Jus mindin' mah own bizness

At the wrong place at the wrong time. I was out walking around my neighborhood - it was about 10:00pm, and there was a helicopter flying above with a spotlight looking for someone. The light shined on me and I hoped they didn't think I did it, whatever it was. I was in the back alley behind my apartment, and as I walked up the steps, I thought about how my friend Ange had told me to blog about my irrational fears. "Hey, that could be a good one," I thought. "That I'm afraid when the helicopter spotlight shines on me, they think I did it." (OK, so maybe it's not really that good of an idea. I wasn't really going to blog about it...)

I went inside my apartment and started cooking a pot of split pea soup. 5 minutes later, the L.A. police department was shouting outside my neighbor's door (by the way, we live in a nice neighborhood and this kind of thing is definitely not common). "This is the Los Angeles Police Department!! COME OUT NOW! Is there anyone else inside! Everyone needs to come out!"

Holy shit...

I walked to my screen door and just stood there, kind of waiting. I knew I was next.

"Don't come out yet, sir," he said to me. "OK - come out. Slowly, slowly!" I walked out and saw four guns aimed out me, one of which was a huge mother fuckin' rifle.

"Turn around! Slowly! Put your hands up in the air! Slowly! Put them on your head - slowly!"

Slowly, slowly, slowly...just please don't shoot.

"Put the cuffs on him!" A cop came forward and cuffed me. What the fuck? I thought they were just here looking for the bad guys...

I was escorted out of the building (and had to tell one of the cops to please turn off my stove) and was given to another cop. "Here, take him," he said. "He or she?" the other said. "She," I answered. "Sorry," he said. "It's OK." I'm not too concerned about that right now...

The woman who took me put me at ease. "We'll let you know what's going on in a minute. We just have to detain you and ask you some questions."

I stood against the police car and was patted down while she emptied my pockets. I was then asked to sit in the back of the car. The seats didn't have any cushions on them. They were made out of a hard plastic.

"Have you ever been arrested before?" "No." "Do you live here?" "Yes." "Why were you walking so fast back to your apartment?" "I don't know...I was out walking. Trying to get some exercise."

I sometimes walk in my neighborhood late at night. I could definitely look very suspicious at that time of night if something were to happen. "I need to get a gym membership," I thought to myself.

She continued to ask me more questions, most of which were repetitions of the first two - "Have you ever been arrested?" and "Do you live here?"

Thank God I'd never been arrested before. I did have the cops call my parents once when my friend and I were caught drinking in the bathroom stall at Macy's when I was 17. But that didn't really count.

...Did this count? Am I going to have to answer the next time "Yes, I've been arrested before"?

"Have you ever gotten a ticket before?" she asked. I didn't know what that had to do with it, but I think I got some bonus points after I answered "No."

"There was a robbery that just happened," she told me. "You look like one of the suspects. Step out of the car." She escorted me toward another police car, where my neighbor, who is black, was standing in cuffs. I felt worse for him than for me. Even so, I was hoping that he didn't think I did it. Maybe he was thinking the same thing about me.

"Look up," she said as the helicopter flew above us. I knew they were getting an ID on us. I wondered if we were going to be on the news. "Look up," she said again, as the helicopter made another circle around. I was wearing a hat. If the suspect had been wearing a hat as well, I knew that wouldn't be good. I thought that maybe I should stop wearing that hat so much.

I was escorted back to the cop car and sat for awhile. I wasn't nervous. The whole thing was too surreal to have an effect on me, and I did seem to think that they would know this was all a misunderstanding. But I did wonder if I'd have to call in absent from work to tell them I was in jail. I knew that the people at work would believe me if I told them I didn't do it. If they did take me to the station, I wondered if they'd let me go back up to my apartment so I could get my keys, lock my door, and turn off my lights. I wondered if I would have to go on trial. And miss my DVD release party on Wednesday. I was glad that I didn't have plans with anyone at that moment or anything really important to do. I was also really glad that I didn't have to go to the bathroom and that I was fully dressed and not in the middle of doing something crucially embarrassing when the cops came. Their timing was, for lack of a better word, perfect.

I fiddled with my wrists in the cuffs, making sure my hands weren't going numb. "Feel free to stretch out back there," the cop told me, "I know it's not the most comfortable." She was pretty cool. But stretch out? That didn't really seem like a possibility, what with the cuffs and hard plastic seats and all. I barely had room for my legs back there, and I'm 5'5".

After awhile, I was escorted to a wall where the cop took my cuffs off, and my neighbor was released as well. Another cop came over and started chatting with me about it. He told me how the jewelry store down the block had just gotten robbed. They saw the suspects go up the steps to our building but not come out, so they had to get everybody out of the building and question them (my neighbor and I happened to be the only two who were home). Talking to me, he was very friendly and smiley. We were no longer "cops" and "robbers" but now just Bob and Michelle. You know Bob, you did have a gun pointed at me earlier.

"Do you have any questions?" he asked. They still hadn't found the people who did it, but I didn't want to push my luck by asking how they knew it wasn't us. But I did want to clarify - "...Does this count as being arrested?" "No," he laughed. I don't think he had heard that one before. I knew it was a naive question.

After that, we were on our way. I suppose that's one less irrational fear I have now - met and overcome. I can probably check that one off my list, or at least just acknowledge that the fear wasn't so irrational after all. I don't know what it all means or if it has to mean anything. But I figured since I lived to tell about it, I may as well.