More rambling about the orange one and his attempts to start his own secret police and to corrupt the election process in order to stay in office. The militarization of the police and their brutality in this day. Plus I'm working on some new zines and whatever else my mind could come up with.
Closing music: The Beat featuring Ranking Roger - Good Day For Sunshine
Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com Twitter & Instagram: @notmovingpics
Blog: notmovingpictures.blogspot.com
Written and Published by Don Leach.
May not be used without permission from the author.
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Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2020
Friday, January 10, 2014
The Unsafe Streets
While on my way home tonight I noticed that the car ahead of me was having a hard time staying in it's lane and was sharply jerking to and fro. My first thought was that the driver was more than likely texting or doing something else just as stupid. That was until he blew through the first stop light without even slowing down. Then I began to think that perhaps he was more likely drunk. One mile later he blew through the second red light and I decided to do something about it so I called 911.
By the time I was able to speak to the police he had turned into the parking lot of what I assume was his apartment complex and proceeded to park. As I described what had been happening to the voice on the other end of the phone this unknown man got out of the car and started walking straight towards me. At that point I was advised to move away so that there wouldn't be any kind of confrontation between us. Well duh.
I had my truck in gear and pulled behind the next set of apartments but it was a dead end. I was going to have to turn around and go out the way I had come in. If he was waiting for me that aforementioned confrontation just might occur. Fortunately he was already on his way to his apartment and I used the opportunity pull over behind his vehicle and give a full description of it as well as the license plate number to the 911 operator.
Since he was out of the vehicle and had not been seen committing his violations by a police officer I was informed that there was nothing that could be done. Still the patrol units in the area would be given the information in case he decided to go out again. Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt. Any other time and I'd have seen cops all over the place. Face it, he got away whatever he was doing.
I console myself that at least I tried, I made an effort for whatever good that did. The fact is that drunks are going to do what they want no matter what the laws say. I just hope I can stay out of their way.
Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.
By the time I was able to speak to the police he had turned into the parking lot of what I assume was his apartment complex and proceeded to park. As I described what had been happening to the voice on the other end of the phone this unknown man got out of the car and started walking straight towards me. At that point I was advised to move away so that there wouldn't be any kind of confrontation between us. Well duh.
I had my truck in gear and pulled behind the next set of apartments but it was a dead end. I was going to have to turn around and go out the way I had come in. If he was waiting for me that aforementioned confrontation just might occur. Fortunately he was already on his way to his apartment and I used the opportunity pull over behind his vehicle and give a full description of it as well as the license plate number to the 911 operator.
Since he was out of the vehicle and had not been seen committing his violations by a police officer I was informed that there was nothing that could be done. Still the patrol units in the area would be given the information in case he decided to go out again. Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt. Any other time and I'd have seen cops all over the place. Face it, he got away whatever he was doing.
I console myself that at least I tried, I made an effort for whatever good that did. The fact is that drunks are going to do what they want no matter what the laws say. I just hope I can stay out of their way.
Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
The Robbery That Wasn't
My wife had a scare this past week which is a roundabout way of saying that I also had a scare this past week. She took our son to school and then went to her English class and after leaving went to the store to buy some sillao which is soy sauce. She prefers the Peruvian kind if she can get it. Once she got to the store she discovered that her purse was missing and she went into a panic. Convinced that somebody had stolen it out of her car at the school she raced home and woke me from my fitful slumber to deliver the bad news.
I asked her where she had last seen it and she said she had it at the Hobby Lobby the night before but she knew that she had left it in her car afterwards. Leaving her purse in the car has been her standard procedure and many times I've spoken to her about how it's inviting someone to steal it. Now I told her that she needed to go back to the school and call the police to file a report. As she left I started compiling a list of who we had to notify and what we had to replace. Important things like the credit card company and the bank were at the top of the list but other things were important as well. Her drivers license, her social security card and more were all in there.
She didn't come back to quickly so I was sure that the police had came and were taking her report. After a bit longer she showed back up with a sheepish look on her face and I knew that it had been found. At the school she found out that her car was parked in a blind spot for the cameras so that was no help. Once the police came and took her report she decided to go to the Hobby lobby store that she had been to and, you guessed it, they had her purse.
