fred speaks of police work;

For years I worked as police reporter for the Washington Times, spending long hours in squad cars in various cities getting to know cops well. Now I listen to nice white people in the suburbs, and self-assured voices from NPR, talking about the police. They know nothing of the world where the police work. They do not know the bad sections at three a.m., the yawning dark alleys and lightless facades of buildings, the boredom, and the radio, the soul of a squad car, the laconic chat of the net. Slow night.

Not all are slow. I rode one night with the Arlington force, the Virginia countyjust outside of Washington. The call came, “Man down, gunshots reported.” Dark residential street, tree-lined, too late for the suburban houses to have lights. The guy, maybe Hispanic or Asian, was on his back, breathing but not moving. The bullet had cut a furrow in the top of his head, brains swelling out like pink vaginal lips. We listened to the stertorous breathing. There was nothing to do. The ambulance cane and the parameds worked on the guy. There was no point in it, but it is what they are paid to do.

You see things you don’t want to see. On a foot beat , in the Shaw district of DC, late, streets empty, we found a blonde woman, maybe thirty, crawling on the sidewalk, drunk, bottle of whisky clutched in one hand. Late stage alcoholism. Seeing a cop, she crawled toward an alley, hugging her bottle. She had wet her pants.............more........