Policing Actions
Aug. 13th, 2006 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I've decided my walk home is composed not of steps but of fragments of stories left unfinished.
Mostly, they're paragraphs of general description, maybe a hint of a personality in the old man on his stoop, or the guy cussing into the payphone. Msotly, though, it's scenery. Few of these pictures make anything like a thousand words. You can't get that many out of a paint-peeled fence or a suprisingly pretty wildflower -- not without desperate need of an editor. (These days, the brief but absolutely apropos seems more usual than a thousand words spent on a peeling fence.)
Two recent incidents, though, while they remain unfinished stories, stick in my mind. One is briefly described - Earlier today, the police abruptly cordoned off Notre Dame at Balmoral, and several side streets, and after some debating amongst themselves, a block of Balmoral, at least going one direction. The set-up happened literally in front of me; they blocked off Notre Dame just before I got to cross it, and I hadn't walked all the way to the next block (A short block, I should add) before they drove one of the two cars over there to cut off the Balmoral traffic sooner. I looked down that street in the cordon's direction, and saw more police cars at the lesser streets. I haven't yet had the chance to hear or see a news report to say what that was about. Given the area, more likely raid than parade, but my imagination is limited when it comes to potential criminal activities.
The second is yesterday (Friday)
Daylight - birds chirping, the works. Turning onto a street near my house, (just off the major street that is Osborne), I encounter two women and a preteen boy on the lawn of an apartment. One of the girls seems to be trying to get away from the other, and the first detail I notice about either of them is the blood on her face, fresh right under part of her nose, but crusted dry across her throat on the other side, across her shirt. I see no cuts, but I freeze.
The other girl catches hold of her again, in spite of her protests -- and slings an arm around her, steadying her, and tries to urge her the same way I'm going. It's obvious in another second that the bloodied girl can't walk on ehr own, though my first glimpse had me thinking she was standing on her own. The boy, who is probably 10, is holding back, looking more uncomfortable than worried, and more worried than he is anything else.
It's these last details that decide me, and I ask the unbloodied girl if they're okay. She says, "Please, can you help?" and explains they're trying to get the girl home. She's drunk, she says, and I believe her, though I'd have believed a medical emergency or something illicit just as easily at this point.
I still hesitate, and ask where, and she says the apartment is right up the street. So I nod; while the girl with the bloody nose wobbles and near pitches over, though none of us were trying to walk yet. We both reach for her; her friend that little bit faster.
She turns to me to try and say she doesn't want to go, and while I'm telling her it will be okay, her eyes never once focus on my face. Not just "She's looking around not at me." Not even the drunken, "She's trying, but too far gone." If I'd met her without the preamble, I'd have thought her legally blind, in spite of the small but very black pupils.
So I try. I'm hesitant to grab a stranger too hard, but we get her onto the sidewalk and a few steps more. She pulls back, saying once more she doesn't want to go home. Her friend is reassuring her that there's nobody there, which has me wondering about how she got the bloody nose, and if all the blood is from just her nose after all. Still no injuries. Her blonde hair looks like it was straightened at a boutiique, and like it was nicely done before it got blood and sweat.
But in the space of five more steps, about the time she gets loose form my hesitant grip, a man has come up to us. The unbloodied girl goes to speak to him, and the bloodied girl gets loose. He catches her in turn. The already aging stains on his shirt are exactly the same height she ends up while he holds her against his chest, before he tucks his arm around hers and keeps leading her the same way. I get her other elbow, but I'm not sure I'm doing much good. The unbloodied woman follows, saying something to the child I don't hear. She looks a lot happier with this obvious friend than she was with just me, and she looked happy to see anyoen willing to help.
Within a few more steps, we've met with a police officer, who asks about the situation. The man explains that she's just drunk, that she fell not once but a few times. She's trying to tell us she wants to go back, across the street. The nearest bars aren't that near, so I'm wondering where she's trying to get. The LC?
The policeman nudges a bit more, and the male friend adds that she lost her job today, and points out the apartment building. They get a firm grip, one man on each arm; the officer, of course, knows how to get and keep a good hold without being intrusive, and she can move her feet enough to mostly keep pace.
