REAL LIFE
Stories From the Street
Relaxing in our apartment after dinner one evening , we heard shouting out in the street, repeated cries of "On your knees, get on your knees!" Because the shouting continued, we knew this was something other than the normal activity on our block. We went outside to have a look. A dozen of our neighbors were already standing on the sidewalk or peering from their doors.
A large, strong, white man held a struggling black man in his 30s in a chokehold in the middle of the street. Within minutes, four cars pulled up, sealing our block from traffic. One car was a black-and-white, and then we realized they all were police cars; the other three were unmarked, with city license plates.
The undercover cops - one dressed in a stylish biker jacket, others dressed in innocuous T-shirts - assisted in subduing and handcuffing the captive, who was by this time shouting, "I had to do it! I had to do it!" The neighborhood watched, hoping not to see another Rodney King incident.
What did he do? We asked some of the onlookers who had been watching longer. "He was caught shoplifting at the grocery store," they seemed to have heard.
The cars drove away with their unwilling passenger, and we felt strange about the undercover police. Neighborhood acquaintances remarked how they had never known there were so many undercover police. My wife said, "They make me feel safe in one way, but they also make me feel nervous."
- Doug Collins
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Contents on this page were published in the September , 1993 edition of the Washington Free
Press.
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