and twice on hump day (a tale of two cop run ins)

the best kind of police interactions?

the voluntary kind!

that was the first one of the day, which happened around 9:30am with the austin police department. on the way to the south austin shop i’d noticed some things around i hadn’t noticed before – blatant camp grounds. like, when you got off the highway in front of the wal-mart shopping center there’s, for lack of a better term, a large concrete triangle made by all the exit ramp and frontage road railing and such and on top of it was a fucking TENT. and two mountain bikes. and a whole lot of laundry piled and laying about. like it was clear somebody fucking LIVED there.

it looked like some post-apocalyptic shit.

from there i went up to congress, and there are these concrete inlets that look like bus stops but don’t have benches or anything, and in one of them was a couch and recliner, with a homeless guy (i assume) passed out on the couch (with his leg in a cast) and all his bindle and shit piled in the chair.

all of the above was not off in the woods behind the pawn shop or something, mind you, this was all within feet of urban traffic and shit. so i was surprised when i left the shop and went to go to the gym that when i passed what i fucking KNEW was a little shanty town under the manchaca road overpass there were a half a dozen cop cars with officers keeping the “tenants” at bay while a few city workers bagged and tossed everything in a dumpster.

i’m not sure what they got to keep.

but i rolled down my window and talked to one of the cops since i had to wait for the lane to clear anyway, and he told me they had several units like this deployed around and they were slowly making their way towards congress and ultimately the highway. i mentioned what i saw and he said it was already on the list. the ufc told me the city is doing sweeps like this once a month, and within a couple weeks i’d probably see similar shit in similar areas.

fucking super.

then came the north austin clock and chase. a “clock and chase” in my term for when a cop sits by the side of the road radar gunning but never moves, so when you pass him faster than you meant to but he doesn’t flinch you figure you’re in the clear…

…but no.

a half mile or so up the road there is a full blown fucking LINE of cops (in yesterday’s case about eight) who then take off after whoever he calls them about. fortunately i was going seventy-one in a seventy (not on purpose, ’cause i usually go much faster, but i was just starting to speed up when i saw him) so i glided past, but then all of a sudden the highway ground to a halt – but since i was in the right lane i just exited, which allowed me to see the reason for the slow down – ahead of the hateful eight there were two more pulled over on the side of the highway, in addition to the two on the frontage road, and another on a side street, making for thirteen in all.

daaaaaaaaaaamn!!!

needless to say i took another way out when i left!