Friday, October 24, 2014
He calls suicide hotline, is killed by SWAT team < -prompt-service > 10/24 12:24
"At around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning, a 35-year-old man in Roy, Utah called a suicide hotline looking for help. A SWAT team responded to the man's home, and after a seven-hour standoff in his garage, an officer shot and killed him.
It's unclear what sparked the shooting or whether the victim fired a shot, or how many shots were fired.
All of the officers who fired their weapons have reportedly been placed on administrative leave."
It's unclear what sparked the shooting or whether the victim fired a shot, or how many shots were fired.
All of the officers who fired their weapons have reportedly been placed on administrative leave."
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Fed Up:
The next door house is hosting a loud, underage party singing Happy birthday to the nation on the night of the 4th, 2014 and set off fireworks amidst tinder box houses all built circa 1910 with dry timber all up inside the erections at caterwauling teeny-boppers being prompted to "drink, drink, drink."
I managed to drown out the noise with my 10,000 BTUs.
They are the same neighbours from out west who move here, have no idea and accuse me who has been living here for thirteen years of ransacking change out of their vehicles.
What I don't understand about the time that everybody's tire is slashed is why the tire slashers didn't slash two or all four tires on all the vehicles and rip apart the windshield wipers too with a key swipe across the paint jobs on the vehicles that night!?! (I guess that they didn't think of it!)
Not the first time that I am accused and it is a plethora of times that I am accused from everything like stealing heat living above another apartment when I explain "heat rises" to a list too long to list here without it reading like a rant.
All I know is that if I even "squeak" my chair or speak an octave higher than a whisper, the police will be knocking at the door because someone calls them on me: much more if I am to host an underage, drinking party keeping the neighbourhood awake with fire crackers and "drink, drink, drink" chants...
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Aggravated Illness:
Aggravated Illness by Bearishly Mans Jeers The Press Herald September 21, 2011 PORTLAND —
Police want Portland residents to be aware that there should be no barriers for people who seek mental health support services in the city.
The department held its first Family Forum on Tuesday night at the police station to promote those services and make its position clear: no one, regardless of their situation, should be denied help in a crisis.
Outside, Portland, ME is dark at 4pm in November. Suffering from a spell of cabin fever on one such evening in 2011 and the dog needing to go out, I ventured out not suspecting what I was about to experience on the street in front of the house where I have lived for ten years.
Some ten years ago, I lived in the West End of Portland before I moved to where I presently stay and have resided for ten years.
When I lived on the West End of Portland, On or about June 11, 2001, I was stopped by three burly officers of the law in cruisers at Longfellow Square and was asked why I was crowing like a rooster as they had reports of my yelling slurs.
I explained that I was not slurring people; that I hated nobody and that I was crowing like a rooster because miscreants were calling me a chicken adding:
"I was walking in VD Port the other day reading the Casco Bay Jerkly when all of a sudden one of those high school kids and you know how they hang out down there up and says 'have fun going home with your dog tonight.' So, being a clown I tooted my bike horn twice like a clown does."
One of the officers said that this was good, but told me to go home and go to work. I did.
(For the full story: google "Mental Illness Prophecy").
I was hospitalized for SZ in July 2001 after being beaten down in my rental apartment on the fourth of July, 2001 at 1am by the landlord's underage drinking buddies from Portland HS when the landlord and his wife had been out of town and I caught the kids fucking over the chickens in the back yard being awoken by their party.
I had called the police, but when the police came, they said not to call them anymore as the kids had hidden and then reappeared after the police left. I was hospitalized for SZ after the Fourth of July, 2001 and released from the psych ward on August 3, 2001.
On August 4, 2001, one of the kids from July 4, 2001 shouted at me when he saw me and said that he would "kill me."
I proceeded to notify my doctor, my parents, the landlord's friends down the street and the doctor told me to tell the police and file a report, the which when I went to the station, they escorted me to the hospital yet again.
I was in approximately ten police paddy wagons, cruisers and ambulances between 2001 and 2002 in Portland, ME taking me for five hospitalizations due to an illness aggravated by miscreants (or otherwise known as other people's kids) and bad parenting in the community.
