“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil , as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” (I Peter 5:8)
This morning, talk radio host Michael Graham discussed the overreaction of a Needham pizza shop clerk which brought several speeding police cruisers to the shop who arrested and humiliated a middle-aged academic male who was ASSUMED to be the suspect in a Needham homicide which had just occurred in another part of town. Many of you know that my late father spend over thirty years in law enforcement; I really don’t blame the police. I do agree with Michael Graham that the female pizza shop clerk WAY OVERREACTED!
On the 9-1-1 tapes, the clerk is heard SCREAMING, “He’s got a gun” and sounding as if she’s about to be murdered by a Charles Manson-like person. In reality, the guy had changed his clothes in the bathroom and gone to a CVS to call a cab. Was his behavior a LITTLE weird? I’d say, yes. Did it warrant the hysterical call and especially the statement, “He’s got a gun,” when there was absolutely no indication of that and in fact he did not have a gun? NO!
I’m just reflecting today, but I don’t know if there’s any way to teach people there’s a middle ground between overreacting and under reacting. We’re constantly told to watch for suspicious behavior and report it to authorities. I guess that’s good. In 1995, shortly after our church moved into its present location in a former union hall, the church was robbed during the Sunday morning service. An electronic typewriter from the office area was missing after the service. Upon questioning and questioning people I finally learned that one of our church’s teenagers- a very innocent and “non-streetwise” 14-year-old girl had seen a strange black man wandering around the hallway and office area of the church. Upon being asked why she didn’t tell someone about it, she calmly, happily, and innocently replied, “I just thought he was someone coming to the church to worship!”
At the other extreme, also in 1995, I conducted the funeral of the mother of some old friends of mine in Canton. The service was at the chapel of Knollwood Memorial Park. After the service, one of the friends invited me back to her home for coffee and refreshments. What she’d neglected to tell me is that she had moved from a lower income neighborhood adjacent to downtown Canton to an upscale subdivision a mile and a half east of there. I went to what I thought was her home, parked my car across the street and waited for the family to arrive. I waited ten minutes, twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes.... something was wrong...why weren’t they arriving. Although this was September, a group of children around ten-years-old were out in and around the street playing and riding their bikes. In retrospect, I think there must have been no school due to a Jewish holiday. I rolled the driver’s side window down and called out to the kids, “Do you know the Salvatore family? Do they still live here?” No one answered me. No one would come within seven feet of the car. All looked at me as if I was an ax murderer. I suddenly got the sickest feeling...these kids think I’m some kind of a pervert or something. I waited about five more minutes, then drove back to Framingham.
A few days later, Linda Salvatore called me and said, “Bob, we were so surprised you didn’t show up at my home for the social time... Then I realized I must have forgotten to tell you I moved.” She forgot all right! Three weeks later, I came home to a message on answering machine from a Canton police detective. Now to really appreciate this you have to understand that at that time my parents were still alive and living in Canton. My father was badly slipping due to Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother was very depressed. There were guns in their home. It was a situation I frequently worried about. My FIRST thought at hearing the message from the Canton police was, “Oh NO!! Something terrible has happened to my parents! There’s been a murder/suicide!” I was almost trembling as I called the Canton police detective.
In an accusatory voice, the police detective said, “On Sept. ___ YOUR car was observed parked near a group of children....”
oh, MAN!
Fortunately, I was able to explain the whole thing to the cop and he seemed OK with what I’d said. I never heard any more about it. I know that when I was a kid I would have just gone into the house and told my Mom, “There’s some weird guy in a station wagon outside.” Then, she’d have gone out and talked to the person, and that would have been that.
Do we need some kind of classes on the difference between overreacting and under reacting? Maybe. But, come to think of it, classed about how to react and how to THINK would be right up Hillary Clinton’s alley. On second thought...
This morning, talk radio host Michael Graham discussed the overreaction of a Needham pizza shop clerk which brought several speeding police cruisers to the shop who arrested and humiliated a middle-aged academic male who was ASSUMED to be the suspect in a Needham homicide which had just occurred in another part of town. Many of you know that my late father spend over thirty years in law enforcement; I really don’t blame the police. I do agree with Michael Graham that the female pizza shop clerk WAY OVERREACTED!