If this all sounds claustrophobic, people popping up from nowhere, it really did feel that way, on a bright lit street in the early evening. I came around a near-blind corner to see the first two people, and I didn't have a chance to look further than them or the sidewalk until the police officer joined us. Everything else is close-ups of arms and faces and eyes, with flash-shots of faltering motion in between. Now I can look around a bit, at the daylight street, and now I can see the second officer, by their car halfway along the block, talking to yet another young man with another bled-upon shirt. We get there, and even past, though the girl I first saw, and the boy, stay with the second officer and the other friend. it was clear by now that the two men had run ahead halfway up the block expressly to flag down the officers, that one turned back to help the swamped female friend once that mission was accomplished, and left the other to give the details.
When the first group turned into the apartment block's terrace, I felt reassured enough to keep on my own way home. The situation now was a far cry from the first moment's impression of two lone women and a child alone on the street. I felt actually quite glad for the girl, that she did have, not one overburdened friend, but several friends and some concerned officers to care for her. I hoped she'd get some water and rest, and realise once the hangover went away, how fortunate it is to have friends.
For my part, it's a good thing for the random stranger to be redundant. Better than to be not present or not willing.
That street's funny. It's all apartments or very large homes turned into businesses, and they're mostly handsome apartments. It's a nice lane; tree shaded, but not particularly dark, not gloomy at all. There was a window in one of the apartments with an Elvis in a Hula skirt. It's not the place on my walk home I'd have ecxpected to meet a situation like that: I'd have expected that nearer to my workplace, while crossing through the poorer areas of the North End and Sargent Park. I'd enver have named this street. I consider it essentially safe.
Whenever I first try to recall the street, the first image that comes to mind is a night scene. Twilit not unlit, thanks tot he streetlights, but the dimness is not dappled tree-shadows, it's evenly spread out night gloom; even the streetlights in my mind make less bright pools than they really do.
Night (particularly city night, which isn't black) does not equate threat, to me, but it's still an interesting phenomenon.
Mostly, they're paragraphs of general description, maybe a hint of a personality in the old man on his stoop, or the guy cussing into the payphone. Msotly, though, it's scenery. Few of these pictures make anything like a thousand words. You can't get that many out of a paint-peeled fence or a suprisingly pretty wildflower -- not without desperate need of an editor. (These days, the brief but absolutely apropos seems more usual than a thousand words spent on a peeling fence.)
Two recent incidents, though, while they remain unfinished stories, stick in my mind. One is briefly described - Earlier today, the police abruptly cordoned off Notre Dame at Balmoral, and several side streets, and after some debating amongst themselves, a block of Balmoral, at least going one direction. The set-up happened literally in front of me; they blocked off Notre Dame just before I got to cross it, and I hadn't walked all the way to the next block (A short block, I should add) before they drove one of the two cars over there to cut off the Balmoral traffic sooner. I looked down that street in the cordon's direction, and saw more police cars at the lesser streets. I haven't yet had the chance to hear or see a news report to say what that was about. Given the area, more likely raid than parade, but my imagination is limited when it comes to potential criminal activities.
The second is yesterday (Friday)
Daylight - birds chirping, the works. Turning onto a street near my house, (just off the major street that is Osborne), I encounter two women and a preteen boy on the lawn of an apartment. One of the girls seems to be trying to get away from the other, and the first detail I notice about either of them is the blood on her face, fresh right under part of her nose, but crusted dry across her throat on the other side, across her shirt. I see no cuts, but I freeze.
The other girl catches hold of her again, in spite of her protests -- and slings an arm around her, steadying her, and tries to urge her the same way I'm going. It's obvious in another second that the bloodied girl can't walk on ehr own, though my first glimpse had me thinking she was standing on her own. The boy, who is probably 10, is holding back, looking more uncomfortable than worried, and more worried than he is anything else.