On the night in question, Tuesday, November 15, 2011: I was suffering from cabin fever and ventured out for a few minutes with my dog for air.
When I opened the front door and stepped out onto the walk where I live, I noticed a police cruiser with lights flashing and parked. Another cruiser was up the street. A police man standing next to the nearer cruiser was texting and a large group of kids (no more in age than 15yo) were running around on the next block apparently going up to different houses and "knocking for suspicious activity" (as I was to find out later is what's dubbed: "Community Policing").
"The Portland Police Department is committed to a community approach to policing our neighbourhoods. This requires officers to become immersed in the neighbourhoods they serve and become a resource for residents as well as law enforcement."
Apparently, Community Policing is fifteen year old kids knocking for suspicious activity. Then, as my dog made his usual rounds on the corner with my "rubber necking" some, I was about to turn back into my house when at least six of the group of +/-twenty kids I had seen, ran up to me on the corner while my dog relieved himself, confronted me, and told me to take my hands out of my pockets: that they were going to ask me a few questions.
Having seen a urologist for that particular side effect due to my experiences with other people's kids, I curtly told them to "fuck off," turned around and walked back to my house.
I was standing on the walk way to where I live at the foot of the steps for the front door of the house and the police man whom I had seen texting strode up to me out of the dark and said in an authoritative tone:
"Why were you rude to those kids!?"
I replied:
"I saw a urologist for that particular side effect."
"What does that have to do with what you told them?" he retorted.
"It means that I don't do what kids tell me and you should know that," failing to mention "Lance the dispatcher" and his knowledge of me my having listened to a police scanner 24/7 for six months once upon a time.
I heard "Lance the dispatcher" tell an officer jokingly that he would order the officer to go after "Jimmy," (assumedly me in my mind), if the officer didn't follow another dispatch order.
The officer standing on the walkway to the house where I live continued:
"Well, those kids are performing a community service. You shouldn't have told them that. Do you have ID?"
"Well, I'm schizoid," I told him. "I saw my doctor today. I was just coming out to walk my dog. I live here," I told him.
I gave him my ID and then asked:
"What!? You going to take me to jail?"
"I might," he retorted as he called in my license number and found out from the "Lance on duty" who I was and my history with police in Portland.
"Hey!" I told him as he was calling into a dispatcher: "I counted to 24-1000 on December 8 last year. I haven't done anything."
Upon retrieving information on my license, he said after he told me to be quiet so he could tell me something:
"If I hear of you being mean to kids again, I am going to arrest you."
Then, I asked:
"Can I tell you something now?"
He acquiesced and I barked:
"Kids were mean to me once upon a time. You tell those kids NOT to be mean to me or I'll sue!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Pennsylvania man won $50,000 after he was cited for flipping off a cop. "The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that speech may not be prohibited simply because some may find it offensive," said Ira P. Robbins, a law professor from American University in Washington D.C. "Virtually every time someone is arrested for this, assuming there's no other criminal behavior... the case is either dismissed before trial or the person is convicted at trial and wins on appeal."
----------------------------------------------------------------
In my experience, Portland's programs for Mental Health Support Services and Community Policing are divergent, contradictory and aggravate situations. "howler and spider monkeys diverged from a common ancestor".
---------------------------------------------------------
"FUCK YOU: YA ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT KIDS!" Arrest me.
You Get the Country:
An average height, large, heavy set, white man with black tank top and knee length, grey shorts straddles a bicycle with two empty buckets slung over the back wheel bike rack for bottles. He straddles and walks the bike with his pudgy girlfriend or wife walking by his side when an older, short Asian woman runs up the block of five story, red brick buildings on either side of the street and stops the man straddling the bike confronting him. She appears to want the bike by holding the handle bars and trying to pull it away from the large, heavy set man.
After a brief confrontation on the sidewalk between the large, heavy set man and the short Asian woman, the man relinquishes his grip on the bike and the Asian woman hurries across the street with the bike. The large, heavy set man lumbers in pursuit of her across the street in front of a coffee shop and restaurant in the wee hours of the morning when all that is open is coffee.