On the 9-1-1 tapes, the clerk is heard SCREAMING, “He’s got a gun” and sounding as if she’s about to be murdered by a Charles Manson-like person. In reality, the guy had changed his clothes in the bathroom and gone to a CVS to call a cab. Was his behavior a LITTLE weird? I’d say, yes. Did it warrant the hysterical call and especially the statement, “He’s got a gun,” when there was absolutely no indication of that and in fact he did not have a gun? NO!
I’m just reflecting today, but I don’t know if there’s any way to teach people there’s a middle ground between overreacting and under reacting. We’re constantly told to watch for suspicious behavior and report it to authorities. I guess that’s good. In 1995, shortly after our church moved into its present location in a former union hall, the church was robbed during the Sunday morning service. An electronic typewriter from the office area was missing after the service. Upon questioning and questioning people I finally learned that one of our church’s teenagers- a very innocent and “non-streetwise” 14-year-old girl had seen a strange black man wandering around the hallway and office area of the church. Upon being asked why she didn’t tell someone about it, she calmly, happily, and innocently replied, “I just thought he was someone coming to the church to worship!”
At the other extreme, also in 1995, I conducted the funeral of the mother of some old friends of mine in Canton. The service was at the chapel of Knollwood Memorial Park. After the service, one of the friends invited me back to her home for coffee and refreshments. What she’d neglected to tell me is that she had moved from a lower income neighborhood adjacent to downtown Canton to an upscale subdivision a mile and a half east of there. I went to what I thought was her home, parked my car across the street and waited for the family to arrive. I waited ten minutes, twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes.... something was wrong...why weren’t they arriving. Although this was September, a group of children around ten-years-old were out in and around the street playing and riding their bikes. In retrospect, I think there must have been no school due to a Jewish holiday. I rolled the driver’s side window down and called out to the kids, “Do you know the Salvatore family? Do they still live here?” No one answered me. No one would come within seven feet of the car. All looked at me as if I was an ax murderer. I suddenly got the sickest feeling...these kids think I’m some kind of a pervert or something. I waited about five more minutes, then drove back to Framingham.
A few days later, Linda Salvatore called me and said, “Bob, we were so surprised you didn’t show up at my home for the social time... Then I realized I must have forgotten to tell you I moved.” She forgot all right! Three weeks later, I came home to a message on answering machine from a Canton police detective. Now to really appreciate this you have to understand that at that time my parents were still alive and living in Canton. My father was badly slipping due to Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother was very depressed. There were guns in their home. It was a situation I frequently worried about. My FIRST thought at hearing the message from the Canton police was, “Oh NO!! Something terrible has happened to my parents! There’s been a murder/suicide!” I was almost trembling as I called the Canton police detective.
In an accusatory voice, the police detective said, “On Sept. ___ YOUR car was observed parked near a group of children....”
oh, MAN!
Fortunately, I was able to explain the whole thing to the cop and he seemed OK with what I’d said. I never heard any more about it. I know that when I was a kid I would have just gone into the house and told my Mom, “There’s some weird guy in a station wagon outside.” Then, she’d have gone out and talked to the person, and that would have been that.
Do we need some kind of classes on the difference between overreacting and under reacting? Maybe. But, come to think of it, classed about how to react and how to THINK would be right up Hillary Clinton’s alley. On second thought...
1 comment:
That clerk sounds like a loon... she could've just said the guy was acting weird, since there was just a killing... but still... why would you say he has a gun?
That's pretty funny the police called you... parents have gotten so paranoid about stalkers and such that you can't do anything without looking like a pervert! The kids could've just called out that they didn't know the family or whatever... if you had then asked them to go over to the car or something, that would've been creepy. People don't understand the difference between knowing someone's weird and keeping yourself from getting into a bad position, and answering a simple question and moving on. Plus, if there was a GROUP of kids... those are a lot of witnesses... I think they'd be ok...
People are weird.
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