kentcowgill.org/blog

So, I'm officially an old codger now.

I busted a bunch of kids a few nights ago for hanging out way after curfew, way after the park was closed, and sounding like they were causing trouble.

It started simply enough - I was walking Spike at the end of the night. I got in late after the Perl Mongers meeting, so I was out at around 1:00am - right as the timed park lights shut off. I get to the park, I see a few kids walking towards me. Sorta. Seeing kids at night generally puts me a bit on the defensive - who knows what kind of dumb things get into kids' heads at night, so I proceeded cautiously until I saw that they weren't walking directly towards me any more. They were walking toward the now very poorly lit playground.

Spike does his business, I get busy bagging it. All the sudden I hear something behind me - it's a third kid. As I stand up and turn around, I realize he's just shuffling his way towards the same poorly lit playground. Ugh. I guess I was young once, so I understand.

However, at this point I no longer feel like it's a good idea to walk around the far side of the park, since I now know there are at least three kids most likely up to no good. So I turn back, walking slowly, making sure Spike has everything out of his system that he needs to get out. I keep an eye towards the playground, just in case anyone comes charging towards me. I see a few more than three silhouettes.

Then I hear noises which make me think someone has decided to empty the garbage cans by the playground and generally start vandalizing the playground. My mind is made up - I'm calling the cops. I have enough of a problem as it is walking Spike around the park because there tends to be broken bottles on the sidewalks. Not a big deal for me with my shoes, but poor Spike has no such protection.

I decided to test the timeliness of the cops' response - turns out it was pretty good. I decided I'd just walk back and forth on the far side of the park, but across the street. Not more than 5-7 minutes and I see the comforting blue and white cruising slowly past the park. They turn on the search light. Once the cops zeroed in on where the kids were all laying down (by now, they were trying to hide), they started to run. There must have been at least 15.

They made a beeline for the houses under construction across the street - the police tried to speed around the side of the park I was standing on to try to intercept the kids. Also I noticed another patrol car gunning it up the alley behind the houses the kids ran towards. A few minutes pass, the cops couldn't find them, but I watched them slowly walk out of the alley the cop car had zoomed up - they must have been hiding pretty good and let the alley cop pass them. I watched where they went. I was about to head home when the patrol car came by again, this time with his lights off. Good strategy, but it didn't pay off for him. I was going to flag him down to tell him which way they ran, but he turned up that street anyhow.

Again I started walking towards home, but then the cop made another pass. This time, determined to get some of those little stinkers in trouble, I flagged the cop down and told them where they went. I think he determined they had already completely dispersed, so he pulled away in the other direction.

No sooner than the cop is 15-20 feet away from me, and one of the little stinkers hurled a rock at me.

A rock.

A ROCK.

AT ME.

I heard it tear through some leaves, heard it bounce on the ground.

"OFFICER!"

He executes a quick 3 point turn, guns it towards me, stops long enough to hear me report the attempted assault, and he takes off after 'em.

VERY NEARLY A BOULDER.

At this point, I've had enough. It's 1:30am, the cop can't be watching everything, and the kids might come down another street and attempt to inflict more damage to me for calling the cops on them.

I walked back to my house, keeping an eye behind me, down the side streets, down the alley. I'm pretty sure they couldn't have been around to watch me go into my house. After all, they seemed to live in the other direction, and they have to worry about being spotted by a cop.

So what does this mean?

I might as well sit on my porch and yell at kids to get off my lawn and turn down the music.

Oh. I've already yelled out the door at people in cars with their music too loud.

:(