"No. Fuck you," the man repeatedly yells at the short, Asian woman lumbering across the street to in front of the coffee shop and closed restaurant while the Asian woman hurries with the bicycle down the block.
Then, the man, being called by his wife from across the street, turns and lumbers back to his wife grumbling. He steps up onto the curb of the sidewalk where his wife is standing, waiting and a short, older, Asian man with graying dark hair runs down the side of the street where he sees the heavy set, white man walking down the block. He runs up to the white man turning around and they begin to yell at each other about to fight when Jim watching from his truck parked in front of the coffee shop and another man walking down the street see that the heavy set, white man is about to start punching the older Asian man.
"Ronnie! Don't do it! Ronnie!" Jim yells at the heavy set, white man striding towards the fight on the sidewalk across the street from his truck.
"Watch out! He's about to spit on you," the other man walking down the street stopped to put a stop to the fight tells the Asian man.
The Asian man pulls out a cell phone and is grabbed from behind by his wife who is snatching at the cell phone. The Asian man and woman speak little English and are hurriedly speaking to one another, the Asian man trying to pull the cell phone back from his wife's grip.
"He's going to call police. He's got a phone," the bystander man walking down the street says to Ronnie.
"Don't fight. Don't hit him, Ronnie," Jim yells trying to put himself in between the Asian man and Ronnie.
"Why not!? I want to fight," Ronnie yells back stepping forward towards the Asian man with both men ready to lurch at each other, fists flying.
"Just get out of here. Stay away from that man," Jim yells at the Asian man.
"Don't hit him! He's an old man! Don't do it! You want to fight!? Fight me!" the other bystander who tries to stop the fight shouts at Ronnie.
The Asian man and wife step off the curb to cross the street back to where the Asian woman left the bike in front of the coffee shop.
"Now, this should be a good fight," Jim mutters at Ronnie and the other bystander. Jim turns and follows the Asian man and his wife across the street saying for them to stay away from that man.
"But, it's my country!" Ronnie yells from behind Jim and Jim hears as he ascends the step up onto the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop and enters the coffee shop for coffee.
Exiting the coffee shop with coffee and tin foil wrapped bagel in hands, Jim notices several police cars and flashing lights at the next block by the store where the bottle collectors bring their bottles every morning at 7am. Jim has given bottles to the Asian man before in his neighborhood.
"So, the police were called?" Jim asks his girlfriend, both sitting in Jim's truck.
"Yeah."
"Well, it was that Chinese guy's bike. I think what happened is Ronnie just took it from the wife and headed up the block while the man was in the store returning bottles."
"I see."
"So, what happened? Why are they at the next block?"
"That guy you know went after the Asian man and woman down the block. They were on the island at the light and police showed up."
"Oh well. I guess Ronnie got arrested. Can you imagine the gall of him saying that on July 4th: it's my country!? Yeah, trust some red neck maniac to say that today."
As police disperse on the next block, Jim sees Ronnie and wife or girlfriend hand in hand walk up the block across the street from the coffee shop.
"Oh. There he is. I guess he didn't get arrested."
"No. Fuck you," the man repeatedly yells at the short, Asian woman lumbering across the street to in front of the coffee shop and closed restaurant while the Asian woman hurries with the bicycle down the block.
Then, the man, being called by his wife from across the street, turns and lumbers back to his wife grumbling. He steps up onto the curb of the sidewalk where his wife is standing, waiting and a short, older, Asian man with graying dark hair runs down the side of the street where he sees the heavy set, white man walking down the block. He runs up to the white man turning around and they begin to yell at each other about to fight when Jim watching from his truck parked in front of the coffee shop and another man walking down the street see that the heavy set, white man is about to start punching the older Asian man.
"Ronnie! Don't do it! Ronnie!" Jim yells at the heavy set, white man striding towards the fight on the sidewalk across the street from his truck.