It's these last details that decide me, and I ask the unbloodied girl if they're okay. She says, "Please, can you help?" and explains they're trying to get the girl home. She's drunk, she says, and I believe her, though I'd have believed a medical emergency or something illicit just as easily at this point.
I still hesitate, and ask where, and she says the apartment is right up the street. So I nod; while the girl with the bloody nose wobbles and near pitches over, though none of us were trying to walk yet. We both reach for her; her friend that little bit faster.
She turns to me to try and say she doesn't want to go, and while I'm telling her it will be okay, her eyes never once focus on my face. Not just "She's looking around not at me." Not even the drunken, "She's trying, but too far gone." If I'd met her without the preamble, I'd have thought her legally blind, in spite of the small but very black pupils.
So I try. I'm hesitant to grab a stranger too hard, but we get her onto the sidewalk and a few steps more. She pulls back, saying once more she doesn't want to go home. Her friend is reassuring her that there's nobody there, which has me wondering about how she got the bloody nose, and if all the blood is from just her nose after all. Still no injuries. Her blonde hair looks like it was straightened at a boutiique, and like it was nicely done before it got blood and sweat.
But in the space of five more steps, about the time she gets loose form my hesitant grip, a man has come up to us. The unbloodied girl goes to speak to him, and the bloodied girl gets loose. He catches her in turn. The already aging stains on his shirt are exactly the same height she ends up while he holds her against his chest, before he tucks his arm around hers and keeps leading her the same way. I get her other elbow, but I'm not sure I'm doing much good. The unbloodied woman follows, saying something to the child I don't hear. She looks a lot happier with this obvious friend than she was with just me, and she looked happy to see anyoen willing to help.
Within a few more steps, we've met with a police officer, who asks about the situation. The man explains that she's just drunk, that she fell not once but a few times. She's trying to tell us she wants to go back, across the street. The nearest bars aren't that near, so I'm wondering where she's trying to get. The LC?
The policeman nudges a bit more, and the male friend adds that she lost her job today, and points out the apartment building. They get a firm grip, one man on each arm; the officer, of course, knows how to get and keep a good hold without being intrusive, and she can move her feet enough to mostly keep pace.
If this all sounds claustrophobic, people popping up from nowhere, it really did feel that way, on a bright lit street in the early evening. I came around a near-blind corner to see the first two people, and I didn't have a chance to look further than them or the sidewalk until the police officer joined us. Everything else is close-ups of arms and faces and eyes, with flash-shots of faltering motion in between. Now I can look around a bit, at the daylight street, and now I can see the second officer, by their car halfway along the block, talking to yet another young man with another bled-upon shirt. We get there, and even past, though the girl I first saw, and the boy, stay with the second officer and the other friend. it was clear by now that the two men had run ahead halfway up the block expressly to flag down the officers, that one turned back to help the swamped female friend once that mission was accomplished, and left the other to give the details.
When the first group turned into the apartment block's terrace, I felt reassured enough to keep on my own way home. The situation now was a far cry from the first moment's impression of two lone women and a child alone on the street. I felt actually quite glad for the girl, that she did have, not one overburdened friend, but several friends and some concerned officers to care for her. I hoped she'd get some water and rest, and realise once the hangover went away, how fortunate it is to have friends.
For my part, it's a good thing for the random stranger to be redundant. Better than to be not present or not willing.
That street's funny. It's all apartments or very large homes turned into businesses, and they're mostly handsome apartments. It's a nice lane; tree shaded, but not particularly dark, not gloomy at all. There was a window in one of the apartments with an Elvis in a Hula skirt. It's not the place on my walk home I'd have ecxpected to meet a situation like that: I'd have expected that nearer to my workplace, while crossing through the poorer areas of the North End and Sargent Park. I'd enver have named this street. I consider it essentially safe.
Whenever I first try to recall the street, the first image that comes to mind is a night scene. Twilit not unlit, thanks tot he streetlights, but the dimness is not dappled tree-shadows, it's evenly spread out night gloom; even the streetlights in my mind make less bright pools than they really do.
Night (particularly city night, which isn't black) does not equate threat, to me, but it's still an interesting phenomenon.