Interesting Evening

Dec 5, 2005

I got down in a bus stop this evening at around half past five. It was dark - you know how it is in Seattle in winter. There was a guy and a girl in the bus stop. He must be about 30 and she must be about 15. As I was getting down from the bus, that guy screamed ‘hey how ya doin’ to no one in particular! I think even the bus driver was startled - as he didn’t close the door for some time.

I thought that it must be some regular freak. The girl was like a kid. So I was concerned. She was sitting on the bench in the bus stop. The guy and the girl were talking - it was obvious that they were together. I looked at her to see if everything was okay. She mouthed something to me when that guy was not looking! Mean while, the guy jumped on the road - apparently trying to see if the bus was coming. And the girl started mouthing words directly looking at me in the eye. He saw her and looked at me and asked her a bit loudly what she was doing. She simply shook her head. Whenever he turned in some other direction, she would look intently at me in the eye and mouth some words to me. This happened I didn’t understand what she was trying to say.

I called 911. He told her ‘come on lets go!’ and they started walking away from the bus stop. I gave the 911 operator the location and explained the situation to her. She said that an officer would be on the way and she started collecting all the smaller details from me. I started following the pair from a distance. Within two minutes a cop car appeared out of nowhere! The car turned into a nearby apartment complex and the lights blinked - so I noticed then. So I ran to the car and pointed out the suspicious guy. The cop went to the guy and talked to him as well as the girl and came back after a few minutes. He also collected the details from me. He said that everything was okay.

Now I feel silly that I called. But it was a kid and I couldn’t forgiven myself if I didn’t make sure. The guy was definitely freaky though. At least if he was up to something, he would have been deterred - given the cop noted his ID and everything. Sigh.

Everything was done with such a quiet efficiency. Impressive. I apologized to the cop for bothering him. He talked really politely and said ‘You never know. Appreciate you calling’.

9 comments

Kirubakaran wrote on Dec 05, 2005:

oh my god! i just noticed the time stamp on my post!! i promise i didn't change it!!!

mallikreddy wrote on Dec 06, 2005:

What you did is courageous and above all responsible. Hope this false alarm wouldn’t stop you from doing similar thing if you ever come across a similar situation. There was nothing to be sorry of and cops are paid for doing attending these kinds of situations. Kudos to you.

Whatz the funda about timestamp ? I didn’t get it.

Giridhar wrote on Dec 06, 2005:

Mallikreddy..the time on the blog says 911. haha...a pretty coincidence...
Kadamai kanniyam kattupaadu...thamila..nee vaalga!!

Jagan wrote on Dec 06, 2005:

good tht u called up ..

Anonymous wrote on Dec 07, 2005:

Just imagined the same scenario here and wondered what the cop wud have replied...
probably.."Enna thambi..unakku than vela vetti illa..engalukkuma??? "

Rgds
kasi

Anonymous wrote on Dec 07, 2005:

K,
You should follow your instincts. This time a false alarm but you never know when you might save a life. The guy should be ok with a concerned citizen watching out for another citizen.
K

minerva wrote on Dec 08, 2005:

Hi, Chanced across Ur site here via silverine's comments page ~
Yep, Well done! :)
U did the best U could, & acted as what every responsible person should do, in the face of such a sudden emergency..
Do take care, keep writing & Wishes,
Minerva*

Sukumar wrote on Dec 14, 2005:

Efficiency! I was rather pissed off with what happened when I called 911 sometime back. But thinking about that later I felt that that is the best they could do. Anything less or more than that would be a overkill.

Around one midnight during the last summer I heard a strange noise, it was like a very big glass bottle full of water exploding with the impact on a hard surface. I slid open my porch screen door and saw a man vandalizing a car. The noise was from breaking the windshield. I guess he noticed me (or heard opening the door) and he immediately jumped in to his truck which was go-ready and zoomed off. I didn’t quite understand what happened and after 5 minutes I heard pressurized air escaping in short intervals and my guess was correct. The guy was back and was stabbing the tires. I called 911 and during the 5 minutes the operator collected all the information from me (which I felt was ridiculous at that time – because she was asking all about myself!) he was peacefully at his work – avenging the owner of the car. Had the police come within that time (which I was assuming they would) the vandal would have been caught or at least minimized the damage. As I was waiting & watching the police came sometime later. The officer rang my number and asked me to come down to give more information. That is when I saw that car… Oh..my god! I didn’t know that one can damage a car so much, with in 10 minutes!

Anyway, I lost confidence on the whole system that night. May be that they want to discourage or prevent false 911 calls. Or may be just because there was no human being harmed they took their own sweet time to arrive at the crime scene. Well… at least I had an opportunity to call the police, I didn’t have to think a lot before making the call, and they did consider the complaint!

Petchi wrote on Dec 18, 2005:

you are always modest!!!! this is a simple example supports that..