After Mark's story about Austin

After Mark’s story about Austin cops I thought I’d make a contribution to the lighter side of police work.

It all starts on an early January night during my senior year of high school. It’s during the holiday break and my friend Roy has a surplus of bottle rockets needing disposal. We do what any red-blooded American teenager does in that situation we drive to the top deck of a parking garage in downtown Huntsville and square off against each other from either side of the deck. A furious, pitched battle is waged as we launch rockets at each other. We both have a few close calls as an errant rocket hits our rocket stashes threatening to send them all off at once.

One of the cool things about this parking garage is that it’s right next to a tall glass Amsouth bank building. At night it is so well lit, and all the office lights are off, that you can see all sorts of things reflected in the glass. At this particular moment in time I noticed a car sliding in the bottom of the parking garage. As fireworks are illegal in the city limits of Huntsville I told Roy and we decided that we should relocate. We threw everything in the back of his car and proceeded to snake our way down the parking garage ramps. As I glanced back at the glass building I saw the blurry image of the car making its way up the ramps toward us. I also thought I saw someone running up the stairwell but I wasn’t sure.

As we came round the next ramp a policeman came running out of the stairwell with his gun drawn. Moments later a police cruiser was zig-zagging towards us to make sure we didn’t punch it past them. Roy stopped his car quickly and threw his hands up in the air. “Matt, put your hands up” he said.

At this point I was trying to reason out all the things I needed to do to make sure I did not present a threat to them. Move slowly. Keep hands in sight. Don’t piss them off. I brought my hands up. At this point another cruiser had arrived and the cop in the first car was behind his door with his gun out. The policeman had walked towards us out of the stairwell and then began the most elaborate process for exiting a car I have ever been through.

My friend Roy was being put through various Yoga positions as they slowly worked him out of the car. The detail and elaboration behind each motion required a great deal of patience. Once he was out of the car they had him lay down on the cold concrete spread eagle. After they frisked him it was my turn to go through the fun. The key to evacuating the vehicle is that you have to be slow, your hands have to always be visible and no motion can be obscured from the view of the police. As I exited the car they sternly advised me to “Keep my hands and feet in the air.” It was important to that step of the exit process but clearly I wasn’t levitating when it was over. The procedure worked out and I found myself laying on my stomach on the cold concrete floor. I glanced back underneath the car and I saw that Roy had taken the “hands and feet” command to heart, not realizing it was for me, and his chest was the only thing touching the ground.

After Roy and I had been searched we were allowed to get up. It turns out that they were responding to reports of gun shots. They thought some massive gang land shooting was going on on top of the parking garage. We showed the remainder of the fireworks and they laughed it off. They told us to “Git outta here, and don’t shoot those off in city limits.”

We found another parking lot in the city and finished off the rest.