Category Archives: Life in the 253

Dealing With The Police

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 2 Comments

I was pulled over by the State Patrol last week. I was driving on a two lane road at around 40mph in my 1965 Galaxie. I was about to turn left. I noticed the police car going the opposite direction just as a BMW passed me in the outside lane doing about 80mph. I turned left and went up the hill and soon found the blue and red police lights behind my car. I pulled over, turned off my car and rolled down my window. The officer asked if I was racing the BMW. I told him I wasn’t and that I thought the BMW was going much faster than me. He said “You were going pretty fast too. At least sixty and it’s forty through there.”

“I don’t think I was going that fast officer. I think the BMW was the one that was speeding.”

“Well, he was gone by the time I turned around.”

“That’s because he was speeding.”

“License, insurance and registration.”

I already  had my license and insurance card pulled from my wallet. Before reaching in the glove box for my registration, I said, “I’m going to take my right hand and grab my registration out of the glove box.” And then I slowly did exactly that.

He walked back to his car with the information and came back with a ticket for $154 for going 15 over the speed limit. He handed me my registration and insurance card back. It would be a few days before I noticed he did not hand my license back.

There was a time in my life where I was dealing with police officers on a weekly basis. There was also a time in my life when I worked for them in police records. I have had friends who are cops and former cops. So I know a few things about how to deal with the police. I even wrote a chapter about it in my book, Ruin Your Life. But there are some new rules since then and there are situations I didn’t cover.

DON’T POKE BEARS WITH STICKS

This is something my grandfather used to say. It can easily be applied to dealing with cops as well. Here’s the thing. A few years ago, it seemed like it was open season on police officers. Locally, a couple of cops were shot and killed. And then the four Lakewood police officers were gunned down while drinking coffee before a shift. The result of these killings has been that police officers are taking their chances with a shooting investigation rather than waiting to see if a suspect is definitely a deadly threat.

Some people think this is wrong. And make no mistake, there have been unnecessary tragedies due to this increase in police violence. But if you’re paying attention at all, you can at least understand why. I’m getting a bit off topic here though. The point here is that police are now more than ever willing to use deadly force if they feel it is necessary. You’re not going to fix that social problem in a confrontation with a cop.

So the thing to do is make yourself as little of a threat as possible. If you have anything in your hand, drop it.  Don’t wait to be asked. If you need to grab something, tell them what you’re going to do before you do it. Do not let them have a chance to guess wrong what you’re doing. Move slowly at all times. And do what they tell you to do.

You may not like what they’re telling you to do. They may not be following the rule of the law. They may be complete dicks about it. They may be absolutely wrong on all levels, but you are dealing with someone who will very likely not see any prison time if they kill you. So it’s best not to do anything that can be construed in any way as threatening. Do not think about what you’re doing. Think about what someone could say you were trying to do.

PEACEFUL PROTESTS

The Occupy Wall Street movement is the latest but far from the only protest that has been forcibly broken up by the police in recent weeks. When this happens, the police tend to not be nice about it. There are reasons for this.

One is that there are members of every police department who joined the police department simply so they could hurt people and get away with it. Believe it or not, they are in the minority. Most cops, believe it or not, simply want to do their jobs and go home at the end of their shift. However, if you happen to run into one of those dicks who just wants to hurt people, you should know that the second you retaliate violently towards one of those dicks, every good and bad cop will be more than happy to beat the living shit out of you.

Another reason is that ‘shock and awe’ tactics tend to scare the shit out of people and when you’re outnumbered, that’s usually the best route to go. It’s not pleasant, but the cops are like any other authority figure. They have bosses and the bosses give them orders. Their job is to follow their orders the best way they can.

Understand this. You will never beat the police on the street. They are going to do what they’re going to do. You can witness it. You can document it with pictures and video. You can post it up on the web for the world to see. And none of it will matter the second you are violent.

The police know how to deal with violent people. They are very good at it. Non-violent people are very difficult to deal with and control. Especially in this age of youtube.

REVOLUTION

The police are there to enforce the law. They aren’t in charge of what the law is. They don’t have to agree with the law. They don’t even have to follow the law themselves. But they aren’t going to change the law or how they enforce it to accommodate you.

If you’re looking to change things. Whether it’s a traffic law or the way the world works, you don’t start with the cops. You can’t. You save them for last. If you eventually find a way to change things, then the cops will be on your side.

