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More Explanation:
Jun. 28th, 2008 09:20 am1. Had a sitting mayor offer to tear up a parking ticket on my behalf.
2. Had a police officer point a gun at me.
3. Had a conversation with a man who murdered someone I knew
1. I used to be a newspaper reporter. During an election, I went to interview the mayor of Dunnville. I'd just received a parking ticket, and she saw me on my way to pay it in the basement of city hall before interviewing her. She offered to tear it up, then sort of realized what she was saying - Offering to tear up a reporter's ticket just before an election profile article interview? She hurriedly changed the offer to pay it on my behalf. She was actually a very good mayor, certainly better than the person who was actually elected.
2. I also used to be the "Street Ministry Coordinator" for the Salvation Army in Hamilton, Ontario, a fairly blue-collar city of 500,000. My main task was driving a mobile soup kitchen around the city between 9 PM and 1 AM. The police did not like us because we'd park in sight of patio bars and clubs at first, and the merchants would complain. Also, we were a magnet for street kids, and we'd get crowds as big as 100 people at our first stop, and folks downtown felt intimidated.
Anyway, one night the van was suddenly boxed in my a number of police cars, and officers with drawn guns got out and hauled all the male patrons to the ground, cuffing some, patting everyone down. Some of the patrons were quite elderly, including one man who'd just got out of hospital, and died of cancer few days later.
They didn't arrest anyone, but they did things like handed out tickets for people not wearing bike helmets, and threatened some guys with arrest. One officer kept his gun trained on me for several seconds - I was seated in the van.
They did not explain what was going on, and calls were not returned. Later, I read that someone had reported a person with a gun at the soup van. A few months later, the local newspaper reported that a 7-year-old girl had been sexually assaulted at the soup van while the driver and volunteers were "praying." The story was based on a police press release, one that had no basis in fact at all. I never did find out where the release came from, even though my day job, at that time, was as a media liaison for the police department's Youth Service Canada project.
I am very, very, very cynical about police officers.
3. Again, while working for the soup kitchen. A very well-liked patron was pushed out of a high-rise apartment window on New Year's Year, by a couple of friends. They were arrested and released a few months later after it was determined their confessions had been taken improperly. However, the two men openly bragged about killing the fellow after their release. The local newspaper did a feature article on the case. The following summer, I found of the men asleep on the sidewalk and walked him to the shelter. He was very drunk and his pants kept falling down, so it was slow progress. As we walked, he told me that he'd killed our patron and gotten away with it. Upon arrival at the shelter, he was refused admittance by the night clerk, who recognized him.
My anecdotes after leaving journalism and charity work are a lot less interesting.
2. Had a police officer point a gun at me.
3. Had a conversation with a man who murdered someone I knew
1. I used to be a newspaper reporter. During an election, I went to interview the mayor of Dunnville. I'd just received a parking ticket, and she saw me on my way to pay it in the basement of city hall before interviewing her. She offered to tear it up, then sort of realized what she was saying - Offering to tear up a reporter's ticket just before an election profile article interview? She hurriedly changed the offer to pay it on my behalf. She was actually a very good mayor, certainly better than the person who was actually elected.
2. I also used to be the "Street Ministry Coordinator" for the Salvation Army in Hamilton, Ontario, a fairly blue-collar city of 500,000. My main task was driving a mobile soup kitchen around the city between 9 PM and 1 AM. The police did not like us because we'd park in sight of patio bars and clubs at first, and the merchants would complain. Also, we were a magnet for street kids, and we'd get crowds as big as 100 people at our first stop, and folks downtown felt intimidated.
Anyway, one night the van was suddenly boxed in my a number of police cars, and officers with drawn guns got out and hauled all the male patrons to the ground, cuffing some, patting everyone down. Some of the patrons were quite elderly, including one man who'd just got out of hospital, and died of cancer few days later.
They didn't arrest anyone, but they did things like handed out tickets for people not wearing bike helmets, and threatened some guys with arrest. One officer kept his gun trained on me for several seconds - I was seated in the van.
They did not explain what was going on, and calls were not returned. Later, I read that someone had reported a person with a gun at the soup van. A few months later, the local newspaper reported that a 7-year-old girl had been sexually assaulted at the soup van while the driver and volunteers were "praying." The story was based on a police press release, one that had no basis in fact at all. I never did find out where the release came from, even though my day job, at that time, was as a media liaison for the police department's Youth Service Canada project.
I am very, very, very cynical about police officers.
3. Again, while working for the soup kitchen. A very well-liked patron was pushed out of a high-rise apartment window on New Year's Year, by a couple of friends. They were arrested and released a few months later after it was determined their confessions had been taken improperly. However, the two men openly bragged about killing the fellow after their release. The local newspaper did a feature article on the case. The following summer, I found of the men asleep on the sidewalk and walked him to the shelter. He was very drunk and his pants kept falling down, so it was slow progress. As we walked, he told me that he'd killed our patron and gotten away with it. Upon arrival at the shelter, he was refused admittance by the night clerk, who recognized him.
My anecdotes after leaving journalism and charity work are a lot less interesting.
