saw. I couldn’t really give it to him now, so I figured I’d just hold onto it until he came back around. I was lowering the lift so I could ask the officer to let Collin know I would hold his saw for him. But then Officer Bryan came over to me. He simply asked “You got the saw?”

He said it had been stolen from someone a couple blocks from here and that is what Collin was being arrested for. I explained the situation, and pointed to two of my friends as witnesses. He said he just needed the saw, and He wasn’t reaching for his gun or his cuffs, so I guess he believed me. I ran the saw for a moment to show the officer that it was still in working order. I knew he wouldn’t tell me who’s saw it was, but I asked him to convey my apologies to them and let me know if they felt I had damages it during use.

About an hour later, Officer Bryan pulled up again and called me over to his car. He needed to get more information for his report, and the first thing he asked was how I knew Collin. What was funny is that I know Collin by two different names, one is a derogatory name that a lot of people here call him, and the other is a normal sounding name that he once introduced himself to me under. Apparently, neither of these names are his actual legal name. Officer Bryan said that Collin was being charged with a felony, so I assume he must have a lot of prior convictions.

Over the years here, I have had a lot of people offer to sell me just about anything you can imagine including, clothes, tools, a microwave, and a coat-rack. My standard response is always a quick and emphatic no. There is no way I can be sure the items are not stolen, and around here there is a good chance that they are. I don’t care how good of a deal they are offering, I’m not interested. But here, Collin seemed to be simply offering to let me use “his” saw. And he was standing around watching me as I worked, not what you would expect from someone who had just stolen something.

Some of my neighbors seemed a bit upset at the way the officer treated me. They felt that in most cases, the person actually in possession of the stolen item would be in trouble also. It’s not that they actually wanted me to be arrested, they just wanted equal treatment. The implication here was that my word was trusted and I was not arrested simply because I was white. While I will certainly not argue that there might be some evidence to back this belief up to some degree, that is not the entire story.

First of all, some of the same people who were complaining have crack selling children living in their homes. I, on the other hand, have cooperated numerous times with the police in helping them to counter the crime here. I have a history with FWPD that should lend credibility to my statements, whereas many people here have proven the opposite. It also helps that I had met Officer Bryan once before, so he had something to build his opinion on this particular day.

So I guess I’ll now have to add “borrowing tools from a neighbor” to the list of normal activities that I should not engage in here. This list currently includes giving a ride to a person, letting someone use my telephone, stepping outside my home without my gun, and stepping off of my property without my drivers license. I have an interesting story to tell about how each of these was added to the list, and it’s all drug related.

Wanted

Two days ago, there was an SUV parked down the street that looked a little suspicious. I glanced at it a couple times as I was going to my shed and I could tell it was occupied, although I wasn’t close enough to ID anyone. After a few minutes, the vehicle drove off and I saw that there were two Allen County police officers inside. They were parked directly across the street from where the grandmother of one of the guys who’s wanted for the Reed St shooting lives at, so I suppose they were likely watching for him.

Apparently the police have been looking for him for at least the past couple of days. On Thursday, they called the SWAT team in to search a house about a quarter mile south of here where they thought this guy and/or a relative of his (also wanted) was holed up. They found nothing at that time but did catch his buddy the next day.

This is the same guy that was shooting back and forth with one of his friends a couple times earlier this year. I saw him here earlier in the week, but I don’t even know if he was wanted at that time. The police really seem to have toned down their presence here lately. Part of it is due to the changing season, but also due to my cameras I am sure. If there’s no drug dealing crowds on the corners, there’s no justification for driving through here twenty times a day.

08F152565 23:52:42 113 SHOTS FIRED 27XX WARSAW ST & LEITH ST E

A couple weeks ago (Sunday, Sept. 28) at just a little after midnight, I saw something interesting here. Four police cars suddenly converged upon a man who was walking just east of my house. One of the cars actually pulled up and parked on the sidewalk. They had the man handcuffed for a few minutes before they cut him loose. I did not recognize him, which probably means he’s not a major player here.

When I checked FWPD’s daily activity report, the closest incident that I could find was a shooting which happened about ten minutes earlier (Listed on the Sept. 27 report). This is just two blocks south of my house, so it is likely that this is what brought the officers to the area. For the next hour or so, I noticed a lot of police activity here (just driving, no stops), which is unusual as a shooting with no one hit usually seems to be quickly forgotten.

Although the guy who was detained looked harmless to me, I understand why anyone in the area of shots fired would be looked at with suspicion. But I do have a question about this. I am just guessing here, but I’ll bet that man’s name does not appear anywhere in the official report, and I don’t think that is right. Any time a person is detained by the police, I think there should be a record of it. To not require this, I believe, invites abuses of power by the police. I have seen a lot of events here where people were handcuffed or even arrested, but could not even find any report that seemed to match it.

To me, the notion that an officer could handcuff a person and sometimes even drive away with them in the back of a caged car, with no official record being made, is a bit scary. I remember that event earlier this year where a FWPD cop went crazy. Based on the word of a friend, he picked up a lady and tossed her in his car. He then proceeded to slap her around and interrogated her he drove around town. When he was finshed, he just dropped her in her front yard. Imagine if that lady had called the next day to complain and they simply said “I’m sorry, no record of this exists.” I wonder how this event actually came to light. Did the cop actually call it in, or did someone witness the event?

Anyway, cops are just people. We all know that sometimes people go a little crazy and all people have a natural disposition to abuse power if given the chance. It seems a bit reckless to allow someone with a gun and badge to do things off the record, but I really think that is what happens here much of the time.

Moving Forward

I am going to go ahead and stick with the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule for the main part of my story, which is a retelling of past events here. I might do a post on the weekend or occasionally during the week to talk about current events.

Regarding the past, up to this point I have kept the stories in chronological order, but that may not continue. The reason for this is that the various observations which have led me to a particular opinion about something have not all occurred at the same time. I will probably have to draw on several examples, from many different points in time, to explain my view on certain aspects of the situation here.

I also will not be attempting to tell everything. If I were to convert the remaining fifty pages of condensed information into intelligible reports, it would be far longer than my entire blog to date. I don’t really need to tell everything to get the main points across though. I also need to keep a little something in reserve in case I decide to write a book sometime.
I still plan to complete this blog before the end of the year, although I am certain the story will continue long after that.