"Watch out! He's about to spit on you," the other man walking down the street stopped to put a stop to the fight tells the Asian man.
The Asian man pulls out a cell phone and is grabbed from behind by his wife who is snatching at the cell phone. The Asian man and woman speak little English and are hurriedly speaking to one another, the Asian man trying to pull the cell phone back from his wife's grip.
"He's going to call police. He's got a phone," the bystander man walking down the street says to Ronnie.
"Don't fight. Don't hit him, Ronnie," Jim yells trying to put himself in between the Asian man and Ronnie.
"Why not!? I want to fight," Ronnie yells back stepping forward towards the Asian man with both men ready to lurch at each other, fists flying.
"Just get out of here. Stay away from that man," Jim yells at the Asian man.
"Don't hit him! He's an old man! Don't do it! You want to fight!? Fight me!" the other bystander who tries to stop the fight shouts at Ronnie.
The Asian man and wife step off the curb to cross the street back to where the Asian woman left the bike in front of the coffee shop.
"Now, this should be a good fight," Jim mutters at Ronnie and the other bystander. Jim turns and follows the Asian man and his wife across the street saying for them to stay away from that man.
"But, it's my country!" Ronnie yells from behind Jim and Jim hears as he ascends the step up onto the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop and enters the coffee shop for coffee.
Exiting the coffee shop with coffee and tin foil wrapped bagel in hands, Jim notices several police cars and flashing lights at the next block by the store where the bottle collectors bring their bottles every morning at 7am. Jim has given bottles to the Asian man before in his neighborhood.
"So, the police were called?" Jim asks his girlfriend, both sitting in Jim's truck.
"Yeah."
"Well, it was that Chinese guy's bike. I think what happened is Ronnie just took it from the wife and headed up the block while the man was in the store returning bottles."
"I see."
"So, what happened? Why are they at the next block?"
"That guy you know went after the Asian man and woman down the block. They were on the island at the light and police showed up."
"Oh well. I guess Ronnie got arrested. Can you imagine the gall of him saying that on July 4th: it's my country!? Yeah, trust some red neck maniac to say that today."
As police disperse on the next block, Jim sees Ronnie and wife or girlfriend hand in hand walk up the block across the street from the coffee shop.
"Oh. There he is. I guess he didn't get arrested."
June 26, 2012 @ 6PM - Lawless:
Richard leans back in a wooden chair in the kitchen next to a table and radio with headphones blaring in his ears as Zoey bounds up to him from the other end of the 45 foot apartment studio where she had been napping.
"Richard! Richard!"
"What!?" he says as he removes his headphones leaning back in the chair with feet up.
"There's someone pounding on the door."
"There is ... Who!?"
Suddenly, there is a pounding on the front door to the apartment.
"Who the hell could that be!?"
Richard places his headphones on the table and answers the front door to his apartment down a flight of steps to the second floor.
He opens the door.
"What the hell is going on!?"
Surrounding Richard in the second floor hallway as he emerges from the stairwell out of the doorway to his apartment are five armed policemen.
"Hold on," the point officer states raising his right hand off of his holster belt to indicate 'proceed no further.'
"Well, you're not coming up here!"
"Oh yes we are," an officer besides the point officer states.
The point officer pivots and indicates to the officer behind him with the same hand as he did with Richard in a split second of time.
The point officer turns to Richard.
"Can we go in here?"
"Sure. You can come in here."
"OK. Let's go in there."
Richard turns into the small closet hall at the base of thirteen odd steps up to his flat.
"Is there anybody else up there?"
"Just Zoey, the dog and cat."
"Will you call Zoey?"
"Zoey! Will you come down here please and talk to the police?"
Zoey hurries down the flight of steps and the point officer shuttles her past Richard out of the door into the second floor hallway.
"Can I stand here?" the point officer questions Richard.
"Yeah. You can stand there. Do you want me to sit?"
"Yeah. That'll be great."
Richard sits on the bottom two steps of the staircase and the point officer leans against the wall of the small hall at the base of the steps leading to Richard's apartment.
"So, can you tell me what was going on?"
