Police Naw Give You No Break
By Mitch Berg
I was pulling out of the Rainbow parking lot on Universityi around 6:30 last night, and noticed a small clutch of Saint Paul cops pulled up at the corner of Pascal and University.
“Nothing new there”, I thought. It’s not uncommon to see the cops pulling over drunk drivers, thieves, footpads and petty thugs up and down Uni after dark; it’s common enough in broad daylight in fact. I started filing it away…
…until I heard a “THUMP THUMP THUMP” sound through my open window, along with the kind of aggressive barking that doesn’t come from taking Fido out for a walk.
I was waiting to pull onto northbound Pascal to get home when I heard it, and sensed more than saw some kind of frenzied activity through the brightly-lit windows of an office space upstairs – a “computer repair shop and mini-arcade” that always seemed to be in the exact wrong location for either business, above an auto garage and a vacant former clothing store. Then I heard something new – a bright splintering sound. I focused on the office, as the big picture window overlooking University shattered, and a black-clad figure tumbled out in a welter of glass, landing on the sidewalk ten feet below on his side. He was instantly surrounded by cops, although the cars between the scene and I, fifty yards away, obscured the action.
I pulled out onto Pascal, and noticed that my way home was blocked by a couple of big, black police vans – SWAT trucks. I wheeled over onto University, parked in front of a vacant building, and walked over as close as I could get to the scene. The jumper, not apparently bad-enough-for-wear to rate an ambulance, was being led away. Two or three early twenty-something Afro-American men were sitting, sullen and uncomfortable-looking, in chairs visible through the window, surrounded by officers in kevlar “Fritz” helmets and flak jackets.
It appeared to be a drug raid, but of course nobody was talking.
Observation: Don’t know if I want to hear anymore how “outgunned” the police are on the street these days. Every single officer I saw was carrying an M4 carbine, not one degree behind the current special operations fashion curve;
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:00 am
Dude, could you keep a lid on it? I’m trying to rent out a house on Charles, a block from there.
On the brigher side, the LRT soon will eliminate all that messy storefront activity along University. We won’t need cops to bust the drug dealers and prostitutes in the Sherburne Alley. Can’t wait.
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:09 am
If you were willing to loosen up your wallet, you could keep a flak jacket & kevlar helm in your backseat & join in the fun when you see this kind of thing going on.
“Step aside! Unofficial auxillary policeman coming through! Hey buddie, you want to tell that to the baton?”
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I have a friend who lives on Charles always entertaining when he tells us about the latest raid or dumb criminal. BTW the area has improved over the years, he has far fewer tales than in the past.
As for being outgunned sure the SWAT team has all the toys. But the average joe beat cop only have a kevlar vest and the sidearm. Not that I think the hyperbole about being outgunned is anything more that gun grabber propaganda.
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I haven’t been hit up for money in the Rainbow parking lot for some time now. I have to start dressing nicer. Or perhaps people are no longer “running out of gas” there like they used to.
December 4th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
But the average joe beat cop only have a kevlar vest and the sidearm.
Nah. They’ve pretty much invariably got a shotgun and/or rifle in the squad car, generally within reach. The reason that you don’t often see it is that they don’t often either need one, or think that they do.
I’m in favor of law-abiding folks — with or without badges — carrying guns, but the typical patrol cop is probably a lot better off adding a snubby to his pocket than he would be in slinging an M4 of MP5 over his shoulder.
A long retired cop friend of mine would never go over to a stopped car without his hand in his pocket; even in the old days, before Level III holsters became standard, he could draw his hammerless snubby a lot more quickly than he could get his revolver out, and it had the collateral benefit of not scaring the hell out the vast majority of folks who he stopped, who he never came anywhere near having to draw on, or shoot.
(I think some have gone back to doing that recently, after the Seattle thing. I noticed that the one facing the door at the coffee shop the other day had his right hand in his jacket pocket, and he didn’t look cold. Don’t blame him one little bit, and I think that was probably a more sensible solution to low-probability threats than, say, having an MP5’s butt on his knee.)