Cops 1

At Percy and James there is a 4-way stop with about a million miles of visibility. The rule as I interpret it is that cars have to stop. They always have to stop because they are so huge and lethal. Pedestrians and cyclists, however, take a look from half a block away and if nothing is going on, they proceed cautiously through the intersection.

If you’re a motorist you may not agree with my interpretation, but you are mistaken. It’s the same as when you are walking. Do you stop at stop signs when you’re walking? Only if you need to. If no cars are coming you just go. Same with bikes. It’s a simple rule easily understood by everyone except Ottawa cops.

This day a couple of cops had staked out that intersection in order to nab crooks like me. They put on their flashing lights and chased me over into the parking lot at McNabb Community Centre.

I probably could have grovelled out of it but I don’t like to do that. Instead I told them they should be over at Bronson where at that very moment 90% of all motorists were running the red light causing real hazard to life and limb. I challenged them about the matter of my humble self being the worst criminal they could possibly find on the streets of Ottawa at that moment. It’s possible that I said even worse things!

All of this guaranteed that I’d get a ticket but I thought it was worth it if even one of those two cops would go home and think for half a second about what I had said. About the craven quota-grubbing nature of their weaselly “stakeout.” About the really dangerous lawbreaking that was going on just one block away. And about their shameful ancestry and dubious prospects in life if they declined to get a clue.

As they were running my license another cyclist zoomed up Percy going the wrong way on the one-way street. He ran the same stop sign I did, only he did it backwards. “Look at that guy!” I yelled. “He’s going the wrong way! Catch him!” But those cops were determined to get through with catching me before they’d even consider catching anybody else.

I got a $110 fine and the enduring impression that Ottawa cops are a bunch of jerks.

In retrospect I wish I’d taken off up the one-way street the wrong way on my bike like that other guy. Do you think those cops would have chased me up the one-way street, lights flashing, siren screaming, crashing into all the law-abiding cars going the right way? Maybe they would have, I’m not sure. Maybe they would have run after me on foot. But I think I could escape from cops if I were on my bike going the wrong way on a one-way street no matter what they tried to do.

Anyway I paid the ticket. At least I didn’t grovel. Next time I won’t give them my licence. They can run my library card if they want.

Laundromat guy

I took two pictures and then I heard a loud thud as some guy threw his Coke at me. It missed me and hit my laundry cart. I didn’t get what was going on until the guy retrieved his Coke and started yelling at me to not take his picture.

I didn’t think I had, and anyway I didn’t care, so I stood my ground. “I didn’t take your picture,” I said, and after awhile he backed off.

Actually I did take his picture, but I definitely wasn’t trying to. It’s not like I wanted to take it. You can hardly see him anyway. If he’s on the lam from the law I doubt if this picture will be his downfall. But it does help to portray the special bleakness of a laundromat in the afternoon in late fall. If that guy hadn’t made a big deal about it, it never would have ended up on a blog.

I don’t feel good about this story. I wish I hadn’t stood up to that guy, for several reasons:
1. I could have been killed. I was just bluffing. I wasn’t going to get into a fist fight with an angry 20-year-old kid.
2. The guy’s insane so what’s the point?
3. It wasn’t civilized. I should have said something like, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to take your picture but if I did I’ll delete it. Let’s take a look and see if I did or not.” Then if I had, and he insisted, I could have deleted it. I bet Jean-Paul Sartre didn’t go around almost getting into fist fights at the laundromat. (He’s the most civilized person I can think of at the moment.)

Cops 2

I ducked onto the sidewalk to try and get by all that funeral action. I don’t go fast on the sidewalk. I’m safe. But one of the motorcyle cops yelled at me to get off the sidewalk.

I replied, “You’ve got the street blocked,” and kept on going. I just wanted to go home.

His motorcycle pal at the end of the block waved me down. He wanted to know why I didn’t obey the officer and get off the sidewalk. He was very rude.

“You’ve got the street blocked off,” I said, “and I need to get by.” Then I said, “If you’re going to give me a ticket, go ahead, just don’t fuck with me.”

The guy made me mad with his big motorcycle and his shiny badge, and he was only about 11 years old. He was a tin-pot fascist down to his bones. But as soon as I said it I realized I was dead.

To my surprise the cop backed down. I think it’s because he had the important task of guarding that funeral corner and it wouldn’t have been ok for him to spend time arresting some two-bit desperado cyclist crook like me.

I don’t feel good about this story either. The fact that I got away with it will probably encourage me to lip off at more cops in the future. Eventually this could cost me a lot more than $110.

Are citizens required by law to be polite and deferential to cops? I think we are their employers and they should be polite and deferential to us. But I don’t see that happening. I don’t want to go to jail over it, but I really think cops have to earn our respect. As it is now in Ottawa I don’t see a way to deal with cops without being obsequious, if you don’t want to pay a fine or go to jail, but I’m not ready to concede that this is a police state.

It wouldn’t be an issue for me if cops weren’t making me into a criminal by ordering me to ride my bike like a car. Those cops really need to figure out that bike riders aren’t the enemy.

I wonder what Jean-Paul Sartre would have done.