Now don’t get me wrong, if a cop is wrong, you should fight the cop, but don’t be so silly as to play his game. A cop will beat you on the street every time because that’s his home. You beat the police in court. You beat them online.

Just understand that regardless of the situation, the second you are violent towards the authorities, they have won.

I didn’t argue too much with the cop that pulled me over. I disagreed with him politely and took the ticket that he gave me. I didn’t admit to any wrongdoing and mailed the ticket in so I can have my day in court.

-          Jack Cameron

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Posted in Life in the 253, Tacoma Crime

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King of Methlehem – Book Review

Posted on March 18, 2011 | 2 Comments

Most novelists, even successful ones have day jobs. This is just an economic fact. If you’re a resident of Western Washington, you’re probably at least remotely familiar with the name Mark Lindquist, but there’s a good chance that you don’t know him from his novels. You know him as a Pierce County Prosecutor. Just last night he was on the local news prosecuting someone who killed three-year-old. While his actions in the court room are admirable, that’s just his day job. When he’s not prosecuting criminals, Mark Lindquist is a novelist and after reading his latest book, ‘King of Methlehem’, I’m happy to report he’s a good one.

As you’ve probably guessed by the title, ‘King of Methlehem’ hangs its plot around the significant problem of meth amphetamine use and the damage it does. This problem is personified in Howard Shultz, a Tweeker with an obsession for cooking up meth subsidized by identity theft scams. The mentality of a hardcore meth user and cook is so well captured in ‘King of Methlehem’ that if Mark Lindquist were anyone else, you’d ask him how long he had been on it.

Pursuing Howard is Tacoma Police Detective Wyatt James. From the beginning, James is almost as addicted to finding Howard as Howard is addicted to meth. The dialog is quick and fun. You can tell that Lindquist used to write screenplays. The whole thing is written in present tense which gives it a feeling of urgency.

Aiding Detective James is his friend and prosecutor, Mike. While Wyatt is the cowboy, Mike is the guy who tries to keep Wyatt grounded. When Mike gets going in the court room, you can really see Lindquist’s day job influencing his writing. You get the feeling Mike’s frustration echoes his own.

If you’re a Tacoma native, you’re going to feel right at home with ‘King of Methlehem’ . Lindquist uses real bars, businesses, streets, people, and history. In fact, there are times when I think he overdoes it. In one chapter where two characters are driving down Tacoma’s 6th Ave., he manages to mention seven businesses on one page.  So while the book is seasoned with local color, I’d have to say sometimes it’s ‘over-seasoned’. This is as close as I can come to a criticism of ‘King of Methlehem’.

Ultimately, if you’re a fan of crime fiction, and definitely if you’re a local, ‘King of Methlehem’ is well worth your time. It’s like a local version of The Wire. And as anyone who knows how I feel about The Wire, that’s high praise indeed. I look forward to his next book and may check out his other books.

- Jack Cameron

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Posted in Book Review, Books, Life in the 253, Tacoma Crime

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Why I Don’t Celebrate Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 13, 2011 | 3 Comments

I’ve never met someone who liked Valentine’s Day. I don’t think this is due to not knowing anyone romantic. I think it has to do with the fact that Valentine’s Day is one of those things that seems better on paper than it actually is.

When you get down to it, if you’re in a good, rewarding relationship, you don’t really need a holiday to celebrate it. And if you’re not, well, you don’t really need a holiday to remind you of this fact. You might as well have Ferrari Day. The last thing all us non-Ferrari-owning people need is a reminder of the fact that no, we do not have a Ferrari.

One Valentine’s Day I bought twenty-five roses for my girlfriend and had them specially delivered to her during a test. In my entire life, I’ve never had anyone give me a more genuine thank you than her. Two months later we broke up. It turns out, spending $215.23 (yes, I still remember how much I spent,) didn’t guarantee anything at all. Later it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have given her twenty-five roses. I should have given one rose to twenty-five girls.

Buying a Valentine’s Day present doesn’t make you a better significant other. And if you’re the sort that likes to buy gifts, you’ll get a hell of a lot more out of it if you just do it for the hell of it than for Valentine’s Day. And if you’re the sort that absolutely needs a holiday to buy something for the one you love, there’s always their birthday, your anniversary, or Christmas. That’s a minimum of three other chances throughout the year.

