police work
Every so often I witness a police altercation of one sort or another. I think anyone who spends any amount of time in the downtown of any city will witness it every once in a while — and the same with any — um — “red light” or “exclusionary” zoned area of any city.
I watched something shake down the other day. My view was largely obstructed, so I was not able to see what was the deal was — it boiled down to one man who had to be restrained — perhaps some mixture of drugs and petty thievery — with one irritant witness who may have been the victim and after helping run him down jabbed with the police that came on the scene and provided his witnessed report. But this is all conjecture.
Something bothers me with this, and it is the case with just about any “police ride in on the scene” case I have seen, and something that can be witnessed in this photograph of the James Chasse tragedy of a year ago (link picked arbitrarily off of the top page in a google search)…
Maybe I am a little bit naive, but why are there so many police officers on the scene?
In the scene I watched the other day, I saw two people of interest that the police were dealing with. And I watched two police cars come in, each with two officers. Then I watched two more cars come in, each with two more officers. Then there was the ubiquitous fire department truck, apparently customary for anything and everything whether they are needed or not. And then, just for kicks, one more police patrol happened by. The result was 11 officers standing there, maybe five of them useful for most likely contingencies I can think of, with the “Too many cooks spoiling the brew” effect in full effect.
I assume everything played out well yesterday.