Zettie & I just got caught up in the middle of a police…

Zettie & I just got caught up in the middle of a police chase–about 10 cops, on foot and in cars, driving both up and down a one-way street, speeding through the bike lane, coming around every corner so fast I couldn’t believe no one got run over. They were chasing a kid who, under the circumstances, seemed incredibly composed, even placid. If you didn’t notice the police bearing down on him you’d have thought he was out for a stroll.

He ran straight to us, then doubled back when a patrol car boxed him in. A white guy next to me was walking his dog and yelled at the cops–“you want me to help get him?” He tried to hand his leash to an old woman pressed against the window of the drug store next to us, but she let it drop to the ground, no interest in helping this would-be vigilante act out his fantasy.

The police didn’t need his help anyway–they took the kid down on the sidewalk across the street (and to my eye were pretty measured about it given the adrenaline in the air) and put him in the car after going through his pockets. (Apparently he was a suspect in an armed robbery–I got that from Twitter, though, and I didn’t see a gun).

Anyway, I was pretty shaken by it–the cars driving so close so fast, the threat of violence that loomed over everything, the terrifying eagerness of a bystander to jump into the fray. And I was worried about what it would all look like to Zettie, how scared she would be by it, how confusing it must have looked. I was shaking as we walked away from the scene, holding zettie’s tiny hand as much for my comfort as for hers. After a block she said, “so anyway, daddy, you were telling me a story….” #unflappable (at Williamsburg NYC)

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