No Longer on the Run

Today, the police finally caught up with me. A couple of months ago, they sent an officer by the name of Velasquez to stop me near a middle school and question what I was doing there. Each day for over a year I walk from house to the trolley station. According to the Internet, it is nearly a 3 mile walk back and forth. It keeps my 63 year old heart beating. Apparently, I have become part of a new police sport in America, No longer are they just profiling African American males for every crime which comes across their radio. Now, they are profiling older white American men who might be getting their exercise, but within the vicinity of a place where kids gather. They are profiling me. Today, they sent the swat team to corner me. Here is where the comedy comes in. They actually think they are doing a good thing. I asked to speak to the supervisor and Sergeant Diaz presented himself. After some verbal sparring, we arrived at the core issue. The police were responding to a call from someone who had spotted me engaged in suspicious activity, defined as watching the kids. This was patently false and this was where I had issues. The police had sent at least 3 cars and a half dozen officers to investigate an unsubstantiated report of something which sounded like a non-event to me. Diaz countered that they were on heightened alert due to what was happening in society in general and the school specifically and as a citizen, I should have be thanking him. Thanking him for stopping me in the middle of my neighborhood with my neighbors watching over a telephone call with a fleet of patrol cars, a police SUV and a squad of police officers, a veritable swat team? I think not! So I put my SWAT team hat on and I am making the following suggestions to the San Diego Police Department. I am not saying they are bad guys. I am saying that they have no idea what they are doing. This is my suggestion how they can solve this molester monitoring phobia of theirs. Time will tell if they respond. I suggest that the cops stop with their incompetent profiling and join forces with parents. You see Sergeant Diaz almost had it right when he told me that the police were responding to a new terror in America. However, he was very wrong when he suggested that I should be thankful. Yes, I am thankful that the police have our back. I just don’t want them on our back. By partnering with the cops, parents would be deputized as volunteers visionaries. I am sure their PR team can come up with great names. Have meetings at the school and ask parents to be part of this elite squad. Begin to canvass the neighborhood and instead of harassing law abiding citizens, explain what the nature of the elite team is and how asking for identification helps them get the bad guys. Provide information to all those stopped as to where they can get more information on this elite squad. Yes, this will take some thinking. Yes, it will take some planning. It is a 2013 response to a country desperately trying to protect their kids from undesirables. It is time that the police understand the problem instead of using antiquated methods. It will take another look. I hope they take the time to do so.