Mad Po

I'm back from Washington and being home has already been very eventful.

Yesterday I had plans to meet my buddy Daniel. We planned on greeting each other with a high-five at sixth avenue and ninth street and then go to a nearby bookstore. I rarely head over there but always enjoyed the neighborhood so I was looking forward to a nice stroll in the warm(ish) weather.

I was in a cab on 14th street when a platoon of at least fifteen cop cars zoomed past us at breakneck speeds. They were going in the same direction as us so traffic was screwed up. Once they passed, the street was closed and fifteen more cars zoomed by. The cab driver turned back and asked me:

"You sure you still wanna' go west?"

I thought about it. Was I about to enter a war zone? Probably. The answer?

"Hell yes."

We finally managed to get there and I got a call from Daniel. He said something crazy was happening at ninth and sixth. We had just arrived when an unmarked cop car swerved in front of the cab, blocking us off halfway through the street. I looked at the windows and realized that I was engulfed in chaos.

I paid the cabbie and apologized for getting him stuck in the life threatening situation and felt bad that I got to run for cover while he sat like a duck in the middle of the shit storm. The moment I got out I saw more cops in one concentrated area than I have in a long while, most armed with large assault rifles and angry German Shepherds.

A out of breath cop ran up to me and asked if I had seen an "African American man on foot." On my way over I had seen at least thirty African American men standing on feet. I hate this cop mentality that aggressively screaming a race and gender will narrow results when, in actuality, it just puts innocent people of the same race in gender in danger. The officer himself was black and I wanted to teach him a lesson and say "Yes I have, I'm talking to him right now" and teach him about other ways of describing people like, say, clothing. I didn't feel like getting shot in the face so I just said "no" and found Daniel.

I spoke to a man who had followed the scene on his bike. He said there was an intense car chase that at points went up on the sidewalk. The officers smashed his car a few feet away from my can and the man escaped.

Now hundreds of cops were walking around with dogs. Every so often the gigantic German Shepard would bark at someone in the crowd and I would get as far away from the imminent riot as possible.

Eventually the crowd dispersed and Daniel and I left. We couldn't find anything out about it then and can't now. Strange. All I do know is that it was fucking crazy.

After leaving the scene I saw Bill Hader of SNL fame. That was cool, too.

So handsome.