printWhatever you do, don’t gesture wildly in public, limp or act spastic. People around you could die. Those who swore to “To Protect and to Serve” all Americans—the halt and the lame too—may just take a potshot in your general direction. This is what happened to one New Yorker:
The 35-year-old man was behaving erratically, standing in the middle of a busy intersection and unsuccessfully weaving his way through the cars, when police confronted him around 9:30 p.m. Saturday night. “He tried to run and ended up getting hit by three different cars,” one witness told The New York Times. Or, perhaps, some think he was trying to be hit. “It appeared that he wanted to be struck by cars,” New York Police Department commissioner Ray Kelly said at a press conference early Sunday morning. There was some debate as to whether he had actually been hit by any cars. But there was little debate concerning his mental state. “He definitely looked like he was high on something or was mentally off. He couldn’t walk in a straight line. He was limping and jerking his legs around,” one witness told the New York Daily News.
“While officers were attempting to subdue him, [he] ‘reached into his pocket, took out his hand, and simulated as if he was shooting at them,’ Kelly told reporters. One officer fired a single shot and missed; another fired two rounds and missed.”
The militarized police force in action.
Our town has a “madman”; a young man who cannot stop waving his arms, gesturing frantically and praising the Lord loudly. Local businesses often harness his exuberance; they give him ad signs to hold up on street corners. He has boundless energy and enthusiasm, and is quite beautiful; his biblical-length locks tumbling down his shoulders. To think he may be imperiled. …