"I was in the kitchen listening to my headphones and Zoey was napping in bed."
"But we had reports that there was yelling... were you yelling?"
"I was making noise, but I had my headphones on. It was no worse than what you get on Congress Street."
"Were you angry?"
"No. I wasn't angry..."
"Well, he was angry, but..." Zoey is overheard explaining in the second floor hallway with backup.
"Well... I guess I was angry...I don't know...You see what it was was I put out my hand for her to take forever and she wouldn't do it. I know...it was just teenage stuff. I'm sorry."
"And then what happened?"
"And then she went to bed and I put on my headphones. I'm kind of a loud mouth. I'll try to keep quiet."
"How long have you known her?"
"Well, I met her in 2002 on a park bench up at the U., but we didn't start hanging out until 2006. At first, I didn't want her coming around. I avoided her phone calls for the first three weeks but she kept coming over."
"Do you love her?"
"Yes. I love her."
"I see. Have you been drinking tonight?"
"Yeah. I had a few."
¨Well OK. There's nothing wrong with that! So, you were being boisterous?¨
¨No. I was being vociferous.¨
¨Well, there´s no law against that!¨
"Who called you?"
"It was an anonymous caller."
"Well, I know it was the neighbors on the first floor."
"No. It was an anonymous caller."
"OK," Richard nods at the officer looking up at him seated on the bottom two steps.
The officer steps out of the doorway of the small hall where Richard sits then rises. Zoey brushes past Richard up the steps and Richard is about to close the door outside in with hand on the knob.
"Don't forget about him."
"Oh yeah. Russ! Russ, come!"
Russ, the dog rushes into the doorway, up the steps and the premises is gun free again.
The 40th Time:
"Jesus! How you doin'?"
"Alright man."
"Come on. Follow me."
"Where are you going?"
"Over to the corner to panhandle. Come on."
Richard leads Jesus through a park walk on a bright day in May to the corner. Richard sets a bag with books down on the ground along with his water cup and holds a sign standing on the curb that reads: "Jokes $1: Books $10." Richard also holds a self published book and a clown horn in his hands dressed in full clown regalia.
"OK, man. I'll be over here."
"OK, Jesus."
A man holding a "no drugs: homeless" sign stands across the one way street on the driver side of vehicles passing and Richard stands on the passenger side of drivers stopping at a red light. Richard and the panhandler on the other side of the street exchange words being jocular.
After about five minutes, a bicycle policeman pulls up from behind Richard standing on a curb holding his sign.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm selling my books. What!? Did somebody call you?"
"No. This is my patrol. I patrol this area. What does your sign say?"
"Jokes $1. Books $10. I talked to Bud at the City Clerk's office this morning in lieu of Janice and he said that I am well within my first amendment rights to do this."
"Where are the jokes?"
"The jokes are in my head. Do you want to buy my book?"
"I don't have any money. OK. But no weaving in and out of traffic."
Richard thinks to say: 'and, you have a job?'
"I'm not weaving in and out of traffic. Can't be right in the head to stand in a median."
A police cruiser pulls up along side Richard and the bicycle policeman on the curb.
"He's selling his books."
"Books?"
"Yeah. Can I borrow ten bucks to buy it?"
Richard hands the book to the adolescent passenger in the front seat of the cruiser who, it seems to Richard, is a plebe in the police force.
"That's the first time I have stepped off this curb," Richard states to the bicycle policeman handing over the book.
"He's masturbating in the front seat..."
"He's masturbating in the front seat? Who's masturbating in the front seat?"
"That's what it says right here."
"So, what!? What are you going to do: vet the book? They sell these at the bookstore in town. I made eighteen bucks off of them. So, are you going to buy it? The book is ten bucks."
"Where are the jokes?"
"The jokes are in his head," the bicycle policeman interjects. "How much do they sell them at the bookstore?"
"Uh ... I don't know. Whatever."
"OK. Let's just take a picture of you. Maybe some of the boys down at the station will buy your book."
"Hold up your sign and the book," the bicycle policeman says.
