The Police Live, No the REAL POLICE

So, get this. Last Friday night, we were hanging at the (ware)home. In case you don’t know, we live in Deep Ellum, a part of Dallas Texas. It’s part artsy, part fartsy, part ghetto, part hideout.

Let’s concentrate on the hideout part.

It’s not unusual for the cops to be around here. In fact the main police station is 3 blocks away from us. Is it safe here? I think it’s just as safe as anywhere around Dallas. Anyway, the police were outside last night around 10pm. No biggie, so I thought. They had sectioned off the whole block, as in no traffic as in I tried to go outside and the police said go back in.

We watch them from a window for a bit, but we can’t see anything. There’s police everywhere and ghetto birds in the sky. Something big is going down.

A small flashback, about 3 weeks ago I was walking Hannah Bear the fabulous hound and walked past our alley. The police were storming in to a warehouse back there. I assumed there were some shenanigans going on, but we all kind of keep to our self around here. I mean we know our neighbors but we don’t play bridge on Thursdays if you get my drift.

Back to last night. The cops are everywhere but we’re over it and Miss M. goes to bed. I’m up surfing the net and watching Lost season 2 on DVD trying to catch something I miss.

About 2 am there’s a lot of noise going on outside and suddenly someone is knocking on the door very, VERY loudly.

By the time I get up I hear someone shout: “Open the door, it’s the Police.” I go to the door and look through the peephole, I don’t see anything. The police cars are still outside so I figure it’s safe to open the door.

I swing the door open , look to the right, nothing. Look straight ahead, nothing. I then look to the left and there are 6 SWAT teams members complete with bullet proof helmets , Kevlar armor and 6 AK style machine guns pointing straight at my head!

I like to think I’m a cool cat in a sticky situation and I’ve had a gun pulled on me before (another story, another time), but I don’t mind saying having automatic weapons pointed at you is a little intimidating.

So, the main guy comes up to me and says “We need to search your place”. It wasn’t a question. I say no problem.

He asks about the layout of our place, if there’s anyone else here etc etc. I lay out the story for him, tell him where everything is and make no mistake these guys were open for business. They were in formation, covering each other as they progressed throughout the place. They kept switching between a really tall cop and a guy my size. Asking if I knew my neighbors, where they were if I had their phone number, etc.

I tell them no, because I don’t. Anyway, they want to go upstairs and ask if anyone is up there. I told them my girlfriend Lori is up there asleep. They tell me to wake her and let her know they’re coming up. I walk up and tell Lori that the police are here and by the end of the sentence the guy was already up there checking the room.

The two cops talking to me are playing good cop, bad cop. One is very nice, the other is very condesending and suspect of me. They were trying to find our neighbor in the alley who had burrowed out of his place and was supposedly in a warehouse between their place and ours. They thought he might have worked his way into our place. Although it's all brick, but you don't argue with machine guns.

The funny thing is, they never searched a few key places someone could've hid had we been harboring a fugitive, which we weren't.

Another crazy thing, I talked to the guy a few hours before the bust. Nothing big, just walking the dog in passing. He was a normal tweaker, if there is such a thing.

The SWAT guys actually used a ramming truck to bust down his door which was made of metal.

A crazy night, a bit of a crazy story.

I'm Snobby Bobby (bullet free) and now you know how I feel.