The night before while there our son had needed help zipping up his coat and she lad laid her purse down to help him. She the proceeded to walk out not realizing that she hadn't picked her purse back up. Against all odds nothing was missing which was a major blessing. After it was all over we were able to laugh about it but I made sure to make clarify the dangers in leaving her purse in her car like that, not that I think it will make any difference. Perhaps at least she'll make sure it can't be seen.
The truth is there really isn't much anyone could get from robbing us, we're that bad off. Of course in our current predicament financially anything we lost would be hard to overcome. Later that night I started thinking about how little interaction I actually have had with thieves and robbers in my life. In my forty-eight years on this planet I can only think of two instances when something along those lines has occurred and both have been since I married my wife. Does this mean I assign some kind of blame to her? Of course not, it just worked out the way it did.
The first was right after we got married. We were living in her apartment intending to only stay until we found something better. She had already had a problem with someone with a key entering her apartment and stealing small amounts of money (mostly from a cup of coins) but we thought we had fixed that problem by keeping the front door locked and installing a padlock on the back door. That way only we had the key to it. It worked for a while until one night after coming home from work we found that the thief had jimmied the lock open in the bathroom window, crawled in, and made off with her laptop as well as the camcorder we had bought to film our wedding with. Then he or she had left through the much larger bedroom window.
To top it off her jerk landlord refused to believe that it had happened from one of his employees (relatives) and basically accused us of faking it. It was all I could do to restrain myself from punching him out and I think he realized he had crossed a line so he dropped his point and left quickly. Needless to say my wife no longer felt safe in that apartment and we got out as soon as we could.
My second encounter with a thief occurred in the house that we bought and currently live in. It was somewhere around three years after the previous break in and my wife came home with our then less than a year old son to find that we were the victims of a burglary. Some scumbag had busted our door in and grabbed what turned out to be mainly things that had sentimental value. He was in and out more than likely in less than five minutes.
The hard to take thing is that our neighbor saw the perpetrator exiting our driveway with what turned out to be one of our pillowcases stuffed with our belongings. She give the info to the police and they did basically nothing, probably because she didn't see him leaving the house and couldn't one hundred percent identify him. I know, it's a garbage excuse from them but honestly I didn't expect much in the first place. The powers that be in Tulsa have more important things for the police to do, like give out speeding tickets.
So there you have it, my life experience with getting robbed (so far). Two burglaries, no holdups, no car break-ins and nothing stolen from my desk at work, at least that I can recall. After all, I am getting old and my memory isn't quite what it used to be. That sound you hear is me furiously knocking on wood hoping that I haven't jinxed myself.
Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.
I asked her where she had last seen it and she said she had it at the Hobby Lobby the night before but she knew that she had left it in her car afterwards. Leaving her purse in the car has been her standard procedure and many times I've spoken to her about how it's inviting someone to steal it. Now I told her that she needed to go back to the school and call the police to file a report. As she left I started compiling a list of who we had to notify and what we had to replace. Important things like the credit card company and the bank were at the top of the list but other things were important as well. Her drivers license, her social security card and more were all in there.
She didn't come back to quickly so I was sure that the police had came and were taking her report. After a bit longer she showed back up with a sheepish look on her face and I knew that it had been found. At the school she found out that her car was parked in a blind spot for the cameras so that was no help. Once the police came and took her report she decided to go to the Hobby lobby store that she had been to and, you guessed it, they had her purse.
The night before while there our son had needed help zipping up his coat and she lad laid her purse down to help him. She the proceeded to walk out not realizing that she hadn't picked her purse back up. Against all odds nothing was missing which was a major blessing. After it was all over we were able to laugh about it but I made sure to make clarify the dangers in leaving her purse in her car like that, not that I think it will make any difference. Perhaps at least she'll make sure it can't be seen.
The truth is there really isn't much anyone could get from robbing us, we're that bad off. Of course in our current predicament financially anything we lost would be hard to overcome. Later that night I started thinking about how little interaction I actually have had with thieves and robbers in my life. In my forty-eight years on this planet I can only think of two instances when something along those lines has occurred and both have been since I married my wife. Does this mean I assign some kind of blame to her? Of course not, it just worked out the way it did.
