2005-07-09 - Bad things come in threes, they say:

Okay, so in my last entry, I talked about how my neighbourhood is a little rough. Well! Let me tell you what happened moments ago, on my very street.

First, I was cookin dinner, and as it is summer, the door to our balcony is open, and the windows are open, etc. I heard some yelling. At first I thought that somebody had just been hit by a car: the intersection i am at is poorly designed and fairly busy, so fender-benders and close calls are common. I step out onto the porch to verify the situation, already thinking about what to tell 911, and realize it is just some crazy shirtless man (a la COPS) screaming blue murder in the intersection for no reason. He continued to yell at a person down the street, then I thought: perhaps he had a verbal argument, and is walking away.

Not so! after barely walking 100 metres, the man is shoving random pedestrians and punching parked cars and threatening people. So then I call the cops: give a description of the man, explain he is acting dangerously and is possibly drunk or high. And wait.

The cop shop is like a two minute bike ride away, and it took them ten minutes to show, but that is another story. The main story is that, in the time between my making the call, and the cops actually showing up, the drunk man (DM, we'll call him) wandered over to a small apartment building next to mine, where people often sit on the front stoop, as people do in summer. DM started threating the stoop dwellers, which happened to be a family of four, with two children under 6. Yay!

At this point, DM and stoop crew is out a view, but i can hear a lot of screaming and yelling and throwing of things. At some point one of the stoop dwellers says, "Look, i have kids here!" and the DM retorts: "So? I got a two-year-old and a five-year-old." Oh, the wonders of breeding. You need a license to have a dog, and other inanimate objects and services (car, boat, marriage, etc), but not to have a kid. But, again, that is another story.

DM and stoop people are all yelling at each other at this point, stopping traffic and freaking out pedestrians. Other motorists call the cops too, and pedestrians with cel phones do the same. Meanwhile, DM's wife and aforementioned two children show up in a van. The wife keeps shrieking at her inebreated husband, who is scuffling with stoop folk at this point, and announces that her children are in the van so calm down please. Yeah, right.

Finally, the cops do come, and, as i said, i couldn't see all of the action, but the cops settled and dispursed the people, and eventually left. At this point I went downstairs to make sure that the stoop people were OK and also to verify if DM had been arrested because from my vantage point, I could not tell.

Turns out: DM fought with the father of the kids on the stoop, and some other men who came out of the building during the commotion. DM also bit one of the men on the hand (drawing blood!), punched another, and threw a lot of lawn furniture around. When I asked if they arrested him, one of the apartment people said No, they sent him HOME.

Oh good! So if DM is not afraid to threaten complete strangers and throw a huge fit in front of strangers' kids and his own, I bet he is just a PEACH with people he actually KNOWS. At this point I am not sure who is stupid: the drunk man, or the WIFE for packing up the kids and LOOKING FOR THE MAN IN THE FIRST PLACE. Way to set an example for your children: I can only hope they DON'T grow up to be drunk and disorderlies, too, just like their old man! (Although, given the circumstances, they probably will, sadly).

Now then: living in this town, for five complete years, I can say that I have phoned the police four times. Once because of a domestic that spilled out into the street a few years ago: it wasn't serious but I was concerned for the woman involved. The second time was admittedly for a car accident on my street. But the last two times occured within the last SIX MONTHS of me living here in this building. HORRAY! The first time was because of the constantly drunk and idiotic neighbour who has since left (most likely via eviction), and now, because of today. Joy to this building.