Got
handcuffed by the police last night while walking home from work. I'm
walking that unlit stretch on the north side of Lake Street between
the Calhoun Beach Club and Lake of the Isles. [For those of you
unfamiliar with the area, just play along.] I'm looking into
headlights coming at me, then a spotlight as the car slows down. By
now I can see it's a police car. It slowly passes. I think little of
it until it stops and makes a u-turn—now eastbound against three
lanes of oncoming westbound traffic. It pulls up next to me—still
pointing in the wrong direction—and I walk up to find out what they
want.
“Take
your hands out of your pockets,” calls a woman's voice from the
driver's side. I oblige and she asks: “What's your name?”
“William
Tinkham,” I say.
She's
out of the car now, still fifteen feet away from me. “Oh,” she
starts, “we thought you were...um, um—”
“Sorry
to bother you,” the male cop says from the other side of the car.
They get back in and drive off. I continue my walk home, puzzled how
they knew I wasn't the guy when they never got close enough to get a
good look at me. About the time I reach the bridge over where Isles &
Calhoun meet, I notice two police cars heading eastbound on Lake,
turn left at the light and swing back towards me, lights flashing.
“Let's
see some ID.” It's the female cop again. I reach into my pocket to
get it and she yells: “Keep your hands out of your pockets!”
“I
can't do both,” I say, holding my hands about chest level.
“I'll
get it,” she says and starts to check my pockets while the male cop
puts my hands on top of my head and pats me down. I'm telling her
that my ID's in my front right-hand pocket and suddenly the guy pulls
by arms down and slaps handcuffs on me. About the time I hear the
click of the cuffs, she has my ID out. “He's right,” she says,
“William Robert Tinkham.” And the handcuffs come off. “Sorry,
you look like a guy we're after.”
“What
did I do to warrant the handcuffs?” I ask, trying not to sound as
pissed as I am.
“The
guy we're after is armed,” the male cop says.
“But
you had already frisked me.”
“No
we didn't,” he says. “Sorry to bother you,” he says, again. And
they drive off. Again.
If
anyone hears of the police capturing a weary man in a suede, Goodwill
sport coat, let me know. I'm curious as to what they thought I had
done. And what they were so afraid of? I could understand if they'd
come with guns drawn—I was supposed to be armed. But to pat me down
and then slap on the cuffs. Did he need the practice? They
weren't even on for ten seconds and, just like that, I'm a
law-abiding citizen again.