The picture is taken by the policeman in the driver seat of the cruiser out of the open passenger window stealing from Richard's soul his clown spirit to exercise free speech. The cruiser turns the corner and the bicycle policeman says that Richard's dog tied to a post off the curb might need shade.
"I'm out of here anyway, soon. I am not accomplishing much here."
"OK."
The bicycle policeman rides off down the street.
"That's the fortieth time," Richard yells across the street at the homeless man holding a "no drugs: homeless" sign. "I have to go write a short story. I'm out of here."
"Good luck guy!"
The 39th Time:
"Morning."
"Morning."
"I'll be right with you."
"OK."
Richard waits for the waitress to serve a table.
"Now. What was it? Sausage, egg and cheese?"
"No. No. Bacon, egg and cheese. Actually, I want two. I need an egg and cheese and a bacon, egg and cheese."
"OK. Let me get that right in."
"Wait. I'll pay first."
"Oh. OK."
The waitress about faces and walks towards the front counter by the front door through which Richard enters the diner and he pays the waitress.
"Those'll be ready in just a few minutes."
"OK. I'll be right back."
"OK."
Outside, it is a wee hour and the sun is not risen yet at a dark hour of dawn. Richard sits with his wife and dog in their vehicle parked in a spot in front of the brightly lit diner. He begins to roll a cigarette from his pouch on his lap when three policemen stride up to Richard's window shining flashlights at Richard's face through the half rolled down window.
"We had a report that you were driving erratically."
Richard reaches to roll down his window.
"What is that?" the officer states shining his light into Richard's lap.
"Oh. This? This is just cigarettes.
"Were you driving erratically?"
"No. I came from where I live, up the hill, down the street past the convenience store and I stopped for all the red lights and red flashing lights."
Richard places his hands on top of the steering wheel in plain sight while looking out at the inquisitive officer questioning Richard while two other officers stand at ready with shining lights at Richard's face.
"Well, we had a report that you were driving erratically and that you might be drunk."
"No. Nope. I just woke up from an eight hour nap. I just ordered a breakfast sandwich. I ordered two of them. One for my wife. This is routine for me. I am here often."
"OK. You got your breakfast sandwich to go?"
"Yes."
"Well, you seem fine to me. I don't know why they would call. But still, I need to see your license. Do you have your license?"
Richard reaches into his left pocket to retrieve his license from his wallet. He hands it to the questioning officer.
"Alright. Sit tight. I'll be right back."
Richard overhears the questioning officer some steps away from his driver window radio dispatch while another officer keeps a light on Richard in his driver seat with hands on top of the wheel.
"That's thirty-nine times, Jenny."
"I know."
Richard's vehicle radio drones news programming while Richard, wife and dog sit awaiting the questioning officer to radio dispatch.
"Alright. You're all set. Here is your license back."
"OK. But can I mention something?"
"Yeah. Go ahead."
"This is the thirty-ninth time I have been stopped. The thirty-ninth time someone has called the police on me in this town."
"Since when?"
"November 1999."
"I see. Do you keep track of this stuff?"
"Yes. I keep a log."
"When was the last time you were stopped?"
"March 1, 2013. I was at the tire centre and someone called the police. I was sitting in my camping chair in the parking lot waiting for my truck to be serviced when I was stopped. Said he had a report of my being messed up."
"Was there another time? Sometime a little while ago? Where you called us?"
"Oh yeah. January 5th or 6th of this year. That was after that fifty below day. I had windburn. But listen: I tried to clear this up with Joe Freedman, but he is hard to get in touch with. You know, the mental health liaison?"
"OK. I see. Well, you're all set tonight."
"OK."
Richard re-enters the diner after the inquiring officer strides off into darkness of a parking lot along the side of the diner and the waitress hands to Richard a brown, paper bag with two tin foil wrapped breakfast sandwiches in it. Policemen who question Richard enter the diner for breakfast at a large group table in the back of the diner, a hotspot for early breakfast.
Outside, Richard and his wife eat their sandwiches then drive off into the city's night for a coffee at a convenience store on their way home.
