WTF?!

Last night, Brittany and I had dinner at my mom's with some of my family who was here for my cousin's graduation from Cornell. Afterward, we went to Studio Square Beer Garden in Astoria. We took a cab home, the traffic was crazy and about 30 minutes and $40 later, we got out of the cab.

We got off on 29th street in the covered road under the USPS complex. We heard a quarrel but could only see several sets of feet since there was a semi-trailer blocking the rest of our view. As we turned the corner, we saw an older man in uniform on the ground and two women on the floor getting up and one or two guys. We ran up to the older man and asked if he needed help. His face was bleeding, his glasses were on the ground, and the wind had been knocked out of him. I ran down to 28th to see where the attackers went and also saw a police car across tenth avenue. Brittany and I told them where the people went and about five minutes later, about ten cop cars were in the area and had captured the attackers.

I took Romeo down and Brittany got a sandwich, then we neared the scene where the people were arrested on the ground. One of the women was yelling 'this is discrimination, he called me fat, it's because we are black, he fell on his own.' The cops took down a quick statement and contact info and we went around the corner back to where the officer had been knocked down.

We spoke with a security guard who told us that the man was a national guard officer working for the USPS and so is a federal officer. He caught one of the women urinating on the USPS building and issued her a $75 summons. The scuffle ensued.

How stupid do you have to be to 1) pee on a government building where there are tons of cameras, 2)punch a man in his 50s or 60s, 3) have that person be a federal officer, 4) not run away so that you are caught around the corner, and 5) yell stupid, irrelevant things at the cops when you should be quiet and ask for a lawyer? They went from a $75 fine to jail time.

The group was arrested and the attack caught on video (a guy punched the officer). Seriously, people, don't be this fucking stupid!

Today when I was coming home from the gym, I saw a guy running being chased by a cab driver. I was about a block away so I couldn't do anything but watch. I'm guessing the cab driver was on the phone and his window was rolled down and this hoodrat guy reached in and grabbed something or the guy got a cab ride and skipped out on the fare.

Finally, about a week ago when Brittany and I saw The Hangover II, we saw a squad of police officers dressed in riot/attack gear. They had full on assault rifles/machine guns (not sure) and had a few dogs. We asked if it was a drug sniffing dog, they said no. We didn't know what was going on, but seeing heavily armed people is never a calming sight.