Wrong Time, Wrong Place

[Bullseye 2620]

I was thinking about how important good timing is, and then, the opposite, which is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For me, it was walking into a pharmacy robbery where the perp was a 50-ish white guy in a three-piece suit with a briefcase looking for narcotics, not cash. And armed with a P35 as I recall, this across the street from the main entrance to the National Zoo in good 'ole gun-controlled D.C. I was lucky to be able to duck behind a display shelf as the perp made it out the front door, and no one got shot. I'm sure others have had similar experiences.


Bullseye

 

[805moparkid]

well not nearly as exciting as the others but i had just got my permit and so my dad had me make the drive from Pismo Beach To the valley. so were cruising along when this Ahole flies by me at like 100 mph, then before it clicked about 15 HWY and PD cars go flyin by lol... it happened so fast i couldn't even pull over! i was 16 with a permit so it was a surprise to say the least... come to find out my great uncle saw us on the TV watching the chase lol...

 

[M29since14]

I was thinking about how important good timing is, and then, the opposite, which is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I remember being in the wrong place at the wrong time once, but it worked out nicely. It was late at night and I had just turned off all the lights and was getting ready to leave the shop. Just as I was walking past the front service door to check the inside office doors, more or less in darkness with only the light from a couple of pop machines, I looked to my right and, outside, through the glass lite of the front door, I could see there was - very plainly - the muzzle of a stainless steel .357 Magnum pointed at my head!

The security light outside should have provided enough light that I might have seen who was behind the gun. I did not. All I saw was the revolver. I heard nothing. But none of that would have mattered. The shock of seeing that gun, maybe 3 feet away, pointed at my head, was too great. In a tiny fraction of a second, I reflexively ducked away, to the safety of behind the masonry to the left of the door.

Then, and only then, I could hear the "gunman" identify himself as the law. He demanded I "surrender." I was only too happy to cooperate, and I recovered from my surprise quickly enough to recognize the voice. He was/is an old chum from high school days. I called out to him by his given name, told him who I was, and that I would step out where he could see me. Please put that blankety-blank gun away.

I opened the door for him to come in and, as is usual for police officers (in my experience anyway ), he began to admonish me, starting with... "You scared me!" Yes, I (the one who had the .357 pointed at his head) had scared him!

He was driving by and had noticed the lights going off. When he did not see my vehicle in the parking lot (it was parked at the side of the building), he assumed a burglary might be in progress and stopped to investigate.

Until that time, I had no personal experience with the notion of "the challenge." After the fact, I could remember the command to "freeze," but the sudden realization that there was a gun pointed at my head had overpowered everything else and prompted the natural instinct to take the nearest cover. I neither heard nor saw anything else - just the .357. This learning experience brought me to the conclusion that I hoped no police officer ever has reason to challenge me again, since I knew I had already failed the "hold in place test," though I was lucky and had gotten away with it.

 

[cowboy45]

I remember being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

MY FIRST MARRIAGE!

 

[HalfStack]

I got pulled over for bank robbery on my way home from work, does that count? It was almost funny, I thought I was getting pulled over for tinted windows. I was pretty surprised when I pulled over and got out my license, insurance and registration and no officer at my door? I looked in the mirror and both officers had their car doors open and were hiding behind the doors with guns drawn delivering the standard speech, "keep your hands where we can see them, open the car door using the outside handle, keep your hands up and walk backwards."

After checking my info they informed me that there was a bank robbery in the area and the perp left in a brown truck, like mine. They were Burbank (Ca) police and told me I should go across the street to 7/11 and get a magazine and relax for at least an hour so I wouldn't have to do this again with LAPD, they said LAPD is not as nice and would need to put me on the ground and step on my neck to make themselves feel "in charge"

The officers got a good laugh when as usual they asked "Do you know why I pulled you over" and I said "for tinted windows?"

I had the same experience but I was just about to pull into my friend's driveway when a cop car blocked me from going in. He jumped out and had his gun on me. I was surprised but held my hands up. My friend's father came out and told the cop, "That's not him. I know the boy." I found out then that my friend's dad was a police detective as he told the cop he's familiar with the case.

What happened that the day before a robber held up an icehouse and shot the clerk/owner. He made his escape in a red 65 Buick Skylark.

The same car I was driving.

 

[Fishslayer]

This was pre helmet law Kalifornistan ('78-ish IIRC). I rarely wore a helmet but would do so if I wanted to cover a lot of road in a hurry. Less fatigue.

This particular day I was wearing my white Bell helmet.

Coming back to San Diego one morning from a friend's wedding in Oxnard I was cruising through Malibu when I saw the gumball jackpot in the rear view mirror.

