Socialist Viewpoint

I had a conversation with my youngest son’s friend the other day. A terrific young Black man, now about twenty-six years old. We all lived on the same block in the Bayview/Hunters Point district in San Francisco for thirteen years. He is an older brother of my son’s best friend. And now as adults the age difference between them doesn’t matter and they all “hang out” together when they can.

I hadn’t seen this young man for a couple of months (he’s a carpenter now and busy working and has two kids) so we had some catching up to do. He told me this story:

He and three other friends were on their way to another friend’s house for a party. He had his drivers’ license, registration and insurance as required by law so he and the car were legal.

He noticed a police car behind him and took care not to provoke them in any way. He’s used to this, of course. It is an everyday occurrence where he lives. After a block or two he was pulled over. The officer approached the car and asked him for his license, etc. He took his license out of his wallet and handed it to the officer who immediately went to his car and ran the license on the computer. The cop found nothing on his record.

When the cop handed him back his license my friend asked what he was pulled over for. The cop had no answer and was not writing a ticket. The cop then demanded to see the identification of the others in the car with him. (Evidently this is legal now since the “War on Terror” and “Homeland Security”.) The other three young men in the car with him handed their I.D.s to the cop. Again, the police officer went to his car to run a check on them.

Unbeknownst to my young friend, one of the other guys was on probation and had a “1035” on his record. This means the cops can search him without cause at any time and they don’t need a warrant. The cop called for backup and another squad car came.

All four of the guys were asked to get out of the car and were now standing, being guarded. They were searched but the cops found nothing. By this time the cops were getting frustrated. They told my friend they were going to search his car. He knew that the cops would not find anything since there was nothing there.

The cop went over to the car and began to search. The young men were forced to face a wall so that their backs were to the car while the cop searched it. But my young friend could see the cop out of the corner of his eye.

The cop, keeping to the far side of the car first searched thoroughly in the trunk, next the back seat and then the front seat. My friend, looking through the window of the car could see the cop bending, looking with a flashlight and then reaching under the front seat cop exclaimed, “Aha!” and slowly rose up dangling a gun in his two fingers as if to preserve any finger prints.

The only thing was, however, as I mentioned above, my friend could see the cop out of the corner of his eye. He could, in fact, see that the cops holster was undone and his gun was not in it! He could see the cop was holding up his own gun!

My friends face got very serious and sad as he told me the rest. He turned to the cop and said, “Don’t even do that! I can see that’s your gun!” The cop laughed. “I’m only joking!” he said and sent them on their way.