Cops and Cathedrals – Part I

Posted on by J. Nelson

For me, really embracing Detroit means being a wreckage dork first

Downtown Detroit Lives_©Where Excuses Go to DieI’m in Detroit this week and have assorted free days to leave the safe confines of my host’s Grosse Pointe neighborhood for Mad Max Island, aka downtown.

I’m sitting at a table with coffee now, preparing  for the 21º weather and listening to police scanner feeds covering Wayne County, which itself is like sticking my hand into a bucket of ice water before it’s poured over my head.

Off Waverly Street, a policewoman reports, a fight between two women has just ended with one holding the other’s hand in a car door and breaking it. A suicidal man is offering to kill himself, but through police observations from across the street, he has a severely autistic adult in tow who is resolutely unwilling to step away.

“Daughter is threatening mother with a gun over a check” crackles over the air, followed by an officer in another location answering a call involving “a group of people” attempting to “force their way into a home” where workers are inside. Aside from that literal siege, a mile away, an actual home invasion is announced as being “in progress.” Read more

The United States of Suspects

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File This One Under: Advice for Parents, Children and Teens

Notes6Tuesday, April 23 – FoxNews.com posts an article linking the online Al Qaeda recruiting publication “Inspire” to bomb-making plans used in Boston. Soon after, here in L.A., “Charlie” clicks on a link contained in the piece that takes him to the Jihadist magazine itself. He explores it, without questioning why such a hot-potato link was live, instead of just explained.

At 6:25 the next morning, Charlie’s condo door is nearly pounded off its hinges. Whizzing past his 18-month-old daughter’s crib, he marvels at her solid sleep. The peephole view through the door is of several LAPD officers and ATF agents. He turns the handle to find game faces and drawn sidearms. Boots instantly become doorstops. Their respective uniforms are tactical, but reasonably so. Still, they’re big, amped, and all going at once.

“Step back. You’re gonna wanna step back.”

“Are you alone? Step back.”

“We have a report of a man seen in your window waving a firearm.”

“Hold on, what?” Charlie demands, alarmed at their inching inward.

“Where are your weapons?”

“Hey, wait,” Charlie implores. “I have my 18-month-old daughter here!”

“Will you consent to a search of your property?”

“A man in your window was seen from the street with a handgun.”

“I don’t own a handgun! I have no firearms here.”

“Yes you do – a Ruger American, 270.”

“I just bought that. A friend is sighting it for me.”

“At what location?”

“You didn’t get the scope option?”

“Will you allow us further entry to check for ourselves?”

“Go ahead and look! It isn’t here. I have a baby, so I don’t keep guns here.”

They fan out into the living room, dining area, and next to the plasma by the big window in question. Charlie doesn’t merit a strategic takeover of his living room or his life, so he’s clueless but calm. As it hits him that this is really happening, he wonders why it feels like both an honor and an insult. Read more