Monday, July 27, 2009

if you can remember the NW meeting, you weren't really there


Our NW captain came over after this evening's meeting for a glass of wine and a debriefing. It sounds like it was an exciting one, that's for sure!

According to her, there was a very animated fellow there when she arrived, chatting with folks and introducing himself around. He seemed to be getting more animated -- heading toward the edges of the comfort zone -- as things went on. In addition to our beloved block captains and so forth, a police detective and two uniformed officers were also in attendance, and were introduced.

At one point, the agitated fellow asked another neighbor of ours, "Have you got any papers or a pipe?" Our rather-shocked neighbor replied that this was a Neighborhood Watch meeting. (I imagine the "for pete's sake!!!" was silent, but perhaps not.) The agitated fellow replied as if he already knew that, saying, "Yes, that's how they do it here."

Note to self: If that's how they do it at our NW meetings, I definitely need to start going, if only for entertainment value!

He got increasingly agitated, pacing around and so forth, and finally pulled his cellphone and drug paraphernalia out of his pockets and put them on the table -- and commenced pacing around again.

At that point, various people drew the detective's attention to the drug paraphernalia, and he in turn drew the uniformed officers' attention to the agitated fellow. The result was a gen-yoo-ine, Starsky-and-Hutch style take-down.

Lincoln Park doesn't need extra excitement this week, but it's always feast or famine, I guess. I'm currently taking nominations for which community member should play the part of Huggy Bear.

I know the pikkie is from Adam-12, not Starsky & Hutch, but they were uniformed officers, after all. And that hunky Kent McCord was an early crush of mine, whereas I always thought that both Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul were kinda sleazy.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't really know what to say! Since he's still breathing, a Darwin Award seems inappropriate, but what the hell, I'll nominate him nonetheless.

Does anyone know if the 'homicide' house on McKinley is a rental? If so, where do the owners live? How long had the deceased lived at that location? Or was he visiting his children?

meg said...

The McKinley house was a rental -- although I'd like to caution against the demonization (or even simple denigration) of renters. K. and I suffered that for almost 20 years when we'd try to get involved with our community. Usually it was "They're renters but they're actually okay people!" Bah.

I think the victim did live there, with his three kids, but I don't know for how long.

Unknown said...

Caution away!

I couldn't attend last night's meeting and the homicide details are a little sparse. Hopefully, people won't assume that I'm randomly throwing stones at renters, gang members, OR landlords with my questions. It's interesting though, the impact of a landlord's decision.

Hopefully, the kids receive the support that they'll need.

calwatch said...

OK, so other than that incident, what else happened? Are the police making extra patrols, are they close to getting suspects, etc.?

Pride in Garfield Park said...

Ha! What a fascinating story. Definitely one for the NW archives. I admire chutzpah, but there's a time and place.

Yeah, so what do we know about the homicide?

meg said...

PiGP: I think all the information I've heard anywhere or mentioned in the NW minutes is contained in the comments of the previous post.

John Clifford said...
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