A Zero Point or Parking Ticket License:
I line up to parallel park on a street that I frequent for coffee with blinker flashing and reverse lights in gear. The vehicle behind me is on my tail so I can't reverse into the spot and park. I reverse a tad bit after idling for some minutes while more traffic lines up down the street behind the vehicle in my rear view.
The driver of the vehicle behind me pulls out and flips me the finger through her passenger window as she crosses the double yellow around my vehicle. Some ten vehicles that were behind the vehicle in my rear view who flips me off cross the double yellow to pass me who is trying to park.
It is not the first time that someone flips the finger at me while crossing the double yellow to go around my parking a vehicle on a street.
In SFO once upon a time, I am parking and a driver in a european make crosses the double yellow. My driver side bumper nicks the passenger door of her vehicle.
The woman driver stops and calls police when I tell her that police in SFO will not write a report unless there is human injury. Besides, she crosses the double yellow to drive around me while I am parking with signals and reverse lights in gear.
Police show up and tell her what I tell her about police in SFO not filing reports for "ding-a-lings."
Another time in SFO, I cross the double yellow to drive around a rail car and a policewoman pulls me over issuing me a ticket for a moving violation. I go to traffic school, as is also the law (to go to traffic school) in California: but, not here.
I notice that most drivers here cross double yellow lines to drive around a parking vehicle. An exception is emergency vehicles, which I notice stop and wait for idling vehicles with signals to park instead of crossing a double yellow.
I have yet to notice an emergency vehicle here stopping traffic for a driver who crosses a double yellow. I notice tickets for jay walking and running red lights, but not for crossing a double yellow in an event where it can be avoided.
Next door to the coffee shop, there is a post office outside of which a big postal truck stops double parked morning and evening. Drivers cross the double yellow to drive around the postal truck without flipping off the postal worker. The same is true for beer trucks and other delivery drivers.
I have a "hurry up and wait" sticker on my bumper. Is that irksome?
Vignettes in which People Call Police
It is a clear, crisp, November day with a southern exposure and autumn leaves are strewn on the sidewalk and lawn in front of me and the dog as we sit on steps up to where I have lived for thirteen years.
The dog begins to bark as a passerby walks down the block of three story apartment houses and I say to the dog to "attack" releasing the dog's collar as the male passerby walks past where I am seated on steps up to the front door.
The dog leaps across the front walk to the sidewalk and begins to bark incessantly at the passerby's legs.
"What the hell!?" the man yells.
"Oh. I'm sorry. Toodles! Toodles!" I say standing up and calling my dog who stops barking at the passerby when I call him.
"You know some people are afraid of dogs. You've been drinking too much beer. I could call the police on you," the man yells at me noticing a beer in my hand as I wave my hands upended in the air saying "sorry, it was just a joke."
---
It is a clear, crisp, April day with a southern exposure over the bay from my car in a tight space on a Sunday.
I am about to go for a swim in the ocean. I park between two, tightly spaced, white, parking lines next to a metallic blue mini van on the driver's side so that when I open the driver door to change into a swimsuit, my driver door taps the minivan side panel.
I notice the driver of the minivan sitting in the driver's seat and he notices my tapping of his van with my driver side door while changing. I indicate through his passenger window to roll it down so that I could speak to him.
"Sorry about that. It's just that these spaces are painted too tight."
"Well, don't do it. You're not chipping the paint are you!?"
"No. The paint isn't chipped. I'll try not to, but it's tight."
The driver of the minivan rolls up his passenger window from a push button on the driver side door.
As I finish changing in a tight spot with my driver side door tapping the minivan with the driver in the seat, the driver of the minivan rounds the back of his van to inspect any damage.
"See. There is no damage. All I was doing was this," I say as I show him how hard my driver side door was tapping his minivan while I was changing.
"Well, I could call the police," the driver of the minivan says.
"Call the police. Do you know what their number is? Call 911."
"Oh. I'm not going to call 911."
"Do you know what their number is? It's 867-5309. Call them."
