Well, not into a bar, but their lives intersect on Broadway in Oakland on a sunny, mid-Autumn day. On my way walking home from Kaiser on Tuesday, I stopped by Sprouts for a bite to eat. It was a nice day, on the cool side but sunny. I figured I’d get one of their $5.99 sandwiches, which are really the best deal in town. Normally, I would also have got a cappuccino or cold brew to wash it down with, but the Starbucks next door recently closed, a big loss for the area, but not unexpected due to the crime and filth that plague most of our commercial corridors.
Got my ham sandwich, found an empty table and settled down when I heard human yelling. I immediately recognized it as another crazy Black guy--a noise we know all too well in Oakland. Looked around, and there he was, young, with dreads, shabbily dressed and sagging, his ass hanging out of his pants, screaming his head off. His rant was liberally sprinkled with swear words, threats and incoherent babble. I admit he intimidated me; I moved to a table further away. After three muggings by such psychos, I’m wary. Then he began staring crazily at me and making these weird claw-like gestures with his fingers.
I wondered if I should just pack up my sandwich and leave, but then two patrol cars pulled up, red lights flashing, and four cops emerged. Now that I was safe—thank you OPD!—I decided to stay. This is urban entertainment at its best, a reality show we all get to watch. Maybe if things got hairy, I would video it with my iPhone.
The police positioned themselves strategically in a box around the young man. They didn’t approach him or even say anything: their message was clear enough without words. “We’re here, dude. Behave yourself.” I thought the dude would leave, but instead, he started rambling and ranting again, stupidly trying to enrage the cops, giving them the finger.
This went on for a good twenty minutes. The cops just remained silent, surrounding him calmly, occasionally grinning. The dude kept up his rant, occasionally shifting his gaze to me or one of the other folks seated at the tables. I wondered if this was how the cops usually acted in these circumstances. Do they just surround the ranter and then do nothing? For how long? By the time I finished my sandwich I found out what they were waiting for: a MACRO van pulled up and its two-man team emerged. By this time the cops had cuffed the dude and guided him to the back of one of their patrol cars. He didn’t resist. For someone who had seemed so lunatic and out-of-control earlier, he was suddenly rational and behaving himself, as if he knew better than to mess with cops.
Eventually the MACRO guys got ready to leave without the ranter, although I didn’t know why they didn’t take him. He was still cuffed in the back seat of the OPD patrol car. I decided it was time for me to leave, too, but first, I wanted to do something I always do when I encounter a cop: say “Thank you for your service and protection.” Usually the cops light up and reply “Thank you.” This time, there were two cops remaining on the sidewalk (the other two were busy with the dude). I smiled at one and said “Thank you for your service.” He gave me an irate look, like “You talking to me?” and for a second I thought he was tempted to arrest me. Then I said “Thank you” to his partner, but he looked right through me and ignored me.
I felt bad. Had I somehow upset them? I thought about it. Well, I figured, both of them were under stress. They can never know how a confrontation with a lunatic will turn out. The ranting dude was playing with them and, apparently, there was nothing they could do about it, although they probably very much wanted to. Then there was me: they’d seen me watching them the whole time. Maybe I was some kind of weirdo cop hater, of which Oakland has so many. I’m not, of course, but I couldn’t very well say to them, “Hey, I’m Steve, I founded the Coalition for a Better Oakland, I’m on your side.” And there was my appearance: an elderly guy, not well shaved (I shave as seldom as possible), dressed in camo sweatpants, sunglasses, a beat-up old baseball cap, red hoodie, red sneakers, and carrying a green plastic shopping bag. If I’d been a guy in a nice suit and shiny shoes, maybe the cops would have said “Thank you” back to me, instead of looking at me like I was some kind of derelict.
It puzzled and confused me, but I tried to give the cops the benefit of the doubt. Their job is so hard and challenging. The psychological toll it takes on them would defeat many of us of lesser inner fortitude. Sure, I wished they’d thanked me for thanking them, but it was without grudge or judgment that I walked home. But I would like to understand the disconnect between what I tried to convey to the cops—respect and gratitude--and what they perceived.
Steve Heimoff