"WTH?" I thought. Hadn't been speeding. Tried to remember if I had any outstandings...

The CHP parked behind me and another B&W joined her. (Yep. "Her." )
Then another joined us. I wound up boxed in with 2 CHP, 2 Counties and 2 locals boxing in my bike. They didn't look pleased.

What crossed my mind was "Oh **** somebody killed somebody & took off on a motorcycle." I relaxed a LITTLE bit when it occurred to me that I had an ironclad alibi for the last 48 hours, was about as sober as I ever was in those days & didn't possess anything I shouldn't have, but these were days when anybody on a bike was a bloodthirsty outlaw. Ya never knew. I was also in the Navy, but these were also days when Navy guys were a bit on the "shaggy" side.

Anybody in the service in those days knows that atitudes towards service people were quite a bit different than they are today.

Turned out that the Crime of the Century they figured they'd cracked was that somebody on a bike had evaded a cop up in the canyon.

The description? Wearing a white helmet. :facepalm:

 

[Beemerguy53]

This was pre helmet law Kalifornistan ('78-ish IIRC). I rarely wore a helmet but would do so if I wanted to cover a lot of road in a hurry. Less fatigue.

This particular day I was wearing my white Bell helmet.

Coming back to San Diego one morning from a friend's wedding in Oxnard I was cruising through Malibu when I saw the gumball jackpot in the rear view mirror.

"WTH?" I thought. Hadn't been speeding. Tried to remember if I had any outstandings...

The CHP parked behind me and another B&W joined her. (Yep. "Her." )
Then another joined us. I wound up boxed in with 2 CHP, 2 Counties and 2 locals boxing in my bike. They didn't look pleased.

What crossed my mind was "Oh **** somebody killed somebody & took off on a motorcycle." I relaxed a LITTLE bit when it occurred to me that I had an ironclad alibi for the last 48 hours, was about as sober as I ever was in those days & didn't possess anything I shouldn't have, but these were days when anybody on a bike was a bloodthirsty outlaw. Ya never knew. I was also in the Navy, but these were also days when Navy guys were a bit on the "shaggy" side.

Anybody in the service in those days knows that atitudes towards service people were quite a bit different than they are today.

Turned out that the Crime of the Century they figured they'd cracked was that somebody on a bike had evaded a cop up in the canyon.

The description? Wearing a white helmet. :facepalm:

I had an identical experience about 1978. I was riding my red Yamaha SR500, wearing my white Bell Star helmet, and got pulled over. As I got off the bike, I saw that the officer had drawn his revolver, was pointing it at me, and was calling over his radio "I GOT HIM! I GOT HIM!" Turned out they were looking for someone riding a red motorcycle and wearing a white helmet who had fled a traffic stop after taking a poke at the officer.

 

[LVSteve]

Back in England in the early 80s I came out of the tech college I was in with a classmate and as we walked up the main drag to go to our usual lunch pub we see a Bobby walking towards us with his head on a swivel. He then spots us walking towards him and stands there rooted for a couple of seconds before talking into his radio and then striding straight at us. It was no surprise when he asked for a word and asked my buddy where we had been in the last 15 minutes. My buddy told him we had just come out of class about 5 minutes beforehand and that we were on our way to lunch. The cop asked me was I with him at all times, and I said yes as we were doing the same course. The cop sort of looked a bit non-plussed and then said, "Well, I have to ask because the jewelers further up the street had some stuff nicked and the only description was a guy with long hair, a beard and wearing a camouflage jacket." Yep, it was a description of my buddy.

My buddy and I did a sort of Bill and Ted routine to this news by looking at each other with big eyes, turning back to the cop and giving him a simultaneous "what now?" shrug. To my amazement he let us go without even taking our names, probably because we were not out of breath and sweaty from running. He pretty much said as much into his radio, said thanks and moved on.

As we go up the street my buddy says, "Steve, how many guys in our class with long hair, beard and camo jacket?" We could think of at least three so then we began to speculate who would be "helping with enquiries" instead of in class that afternoon. Mucho chuckling as you might expect.

Twenty-five minutes later we are sitting in the backroom of the pub with some friends several of whom were underage. No carding back then and we don't do the ID thing in England. In come three coppers looking all around including the guy that we had seen before. Our underage friends start to look sick but my buddy and I just told them to sit tight. I watched as one of the cops looks our way, does a full double take and grabs the sleeve of our man and points. "Our" man takes a look and shakes his head obviously telling the other officer that he's already spoken to us. He sees us looking and waves, so my buddy and I wave back and the cops leave. The underage friends were dumbstruck. "You just waved at three coppers and they left. How did you do that?" We strung them along for a good ten minutes about "our other jobs" before fessing up.