I’ve asked friends and coworkers, but I can’t seem to find anyone in support of Valentine’s Day. As far as I can tell it’s just this holiday that retailers have foisted upon us and we’re just supposed to go along with it.

My wife and I have no real plans for Valentine’s Day. And it’s not that we’re not romantic or angry with each other. It’s not even the economy, because it’d be easy enough to set aside some money and get each other something. And despite everything I’m saying here, it’s not some ‘in your face’ to the retail world when it comes to Valentine’s Day. It’s that on Valentine’s Day I don’t love her any more or less than I do on any other day.

If I could, I’d abolish Valentine’s Day, but since I can’t, I thought I’d just throw some thoughts about it out here and see if it resonates with anyone.

-Jack Cameron

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Posted in Life in the 253, Random Thought

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The Challenger Disaster 25 Years Later

Posted on January 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

A bit of a change of pace here. Twenty-five years ago today the space shuttle Challenger exploded. I was eleven years old. And while I could tell my story of that, I thought instead I’d have my father tell the story:

The Rings of Saturn

By John Cameron Sr.

It was 11:38 in the morning Eastern Standard Time on January 28, 1986.  At Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from launch pad 39B, like the fury of a thousand Fourth of Julys.  It was the twenty-fifth shuttle launch and it was Challenger’s tenth.  Seventy-three seconds later at a speed of Mach 1.92 and an altitude of 46,000 feet, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, along with her crew of seven, including the first civilian shuttle passenger, Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher.

On December 5, 1974 at 8:21 A.M. a male child was born to the Cameron clan and his name was given John.  With a shock of reddish-brown hair and big brown eyes, he was the spittin’ image of his father (and his grand-father for that matter). As this precocious young giant grew, so did his fascination with the stars and planets, and he was his father’s constant companion.  When “Star Wars” the movie came out, it was John’s first big-screen adventure. When “Star Wars” the action figures came out his dad almost went broke.  John learned to love books and school and his Teachers.  The world was turning just fine.

My wife and I checked into a nice but affordable motel just outside of Lake Tahoe Nevada. We were comfortable that we had left our son, John, in the good hands of his favorite Aunt, and we were glad to have some time to play. Tomorrow morning was the Challenger launch and John would get up early to see it before he went off to school. I wanted to be sure I was up in time to watch with him, even though he was six hundred miles away. (I allowed myself a brief nostalgia-trip, remembering when he was five and I bought his first telescope. We read books and stared at the stars and found Mars and Jupiter and we saw the rings of Saturn for our first time.)  Now he was eleven and we had watched all the televised shuttle launches together, until now.  I felt somehow disconnected.

On the morning of the 28th I was walking around in my underwear brushing my teeth.  I flipped the T.V. on and was surprised at how close we were to launch. We had all been through this before and were almost nonchalant about firing people into space on top of a rocket. The solid rocket boosters kicked in and the magnificent technological marvel accelerated smoothly away from the shackles of gravity.  Majestic is hardly a good enough word to describe the arc of trajectory, the smoke and the clear crisp air…  It was only 36 degrees.  There were icicles hanging from the scaffolding.  There had never been a launch at such a low temperature. Oh well, they know what there doing…

In an instant everything changed, what I was seeing? This was so wrong!  Then it hit me. What about John? I grabbed the phone and dialed feverishly. I knew my son, and he would be devastated. I should have been there. He was only eleven. I needed to be Dad. One ring, two rings…

“Hi dad, were you watching the launch”? He seemed almost calm.

“Yes son, what a terrible tragedy, all those astronauts gone. I wonder what went wrong?” How could I give him a hug from six hundred miles away?  And then something happened unexpected, something I had not counted on.

“Are you all right?  You sound kind of shook up.”  My son was comforting me!  When did we switch places?

“I’m fine son are you going to handle this O.K.?  Do you want me to come home? ”

“No, I’ve got to get off to school dad, I was just worried about you and Mom…  That sure was a bad explosion.” He was acting as if he had called me.

I managed “I’ll see you when we get home, next Thursday.  I love you.”  I hung up.

I wonder how many lives were changed by the Challenger disaster?  I know my father-son relationship with John started to change that day.  However, the rings of Saturn were not changed.

John has a son of his own now, my grandson Gabriel. Gabe loves the stars.  Events of this world seem to change our perspective, but some things don’t change.  Some things are true.

The light is not affected by the darkness; the darkness is affected by the light, and little boys grow up too soon.