The first was right after we got married. We were living in her apartment intending to only stay until we found something better. She had already had a problem with someone with a key entering her apartment and stealing small amounts of money (mostly from a cup of coins) but we thought we had fixed that problem by keeping the front door locked and installing a padlock on the back door. That way only we had the key to it. It worked for a while until one night after coming home from work we found that the thief had jimmied the lock open in the bathroom window, crawled in, and made off with her laptop as well as the camcorder we had bought to film our wedding with. Then he or she had left through the much larger bedroom window.
To top it off her jerk landlord refused to believe that it had happened from one of his employees (relatives) and basically accused us of faking it. It was all I could do to restrain myself from punching him out and I think he realized he had crossed a line so he dropped his point and left quickly. Needless to say my wife no longer felt safe in that apartment and we got out as soon as we could.
My second encounter with a thief occurred in the house that we bought and currently live in. It was somewhere around three years after the previous break in and my wife came home with our then less than a year old son to find that we were the victims of a burglary. Some scumbag had busted our door in and grabbed what turned out to be mainly things that had sentimental value. He was in and out more than likely in less than five minutes.
The hard to take thing is that our neighbor saw the perpetrator exiting our driveway with what turned out to be one of our pillowcases stuffed with our belongings. She give the info to the police and they did basically nothing, probably because she didn't see him leaving the house and couldn't one hundred percent identify him. I know, it's a garbage excuse from them but honestly I didn't expect much in the first place. The powers that be in Tulsa have more important things for the police to do, like give out speeding tickets.
So there you have it, my life experience with getting robbed (so far). Two burglaries, no holdups, no car break-ins and nothing stolen from my desk at work, at least that I can recall. After all, I am getting old and my memory isn't quite what it used to be. That sound you hear is me furiously knocking on wood hoping that I haven't jinxed myself.
Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Frat Life 101: The Costume Party
As Halloween fast approaches I am reminded of the handful of times that I have worn a costume on that day as an adult. This is the tale of one of those days. One thing to remember is that I am a person who has never felt comfortable in social settings, especially with large amounts of people, even more so when those people are consuming alcoholic beverages. I've never been one for celebrating holidays very much and also don't care for attending birthday parties or weddings and don't even get me started on funerals. To me they are all basically just another day and I feel they are only important because society has deemed that they are and now we are pressured to conform. Then I feel pressure to interact with people when I'd rather not. But I digress.
During my first semester in college as I was pledging Sigma Tau Gamma a female who was friends with a member of the fraternity invited that member and all other Sig Taus to a Halloween party that she was having. Even though it meant that I had to go to a party where I would not know the majority of the people (a terrifying thought to me) I agreed to go with some of my pledge brothers. Once that was decided the only issue was what costume to wear. Since I was a poor college student with little to no money my choices were limited and I needed to use some originality in devising what to wear.
Luckily for me while working my summer job before starting college I had "acquired" a few items from my employer that were not being used at that time. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, besides, I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired. Still, just to be safe I'm not naming where this job occurred. You see, the summer job was for a police department and among the items was a uniform or two and a few ticket books. Please remember that this was a different era and if someone tried to do something like this now they would be treated in a very different and more serious manner if caught. In my time however, it was still looked upon in a mostly innocent way. No serious harm was ever intended. It was just a young person having fun and being stupid all at the same time.
Originally I thought I would wear a pillow under my shirt and go as a fat, country police officer however that idea changed because I really didn't want to wear the pillow all night. Instead I just went as a police officer. I had a belt and nightstick that were loaned to me but did not have a badge or a gun, not even a toy one. To me it was clear that I was only wearing a costume, especially since in my mind's eye I looked nothing like what I thought a real police officer looked like. As I left my dorm room I saw another guy leaving his room from across the quad and as it happened we were going in the same direction. Later we became friends and he told me that he and his roommate had been smoking pot in their room and when he saw me he thought that someone had smelled the smoke and called the police and that he believed he was going to get arrested. That thought was cemented as fact in his paranoid brain as I followed him to the stairwell and down to the ground floor.
Once there however he slipped away to certain freedom and I stepped out the front door and stood there for a few moments taking in the night air. Several people were gathered there and most of them drifted away immediately and to those few that remained I nodded and said something like "What's up man?" They nodded back but were acting strange towards me, almost as if they were nervous. That's when it hit me, they thought that I really was a cop! Never mind the fact that the patch on the arm of the shirt was for a different city or that I really didn't look like a cop, they totally believed it. Armed with this knowledge I went over to my friends dorm room and gathered with the rest of the pledges who were going to the party.