"Oh. I know what the number is ..."
"Good. Call them!"
The man walks round his van again to enter the driver seat and I go swimming.
---
It is a clear, crisp, April 15th, 2013 morning dressed as a clown buying what I am told is a soda pop put into a brown, paper bag by a store clerk up the street from where I go to drink the "soda pop" on a stoop off a parking lot behind a coffee shop.
A barista steps out of a back door to the coffee shop from the parking lot, sees me sitting on a stoop next door with a brown paper bag and "soda pop" while the barista throws trash into a dumpster and enters the backdoor to the coffee shop only to exit the coffee shop to throw more trash away into a dumpster and have a word with me drinking a "soda pop" from a brown paper bag on a stoop next door to the coffee shop in a parking lot on the day of the Boston Marathon Bombing.
"You can't be doing that there."
"What can't I be doing?"
"You know. Drinking that!"
"Drinking what!? It's a soda pop."
"Yeah right, it is. Either you move or I'm calling the police."
"Call the police," I say looking dumbfounded at a barista of the coffee shop that I have frequented for fifteen years.
"OK. I will. You should be easy to find," the barista says and enters the backdoor to the coffee shop.
I swig my "soda pop," leave the bottle by the stoop where I had been sitting and round the block building to the front of the coffee shop where I enter, buy a coffee dressed as a clown and exit without being seen by the barista who is calling the police on me in the back of the coffee shop.
Five separate fatal shootings ...
... of mentally ill people by Maine police in 2011 prompted the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram to examine law enforcement's use of deadly force. Since 1990, police have fired on 101 people, many of them mentally ill, and in every case the state attorney general ruled that the shooting was justified. The newspaper sought to find out why so many mentally ill Mainers were being shot and whether the outcomes were avoidable. The investigation, involving hundreds of interviews and thousands of pages of documents, revealed that Maine and rest of the country have failed to employ methods or invest in training that could defuse life-threatening situations with mentally impaired people.
http://www.pressherald.com/special/Maine_police_deadly_force_series_Day_1.html
http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/maine-should-revive-police-shooting-panel-bill_2012-12-16.html
12/13/12 Dear Editor:
The fact is that there is a culture of stigma against mentally ill people and people who are different from by and large general populations worldwide and in any community, not just Maine, which manifests itself in sub-human mannerisms by some people of general populations towards people with mental illness.
For example, 77% of media when portraying mentally ill individuals (whether in news or on TV programs) portrays mentally ill people as criminal whereas the actual statistic of mentally ill people who are criminal is less than 3%: a statistic that reflects the general population's criminal element in America.
I, myself, who has always been a little different in my background, speech, actions and mannerisms, was diagnosed with the MENTAL HEALTH diagnosis of schizophrenia in 1996 after three years living in my vehicle and locking myself in a library reading and writing.
Another fact is that absolutely everybody has a mental health issue at some point in their lives, if not a mental health issue 24/7/365 for their entire lives being that everybody has a brain.
Concerning the term "voices" that psychiatrists have dubbed as a symptom of mental health in the DSM-IV, if "voices" originate in the brain as there is no other source for them: then what are "voices" but thoughts?
The term "voices," in my opinion, is an impetus for malicious people to tease or bully people with severe mental health issues.
So, that 42% of police incident using deadly force in Maine is against people with severe mental health issues does not surprise me with regard to my experiences.
Also, as a person who abhors violence in any form and a person who has taken steps to help those who seem or are less fortunate than me by for example visiting a children's ward at a hospital and retirement facilities with my two successive trained pet therapy dogs intermittently since 1998 upon settling in Maine: I would venture to state that by and large people who would kill than be killed or beat up than be beat up are the people with severe mental health issues: if not outright psychopaths.
Lastly, the term is "mental health:" NOT "mental illness," which connotes stigma and reflects the very real culture of stigmatic perception and interactions by some in general populations against people diagnosed with mental health issues, such as Bi-Polar or Schizophrenia: not to mention against the LBGTQ community, among others who act or appear different from populations at large in communities worldwide.
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