XD40scinNC
New member
I'll be honest - I haven't "met" all that many cops. Since about 1994 or so, that has been on purpose. We owned a little coffee shop on the main drag of a small town. When we first opened, we had several folks recommend that we offer discounts or free stuff to cops and firefighters. I had no objection to it, so we offered free small coffees to 'em, and free refills in our logo mugs after they bought one (which was a large size). This one cop started coming in every day and eventually we became pretty friendly. He and his wife both rode their own Harleys, as did me and my wife, so we started going on rides together and generally socializing away from our respective jobs. That went on for at least two years, maybe three.
One day I'm standing at the espresso machine making a drink when I see a car pull into my parking lot with a cop car with its lights flashing pulling in right behind him. I see the driver get out and start pointing in his car while yelling something towards the cop car. As he's doing that, I see my friend get out of the squad car. I finished up the drink, took my customer's money, and then went outside to see what was up. The driver was yelling, "Dude! She's having a baby RIGHT NOW! I gotta get to the hospital!" My friend was writing a ticket and ignoring the driver, so the driver finally said F You! and started getting back in his car. My friend calmly put his ticket book down on the trunk of the guy's car, walked to the driver's door, opened it, dragged the guy out, SLAMMED him on the hood and started whining about being told "F You" as he emphasized every couple of words with another slam of the guy's head on the hood.
After it was all over, my now ex-friend had to let the guy go on his way after I called 911 and got his supervisor down there. The dad-to-be was missing two front teeth, both of which I found after everyone left my parking lot. He was bleeding profusely out of his mouth as he drove his wife(?) or girlfriend to the hospital to deliver a baby. Never heard how that went. Never saw the guy again, even though I had told him that I would be a witness for him if he ever needed one. I don't know if my ex-friend was simply embarrassed from losing his cool in front of me, or if he was pissed because he heard me offer to be a witness, but he never came back for coffee anymore, and to tell you the truth, I was glad. The dude was dangerous. I didn't want him in my store anymore.
There's no big, profound moral to the story here. The best moral I can offer is simply, "You just never know." So I keep my distance from cops in every way I have control over. I haven't actually met and conversed with a cop since that day, and have no desire to. There are an awful lot of folks out there just like me, who have either witnessed brutality dispensed illegally under the color of authority, or they just see the same stuff we all see on YouTube and other outlets and feel fearful and distrusting of cops on that basis alone. Fair or not, there is a brutal image that cops have at least participated in fomenting, if not been wholly responsible for. They are the only ones who can change it. The best any of us can do is survive an encounter with them while being unjustifiably subservient and deferential to them just so we won't piss them off and get our heads smashed against our car hoods for no good reason.
Blues
In the same light, I met a fella from Alabama that was a complete and total a-hole.... so everyone from Alabama is a complete a-hole..... Right?