 

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F*ck The Police

Posted on April 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

I worked for the police department for two years in police records. My favorite show when I was a teenager was Homicide: Life on the Street. The best show ever on television in my opinion was The Wire. I’ve gone on ride-alongs with cops. I’ve read books about and by cops. There was a time when I wanted to be a cop.

So it’s safe to say that when it comes to any situation that involves cops, I’m probably going to be on the side of the cops. And for most of my adult life I didn’t understand how anyone who wasn’t a career criminal could hate cops.

It wasn’t until the first and only time that I got arrested that I really understood the hatred. In order to explain, I have to get into the specifics of what happened. Since it’s been many years since it happened, I don’t feel too bad about that.

My ex-girlfriend had come over and started an argument with me. She got loud. And as anyone who knows me can attest, if someone yells at me, I’ll yell back. Not mature, I know, but that’s how I am. And it’s not like I have a quiet voice anyway. Eventually she left my apartment and when she did, I called my friend and told said, “Hey, whatshername just came over and freaked the hell out on me for no reason at all. So glad I’m not with her anymore. I’m ready for a beer. Come pick me up.”

Ten minutes later, my friend pulled up in his 1966 Sparkle Blue Impala. As I got into his car, I saw a patrol car pull up in front of my apartment. I figured someone must have called the police. At the time I had just recently stopped working for the police department and my opinion of cops in general and Tacoma Cops in particular could not have been higher.  This is why I chose to get out my friend’s running car and explain to the officers what happened.

I walked up and introduced myself and told them I lived at the apartment they were going to. As soon as I did this, one of the cops told me to put my hands behind my back. ‘For protection’ they said. One of them then put the handcuffs on me. I nodded to my friend and he drove off since it was clear that I wasn’t getting a beer any time soon.

I gave them my version of events and was told to get into the police car. I asked why they were taking me in and they said, that Washington State law says that they have to arrest someone if they’re responding to a domestic. Technically this is true, but in practice I know that it’s not. I know this both from being on ride-alongs where we responded to a domestic and from two years of writing up police reports.

Once they shut me in the patrol car and put it into gear, it was pretty clear I was going to jail. I’d been in the back of a police car once before, but it was a different situation and I talked my way out of it. These guys, it was fairly clear, wanted to arrest me and so they did. And it was at that moment that I totally understood that whole, “Fuck the police.” thing. I got it. I was angry because they were arresting me just to arrest me.  I knew at this point there was nothing I could say that would get me out of the situation. However, I also knew that there wasn’t a lot I could say that would get me into more trouble than I was already in.

So I asked one of them how long they’d been a cop. He said, “Fourteen years.”

I said, “Fourteen years and you’re still a beat patrolman. How big of a fuck up do you have to be for that to happen?”

The conversation did not go well from there, but I think by the time we got to the jail they were just as pissed at me as I was at them, which was essentially the point. At the jail I was treated very well, but that might have had something to do with knowing half the people that worked there from my recent employment in records.

Three days and a couple thousand dollars to a lawyer later and all the charges were dropped. The whole thing was taken off my record. And things had returned to how they were. Except for the fact that I was still angry. I found in the days following my arrest that I would instinctively flip off any cop I saw.  I lost touch with the handful of cop friends I had. It wasn’t until weeks later that I realized what was happening. It wasn’t until I really looked at the situation that I realized I was blaming all cops for my one bad encounter with two cops. It was amazing to me given all of the positive police experiences I had, that this one event could color my viewpoint so completely.

It wasn’t an immediate thing, but I got over it. And it wasn’t until years later when I was talking with a coworker that I realized something else. He was going off at length about how the cops in his neighborhood when he was growing up would pick up a black teenager for simply walking down the street. And that it was because of that, that he hated cops.

I said, “So because of isolated incidents with a handful of individual cops, you’ve decided you hate all cops, correct?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said and I didn’t really realize it until I said it, “Aren’t you using the same basic logic that your average racist person uses; using a few events with individuals to justify your hatred for a whole group?”

The truth is that prejudice is the same regardless of who or what it’s against. It’s easier to get past once you really think about it. Just because some people are assholes doesn’t mean their people are assholes.

So I don’t flip off cops anymore. Of course if I see those two cops again, I’ve got a middle finger for both of them.

-Jack Cameron

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Posted in Life in the 253, Tacoma Crime, Tacoma stuff