When we arrived at the party I walked in the door and immediately saw multiple dirty looks being cast in my direction. You could almost see the thoughts that were forming, they were angry that a police officer had dared to come into the party surely only to hassle them and ruin their good time. That is until I stepped up to the keg and poured myself a beer. Then it was if a light went off for all of them and they thought "Oh right. It's Halloween. This is a costume party and that's his costume." After that all was well and the night was fairly uneventful until right before my friends and I left. We went outside and decided to start writing fake tickets and put them on all of the vehicles parked in the yard and on the street only instead of giving them real violations we made them all up. The violations that we came up with were for things like parking like an idiot or behaving like a moron.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we were not there to see the looks on peoples faces as they stumbled out to their cars and went from believing that somehow they had been given a ticket to the uncertainty as they read what it was for. That would have been hilarious. Instead it was back to the dorms for us to sleep off whatever we had imbibed and to start a new day. We did these kinds of things as a joke back then but I can't help thinking what would happen today if someone in that position were caught how much trouble they would be in. More than likely they would be in front of a judge pretty fast for impersonating an officer, theft and whatever else they could be charged with. It makes me pretty glad I lived in that era where the motto seemed to be no harm, no foul. That's really what the intent was. It's strange to think of it as a more innocent time considering what we did.
Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Shootout In Old Tulsa Town, The World Just Got A Little Crazier
There was a shootout in Tulsa two days ago on a Tuesday afternoon at a Walmart Neighborhood Market. Apparently two men forced a man at gunpoint to take them to his Tulsa home. While there a police car pulled up and they made the hostage return to his vehicle and then they drove to the Walmart store located at 21st and Yale. This is a store that I frequent sometimes at night after I get off of work. At least one of the men took the hostage inside the store and fired multiple shots. It seems that the other man left at some point, possibly when police officers began to arrive on the scene. The gunman came outside and attempted to steal a car but ended up shooting and killing a foreign exchange student from China while his passenger got out and ran away.
Next he tried to take a truck from a man who told him he could have it if only he would let him get his baby, girlfriend and her brother out of the vehicle. In this case he allowed them all to exit the truck before getting in. Right away he started shooting at police officers and they returned his fire. The truck crashed only a short distance away and the officers found the man dead inside the truck. The whereabouts of the second man is unknown at this time.
A comment I heard after all of this happened was from a person that lived in that area who had said that they always thought that it was a safe neighborhood and now they weren't so sure. Too many people live under the illusion of safety in this country. Just because the place they live has houses that are a bit more expensive they think it's less likely to have poorer, lower class people and thus less crime. People like to think this way instead of facing reality. There is no such thing as real safety. All it takes is one time for a person to decide to break the law or lose control of themselves and lives can be lost in moments.
Criminals who plan ahead look for places where they can get away with their crimes quickly and easily, but for those who are on drugs or have lost their grip on sanity there are only sudden, unplanned decisions that can spin out of control rapidly. In these cases a simple choice of turning left instead of right can impact whether you live or die and there is no way in cases like this that you can guarantee safety. Nor can you legislate it either. More laws guarantee nothing. If somebody wants to get a gun and use it then they will find a way to do just that no matter how many laws there are to prevent it from happening.
We live in a time of instant access to information amongst other things and it seems like people are losing patience and the ability to comprehend completely. They want it all now, with no waiting no matter what laws or regulations there are. Indeed they believe that the rules don't apply to them at all. Don't believe me? Just watch an episode of Parking Wars and you will see the unbelievable vitriol verbally hurled towards the parking enforcement officers in Philadelphia.
People know they are in violation but don't care and they sound off in the most idiotic fashion. It's an unfortunate sign of the times and will only bet worse. Violence is escaping from it's confines on an increasingly larger scale and the most we can hope to do is educate ourselves about it and pray that we can escape it when it happens. Ultimately people are becoming more and more selfish and they plain do not care if others get hurt by their actions. Safety is a faded ideal. Reality is our present and future and I don't see it getting any better.
Published by Don Leach
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